“Mick Jagger Influenced By Britney Spears!” – a headline from the Weekly World News, home to stories about boy/bat hybrids and 200 lb. babies born with Hitler moustaches? Nope.
The Rolling Stones’ frontman is recording his fourth solo album, tentatively scheduled for release this fall, and it looks like the LP will offer some interesting surprises, one of which was inspired by teen pop’s reigning diva.
“Mick’s daughter purchased the Britney Spears record, and Mick apparently heard Spears’ version of his song ‘Satisfaction’ through the walls of her bedroom,” said Courtney Barnes, publicist for Rodney Jerkins, who produced the track. “So Mick asked who it was, and when he listened to it closely, he really liked Rodney’s production. So there’s been some talk about the two of them [Jagger and Jerkins] working together.”
Jagger also recently met with Missy Elliott to talk to her about working on a song, and he plans to team up with Marti Frederiksen, who produced and co-wrote Aerosmith’s Just Push Play, according to publicists for Elliott and Jagger.
The Rolling Stones singer has been working on the project in studios in New York and London with a variety of musicians including Lenny Kravitz (who also sang on Jagger’s 1993 album, Wandering Spirit), the Who’s Pete Townshend and Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas, who collaborated with Santana on the Grammy-winning “Smooth.”
“Mick and I got together for a couple of days in New York and worked on a few songs,” Thomas said during a recent interview. “When I collaborated with Carlos Santana, I was so hands-on and such a part of the process. With this, I’m just a writer. And the only way you know [I was involved] is if you look at the back [of the record] and see ‘written by.’ ”
While Thomas didn’t want to describe the tracks he worked on, he was quick to stress the educational value of the experience.
“I’m not writing for Mick Jagger,” he said. “It was more like me going to learn from Mick Jagger. As a writer, this kind of thing is invaluable. There’s no way you can go to any seminar and get what you can from sitting in a room with someone like that and watching them pick up when they have a spark [of creativity] and go at it. That’s what it’s all about for me – to find these people that know so much more than you do and learn, learn, learn.”
Jagger’s as-yet-untitled record will be his first solo LP since Wandering Spirit.