Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Chewers sure do love their Boss.

Goddamn right.

I'm picking this up on Tuesday, but glad to hear some early good word.

EW gave it a rave, calling it his best since The River. Definitely grabbing this on Tuesday.

In typical EW fashion, the reviewer doesn't know what he's talking about or has shitty taste, because, as much as I like the new album, it's not better than Nebraska.

It's probably his best rock album since the River, though, depending on your tolerance for Born in the U.S.A. And, unlike The Rising, this sounds like an E Street album. "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," "Your Own Worst Enemy," and "I'll Work for Your Love," the last of which actually has him spouting out religious imagery-laced Dylanesque lyrics with the swiftness of his early work, are some of the best new (i.e. not vault stuff like on Tracks) rock songs he's put out in quite some time. Even the straightforwardly rocking single, "Radio Nowhere" sounds terrific as an opener.

It's a great album. I got the vinyl edition last Tuesday (it was released a week earlier to make the grammy award cut-off). I wouldn't say this is better than 1988's Tunnel of Love. I'd put it on equal standing with the Rising, which was inconsistent but had some real gems.

What I like best about Magic is the thematic duality of almost every track. The album can be read as either about the downfall of America in the last 6 years or the downfall of a marriage. It's a really nice blend. The personal becomes political (just like in Chinatown!)

I'm trying to avoid leaks so all I have heard is Radio Nowhere, but color me interested..the boss rarely leads me wrong.

This album made me sad, because I really didn't like it. And I've loved the Boss since I was a wee one.

Radio Nowhere's an ok track, but the rest is just not that good.

Understand that this realization came very slowly, as I simply could not comprehend the idea of not enjoying at least half of a Springsteen album.

I couldn't even enjoy a quarter of Devils and Dust. This one destroys pretty much all of the new music he's released since the 80s (again, I take Tracks and the Seeger Sessions out of the equation). Even Tom Joad hasn't aged all that well.

Any recommendations on some good back catalog stuff? I have and love Born to Run but he has so much material that I don't know where to go from there. I tend to like the slower storyish songs like Thunder Road the most.

The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
- This is a terrific combination of the early looseness of the early E Street Band, the wordplay-laden storytelling he used on the first album, and the epic quality that he'd later perfect on Born to Run. It may be his most fun album.

Darkness on the Edge of Town
- The considerably darker follow-up to Born to Run. There are still huge, triumphant anthems like Badlands, but there's a tone of failed dreams that hovers just over nearly every track. As one might expect from the release dates, Born to Run fits very neatly between The Wild, the Innocent... and Darkness. If "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Born to Run" were elaborations on the earlier album's "Rosalita" and "E Street Shuffle," Born to Run's "A Meeting Across the River" and "Backstreets" (to some extent) are what led to tracks like "Racing in the Street," "Darkness on the Edge of Town," and even "Promised Land."

Nebraska
- This is Springsteen at his absolute darkest, but, perhaps, at his peak as a storyteller. Recorded on a four-track with no band, these are songs about murderers, drifters, and desperate poverty, and each one is detailed and evocative enough to be a movie in its own right (Sean Penn's The Indian Runner is based on "Highway Patrolman" from this album, in fact).

He's released other good albums, but these, along with Born to Run, are the absolute essentials, especially if you're a fan of his storytelling.

Racism, eugenics and Rosalita aside I just can't get into The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Loose is fine, to me it just sounds sloppy. Particularly after you've heard the same songs by the same band in concert. I suspect part of the is Weinberg's drumming which has improved by leaps and bounds over the years.

Nebraska and Darkness are definitely the go to albums as complete musical pieces. I don't think he ever matched the combination of great music and lyrics as on those two. (Though, lyrically, I think Tunnel of Love is up there amongst his best)

I think Tunnel of Love gets unfairly overlooked because it was part of the strange "Holy fuck, he's married to Julianne Phillips?!?!" era where a lot of fans think Bruce sort of lost it a little bit, but it's got some really strong numbers on it and feels like the kids who were "pulling out here to win" in Born to Run are now grown up and realizing that love isn't the fairy tale they thought it was.

Exactly. There's a casualness to the lyrics that seems carried over from his best stuff. You can definitely hear the character from Thunder Road (You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright/Oh and that's alright with me) in Human Touch (So you've been broken and you've been hurt/Show me somebody who ain't/Yeah, I know I ain't nobody's bargain/But, hell, a little touch up and a little paint...).

It's "Mad Dog" Lopez on The Wild, the Innocent... Max didn't join until the Born to Run sessions after the title track had been recorded (Ernest "Boom" Carter played on that - if you watch the documentary with the special edition of the album, Max confesses that he still doesn't know how to play one of Carter's fills).

I prefer Lopez in some ways. Despite a swing that only emerges on occasion on Bruce's albums and more often on Conan, Max is really straightforward. Lopez sounds like a guy who spent his formative years taking in jazz, but also guys like Ginger Baker and Mitch Mitchell. The Wild, the Innocent... isn't even close to sloppy if you pay attention. "Kitty's Back," to name just one example, has a ton of tricky rhythmic bits, and the band nails them all. But they play everything with soul and a little swing. That's one of the things I miss most about the old albums - the E Street Band used to be, in part, an amazing R&B/soul band.

In fact, that nimble soulfulness is what's been missing in his work since The River, and I think there are hints of it on the new one.

Tunnel of Love over The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle? That's serious crazy talk.

Oh, I'm not putting Tunnel of Love above either of those, I just think it gets a bad rap and deserves better.

What's weird about this notion is that people have been saying the exact same thing about Darkness and the River for years, too (and they do it way better). And, for an even more direct answer song to Born to Run, listen to "The Promise," the "Thunder Road"-referencing downer recorded between Born to Run and Darkness, but later came out in a less effective solo version on that single-disc compilation from Tracks.

Now Tunnel of Love contains "Brilliant Disguise" and a few other entirely worthy songs in his catalogue, so it's certainly no complete loss, but by the time that album came out, Mary, Wendy, and their friends, it seems, had been disillusioned for at least a decade.

Oops. Well, I guess that doesn't explain why i like the songs better live. Immediacy, maybe?

I think Incident on 57th Street is a good example. On the album I find I drift in and out while listening to it but live it was such a kick in the nuts that you couldn't help but be enraptured with it.

Hard to argue with that. I think they still are a great R&B band live. I love their ability to hit and run on a song if they feel it needs to be a quick Motown-esque (they did a great version of Hungry Heart that was the Boss via Hitsville when I saw them last time) song or their willingness to descend into a really long take if they're feeling the groove (Rosalita, Thunder Road, Blinded By The Light etc)

I think I'll take a run through of The Wild...tonight. Maybe listen a little more carefully to the rhythm section. We've had this discussion before and I meant to do it last time we talked about the Boss.


Lyrically, I think Tunnel of Love is a more mature album. There's moments on The Wild... that just feel like he's working the metaphors into the ground. It's kind of like when a young poet discovers that onomatopoeia or alliterations really do work and then beat it senseless.

That's not to suggest that it's bad, it's just he does much better work later (Nebraska particularly). It just feels very young.

Thanks for the recommendations, I ended up getting Darkness, Wild/Innocent, The River, and Hammersmith Odeon live 75. I'm really digging Magic, enough that I went on Ebay and picked up a ticket to the show. Out of the others I've only got through about half of Wild/Innocent and love what I hear so far.

I always love sort of discovering a new artist, especially one with this massive a back catalog.

I can't disagree with you on that. Greetings and The Wild... are lyrically unrestrained to the point of bursting and the words have a "let's throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" vibe. I think he worked out a lot of the lyrical clunkiness of Greetings by The Wild..., though.

What I love is that the music, especially on the second album, is the same way. Everything's very busy, which gives it that loose, sloppy feeling. Those words wouldn't work with the traditional verse-chorus-verse style that he later embraced more fully, and that music wouldn't work with the more spare, repetitive lyric-writing style he took up in the 80s.

This may sound weird, but I've always thought of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, and The Wild... as sort of kindred in scope, ambition, and even sound. They all come off like the work of brilliant, (relatively) young musicians with a lot of ambition who want to make an Important Album, and, despite a potentially foolhardy desire to cram all of their ideas and musical knowledge into that one release, they somehow pull it off, messiness intact. Of the three, Springsteen sounds the youngest, but, with that youth comes an exuberance that you seldom hear captured on tape and practically never with a giant backing band to accompany it.

I think Max's straightforward drumming is related more to Springsteen than it is to his abilities as a drummer. He pretty much plays exactly what Springsteen wants without a lot of flash.

Okay. I see where you're coming from now and I totally see your point. The raw energy and the fuck it attitude of a bar rocker are all on display on both albums. The lyrics and the music are unrestrained in a way that only an amazingly talented but raw performer can do. And maybe that's why the songs work better live, they're bar tunes (in the best way possible).

Weird is the fact that as I was typing this "Sweet Thing" started playing...

I'm a huge fan of What's Going On and I certainly don't disagree with you. The lyrics for many of the songs are the voice of someone trying to get out something that's important to them but unable to do so in a profound way. There are moments, particularly with What's Happening, Brother, where Gaye seems to nail it. (Just as Springsteen nails Incident from The Wild...)

I also won't argue on the music. The Funk Brothers versus the E Street Band is a battle of the bands that I would pay huge sums of money to watch. The Funk Brothers are far tighter on What's Going On the the E Street Band on The Wild... but damn Marvin seemed to bring out a beautiful looseness that hadn't been there before. I don't know if Marvin brought out the street in the Funk Brothers or if Gordy had just been trying to restrain it during the heydays of Motown.

I'm a recent convert to the cult of Van Morrison so despite owning Astral Weeks I've listened to it exactly three times (including the weird moment earlier). I'll have a listen with the Boss and Gaye in mind.

This may be true, but you can tell the difference in style when Max plays the old songs, and I'm not sure Springsteen would tell Max to play "Kitty's Back" or "Incident" less loose. He's just more of an in-the-pocket drummer. Lopez came by his nickname for obvious reasons, and I doubt he'd be able to keep it as straight as Max - once you go busy as a drummer, it's not always easy or as much fun to go back to playing straight time, and I say this from experience. I can't even imagine what something like "Born in the U.S.A." would sound like with "Mad Dog" on drums.

I'm listening to the new album today and I think it's great. "Devil's Arcade" is probably my favorite, and I have to second DaveB's assertion that this does sound like a real E Street Band album.

WIESS is my favorite Bruce album. NYC Serenade is just an absolute masterpiece, no two ways about it.

Finally been able to listen to this, and damn I love it. "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" stands with anything he's done, and proudly so.

Terrific CD, and I share the "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" love.

Finally picked it up. That's two awesome albums in a row from Bruce.

i cant wait to hear it. i actually havent taken advantage of hearing it online yet. i've heard 'Radio NOwhere' and i love the rockin vibe.

"Your Own Worst Enemy" is like a lost song from '75. Love.

A lot of the songs here give me that feeling.

As much as I like Magic, I don't hear that at all. With the production, traditional song structures, and straightforward lyrics, it's a lot less Born to Run/Darkness on the Edge of Town and a lot more The River/Born in the U.S.A. It's not as epic or diverse as his 70s work.

Agreed. In terms of production, the new album also seems a lot closer to "Born in the USA" than "Born to Run", as well. I still heart "Magic", however. Then again, I've never been as critical of the "USA"s plastic-y 80s production values as some. At the moment, "Living in the Future" is an obsession.

Listened to this enough to say it's a great E-Street album, certainly better than "The Rising," and the Seeger years definitely helped Bruce loosen up, but it's not a legendary one. I think he makes the mistake of making "Living in the Future", his big protest song, a toe-tapper -- like "Born in the USA," stupid people may run the mistake of misinterpreting it.

And in terms of sound/themes, I think it falls somewhere between "Born to Run" and "Darkness at the Edge of Town." I love how it starts off all peppy, and then around "Magic," it gets dark as shit and continues for the second half of the album.

See, I think that's part of the point of making those song toe-tappers -- to expose the people who embrace the song what it is not.

Ah, but have you heard it live from The Main Point in Pennsylvania. Its probably the definitive version of this song. I think I have a booted copy of the show laying around here...if I can find it I'll put the track up on some file hosting site if I can figure it out.




And as for Girls In Their Summer Clothes. I like the song, but I cannot wait to hear it live. I can't really stand the double vocal-reverb thing he's got going on that track. Just another case of Brendan 'O Brien over-production. Sometimes when a song is less clean...more raw...it works so much better. The solo version of I Wish I Were Blind from the Devils tour is a great song. It has so much feeling that the album track is lacking(I think I have that song around here somewhere to if you want to see what I'm talking about). Thank god Nebraska never ended up getting the full band treatment (even though popular rumor is that there is a studio reel collecting dust somewhere of the E Street Band's version of the whole album.)

His vocal on Girls in Their Summer Clothes reminds me of his vocal on Hungry Heart. In fact, this album reminds more of The River than Born to Run now that I've listened to it a couple of dozen times.

There was a review I read where Springsteen was quoted as saying this was his "California" album and he referenced the Byrds and the Beach Boys, which makes a lot of sense.

And I'll Work For Your Love may have replaced Girls as my favorite track, and if not it's damn close.

I'm not sure if that's it. I think Springsteen's mentioned that this was his version of a Beach Boys song, but I've heard a few sites mention that "Girls..." sounds like a lot like the Magnetic Fields, and the low voice/double vocal thing is very Stephen Merritt. I wouldn't at all be surprised if it turned out to be Springsteen's idea to directly reference Merritt's work. He tends to keep up with new bands (he namedrops the National, plays with the Hold Steady and Win and Regine from the Arcade Fire, etc.).

Love to hear that version of "Incident..." that you referenced.

i still havent heard the whole thing yet but so far it reminds me of Born to Run. theres definitely alot more melody than some of the stuff on Nebraska

That would explain alot, and I think you may have hit the nail on the head. The Beach Boys reference I kind of figured out, its that Magnetic Fields that I couldn't quite place. It would explain alot, because, I bought 69 Love Songs a while ago and just could not get used to the singing style. That is definitely what's rubbing me wrong, here.


and we'll see if this works here.....probably my favorite version of Incident ever recorded...the violin is the key.
http://media.putfile.com/Incident-on-57th-street-97

I just picked this up on Friday via iTunes. I'm not all that blown away, at least not in the way that Springsteen can blow you away. Maybe that's the albums' problem: it just isn't up to the heights Bruce is capable of; call it the prejudice of high-expectations.

The second song off the record sounds like Pearl Jam. That's not altogether unexpected -- Brendan O'Brien produced some classic Pearl Jam records.