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Voodoo Lounge is the twentieth studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 11 July 1994. The album was their band's first release under their new alliance with Virgin Records and their first studio album in five years, since the release of Steel Wheels in 1989. Voodoo Lounge is also the band's first album without original bassist Bill Wyman, who left the band in early 1991, though the Stones did not announce his departure until two years later, in 1993.Keith Richards, Life, New York: Little Brown, 2010, p. 494 In 2009, the album was remastered and reissued by Universal Music. This album was released as a double vinyl and as a single CD and cassette.
After the departure of Wyman, the Stones chose not to officially replace him as a band member and continued as a four-piece with Mick Jagger (vocals), Charlie Watts (drums), Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood (both guitars). Wyman was unofficially replaced by Darryl Jones, who performed with the Stones in the studio and on tour as a contracted player. Keyboards were provided by Chuck Leavell. Jones and Leavell, though not band members, would remain collaborators with the group from that point on. Don Was was brought in to produce the album alongside Jagger and Richards.
Voodoo Lounge sold well, reaching either gold or platinum status in several countries, but failed to produce a US top 40 hit. The song "Love Is Strong" and "You Got Me Rocking" peaked at No. 14 and No. 23 in the UK, respectively, and "You Got Me Rocking" became a staple on most subsequent Stones tours. The album received several positive reviews and won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 1995.
Sections of the Keith Richards song "Thru and Thru" from Voodoo Lounge are woven throughout the HBO television series The Sopranos' second-season finale "Funhouse" (episode no. 26 overall), and plays in its entirety during the episode's closing sequence and Closing credits.
Don Was, noted for his retro rock production sensibilities, was reportedly responsible for pushing the band towards more conventional territory in an attempt to reproduce the archetypal "Rolling Stones" sound. Although this approach pleased critics and the Stones rock-oriented fan base, Jagger in particular expressed some dissatisfaction with Was's aesthetic, commenting in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone:
Was responded that he was not "anti-groove, just anti-groove without substance, in the context of this album. They had a number of great grooves. But it was like, 'OK, what goes on top of it? Where does it go?' I just felt that it's not what people were looking for from the Stones. I was looking for a sign that they can get real serious about this, still play better than anybody and write better than anybody."
The result was an essentially classicist recording that drew on the blues, R&B, and country that had informed the Stones classic late 1960s/early 1970s recordings. Jagger would insist on a more diverse, contemporary production cast for the subsequent Bridges to Babylon (1997). After a period of recording in Los Angeles in the first few months of 1994, Voodoo Lounge was complete and The Rolling Stones moved onto the rehearsals for the Voodoo Lounge Tour, which would begin in August.
During the recording of the album, Richards adopted a stray cat in Barbados which he named Voodoo, because they were in Barbados, and the kitten had survived the odds. He dubbed the terrace of the house Voodoo's Lounge. "Sparks Will Fly" was written by Richards after a blow-up with Jerry Lee Lewis in Ireland. Richards invited Lewis to Wood's home to jam on a few songs. Lewis took it seriously and thought they were making an album, and upon playback of the session, he started to pick apart Richards' band, which outraged Richards.Keith Richards, Life, New York: Little Brown, 2010, pp. 498–500
David Cavanagh of Q Magazine wrote that "musically, these 15 songs represent the Stones at their all-time least newsworthy," adding that " Voodoo Lounge is no classic, but nor is it the resounding hound it could have been." Though he was disappointed in the inconsistency of the album's second half, he called the trio of opening rockers "exuberant and on the warm side" despite their lyric shortcomings and hailed the next four songs as an extremely good stretch with "Out of Tears" in particular showing "tantalizing glimmers of genius."
Writing for Vox magazine in August 1994, Steven Dalton thought that the album's strongest tracks were filled with "echoes of the band's halcyon days", most notably 1972's Exile on Main Street and 1978's Some Girls. He went on to surmise that Voodoo Lounge "reminds us why we liked the Stones in the first place," and singled out "New Faces", "Out of Tears" and "Blinded by Rainbows" as the album's highlights, despite also stating that the record contained "too many sketchy, arsing-around-in-the-studio jobs" to be considered one of the group's overall best albums.
Jon Pareles of The New York Times found Voodoo Lounge to be disappointing, arguing that the album "rings hollow, as if it were made not to shake things up but simply to fuel the machine." He harshly criticized the songwriting, arguing that "for much of the album, Jagger and Richards seem determined to write the most generic love songs possible...Flip over the sentimentality, and the Stones offer some of their least convincing leers."
Robert Christgau didn't believe the album warranted a full review, consigning it to his column's list of "honorable mentions" and commenting only that the Stones had become the "world's greatest roots-rock band." Tom Hull similarly listed it as an "honorable mention," conceding that the album "feels like they're just going through the motions."
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian would later rank Voodoo Lounge as one of their weakest albums, writing that "this isn't a bad album, exactly, but it sounds as if hard work was involved, the product of craft rather inspiration: tough coming from a band that, at their best, made it all seem effortless." Petridis also felt that the 62-minute album was much too long, joking that "it goes on for about six weeks." David Marchese of New York expressed a similar criticism, writing that Voodoo Lounge "would’ve killed at 45 minutes" while pointing out the weakest songs as he reviewed the album track-by-track.
In early 1995, while the Voodoo Lounge Tour was still underway until August, Voodoo Lounge won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.
In 2009, Voodoo Lounge was remastered and reissued by Universal Music.
The Voodoo Lounge Tour was the setting for most of a 1994 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
In July 2014, Guitar World placed Voodoo Lounge at number 42 in their "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.
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