After three decent but unsatisfying albums in a row-86's "Dirty Work", 89's "Steel Wheels" and 94's "Voodoo Lounge", the Stones had sort of lulled me into believing that these types of albums were all we would ever get from them again. But in 1997, they shocked the hell out of me and released their best overall album since "Some Girls" in 1978. Every song on here is great and every musician in the band shines on every song, including the newest Stone,Bass player Darryl Jones. There is hard rock("Flip the Switch"), funk ("Anybody Seen My Baby"),soulful ballads("Already Over Me","How Can I Stop") and one of their best funky blues numbers "Might As Well Get Juiced",given a 90's techno twist by The Dust Brothers that pushes it over the top. Supposedly, Mick and Keith fought a lot over using different producers on this project and even stopped speaking at one point(what else is new?), but their conflict and drama led to some of their most brilliantly dramatic and conflicted music in a long time.The tour that accompanied this album was record breaking and musically was one of their best and this album was successful, but given the level of the material, should have been much more so.
