New Springsteen/E Street - Working On A Dream - January 27

I sure hope the opening track's title implies that there's gonna be some folky influence. The only recent albums of his I've enjoyed listening to have been folky (We Shall Overcome being the star, but Devils and Dust still gets some play too).

I didn't even know they were working on another album.

Track 8 isn't a Beatles cover, right?

I read the report a few weeks ago saying it was possible that a new album was going to be released in January. I'm glad I didn't have to wait long for a confirmation! Maybe we'll get a nice 2009 tour?

Is that "Jersey Devil" bonus song the Halloween song he posted on his site?

If this comes even close to being as good as Magic was, I'll be a happy camper.

These songs were likely recorded (or at least started) at the same time MAGIC was put together. At that time, both Brendon O'Brien and Bruce said they had enough material for two albums and that hopefully the songs that didn't fit with MAGIC could be released at a later date. These are probably, for the most part, those songs.

Oh, and MAGIC just may well be the best album released by anyone in the last five years. Yes, it's that fucking good.

From what I've read about it (and the title track), it's a poppy extension of Magic, so probably not as folky as you might like. Some of the songs came from the same sessions, and they ended up recording additional stuff with Brendan O'Brian during breaks in the tour. I'm not super fond of the title track so far, but I love Magic, so I'm hoping for that same kind of early Springsteen exuberance.

I've heard it's all originals, so I'm guessing "Tomorrow Never Knows" isn't the Beatles song. And, yeah, "A Night with the Jersey Devil" was the Halloween blues song. It's barely identifiable as Springsteen. I suspect that it and "The Wrestler" are being considered bonus tracks because they're sonically different than the rest of the album. He's big on his albums having a unified sound, so that's probably just a sneaky way of getting those extra two songs out there.

"My Lucky Day" has been exclusively premiered on Amazon AND MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/brucespringsteen

The video for "My Lucky Day" can be seen here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m35RKSO2IS5A7U (this is a longer version then the one featured on the MySpace page). You can also hear "Working on a Dream" on the MySpace page if you haven't heard it already.

Wish I heard that. "Working on a Dream" sounds like a Born in the U.S.A. outtake to me, and "My Lucky Day" sounds like a River era outtake minus catchy chorus. They might grow on me, but "Radio Nowhere" had a propulsion to put it over, despite the repetition.

Definitely getting a River vibe from both of those.

And it looks like "A Night with the Jersey Devil" has been dropped as a bonus track.

Still not keen on the sound O'Brien gets out of the band, but I did enjoy quite a bit of Magic. Not sure about the new songs-- they're not yet grabbing me the way that, say, The Rising or Radio Nowhere did when they were advanced-- I was playing both of those over and over.

I do wish I could afford concert tickets these days-- the Magic tour was the first one I've missed since before BTR.

Bumping as this comes out tomorrow.

I loved 'The Wrestler', really captured the them of that movie.

Is 'The Rising' any good? I've seen it for $9.

Well, this is definitely not Magic Part II. Has a much more stripped-down sound to it.

Definitely worth the purchase. It's not one of their great albums, but a worthy entry in the discography nonetheless.

Apparently, my copy of the new album has disappeared en route between the Amazon warehouse in Lexington, KY and my house. This makes me so very angry.

I just downloaded it from Amazon's MP3 download service.

Didn't have a chance to listen to the whole thing, but my gut reaction is that, while it's not as immediately catchy as Magic was, it's definitely a good album. It strikes me as a little like what Nebraska may have sounded like had he used the full band -- the arrangements aren't terribly complex overall.

Well, now you have me completely intrigued. I've been obsessing over "Nebraska" for the last couple of weeks. Damn it, Amazon, I want my CD.

It's not a perfect comparison -- the songs are nowhere near as stark as the ones on Nebraska -- but it has that sparse feel to it. There's no "wall of sound" here.

You can listen to the whole album one time for free over at lala.com.

It's pretty interesting, and certainly a departure from "Magic." Probably the busiest and most studio-heavy since "Born to Run," with the touchstone this time more Brian Wilson than Phil Spector.

Not many people would start off an album with an eight-minute Western epic that makes Joe Ely sound subtle, or have the sheer cojones to come up with (and actually release) something as goopy and open-faced as "Queen of the Supermarket" (it actually reminds me a bit of his cover of "Pretty Flamingo").

There's more than a hint of a return to "Waitin' On A Sunny Day" in the title song and "My Lucky Day," but things do toughen up on tracks like "Good Eye" and "Life Itself." And "What Love Can Do" and "Surprise Surprise" are just great E Street tunes.

Nice to have "The Wrestler" on here (bet Bruce was surprised as hell at the Oscar snub: in the new Rolling Stone interview with him, the writer says that the song was "assured of an Oscar nomination."): it's probably my favorite song on the album. But I had thought that the borderline insane "Night With The Jersey Devil" was going to be on here, too-- maybe you have to buy it from a certain retailer? (I've actually been listening to it on Rhapsody, and they don't have it on here. Haven't gone to the store yet).

I love Bruce, but most of his albums have at least a couple tracks I could easily live without, so I tend to judge them based on how well my favorites hold up over time. On that basis it's too early to tell about this one, but my initial impression is that I like it at least as well as "Magic."

Hmm, maybe it was the less than ideal headphones I had on, but it certainly didn't sound that studio heavy to me.

Well, there's a fair amount of of extra keyboards, backing vocals, strings. It's not "Smile," but it's not "Darkness" either. And I hope I didn't make it sound like a bad thing in any way: I like the production of this album more than that of The Rising, certainly.

I'll admit, I only did a quick listen to the opening minute or so of each song before I had to leave for work, so I'm definitely not speaking from having heard the entire album.

I think what you're probably noticing is that, unlike say Born To Run, Bruce's vocals have a more "live" feel, and his guitar is mixed prominently, so there's an immediacy quite apart from what's happening behind him.

Jim DeRogatis usually doesn't like Springsteen anyway, but I figured I'd pass along his bad review of the new album:

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainmen...012509.article

I think you've hit it -- the guitar and vocals definitely feel at the forefront.

Geez, I like how he assumes that Springsteen is himself in every song he sings, so that it's BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN who's smitten with the checkout girl. And the fact that he thinks the Jersey Devil song is the best track Springsteen's done lately.

BTW, fellas -- tour dates were announced today. Most tix go on sale Monday. I'll be checking out the Pittsburgh show for sure and hopefully one other.

One listen through, the new album doesn't sound as strong as THE RISING or MAGIC, but there's still lots to like.

There'd better be a second leg to that tour.

Speculation is August will either be West Coast or stadium dates.

Particularly loathsome was how he likened every recent Springsteen album as a pretext to tour and writes nearly 50% of the article through the lens of the marketing campaign built around it. I like the guy's radio show, but I really wish music critics would focus on the music rather than ascribe motives to the artists they're writing about.

No, I need him back in Florida. Playing halftime at the Super Bowl doesn't count as a tour date.

What bugs me about Magic is the same thing that bugs me about Born in the USA: the production. It just feels overproduced. Bruce has been able to make walls of sound work (Born to Run, the song, is an incredible example of this), but it's just bland in Magic.

Does the new album have similar production?

As our comments above indicate, the new album has more production, in the sense of more different instruments, backing vocals, there's even Revolver-era backwards guitar. But it doesn't sound like Born in the USA (which, synths aside, I actually love from a production point of view).

The album I don't care for, from a production standpoint, is The Rising, which seems to be trying to blend the entire band into a single instrument, which is a valid artistic choice, I suppose, but which I didn't care for at all.

Sadly, ticket prices may finally make this my first missed Springsteen tour since I saw him at the Roxy in '75 (assuming there are West Coast dates added). Maybe I can work out something as a Father's Day present...

FWIW, Rolling Stone loved it.

See, I feel the exact opposite. I think The Rising is produced pretty well, and the songs have more variety than Magic. I don't think it's a "great" album, but it has songs on it that I genuinely like and would listen to on their own ("Lonesome Day", "Mary's Place", "You're Missing" to name a few). With Magic, I like Radio Nowhere fine, but if it came on the radio while I was flipping through stations, I wouldn't stop for it.

Song for song I like both albums about the same, actually. Neither's among my favorites of his, but I can barely think of a handful of his contemporaries still working so close to the top of their game this far into their careers.

"The Rising" was an album with several stand out tracks but it never sounded like an actual album to me, even though he had one heck of a theme to play with.

"Magic" felt like an album, the songs meshed together. And while I wasn't crazy about the record, I could recognize and respect that.

So now we have "Working on a Dream" which, like "Magic", feels like an album. I've listened several times and I enjoy it a lot more. It feels almost like a direct sequel to "Magic". He trades uncertainty and discontent for hope and love. I'm a little disappointed in some of the lyrics (although he does drop the F-Bomb in "Queen of the Supermarket"). There are only a few lyrics in the album that really grab you. But the whole album is an example of pop music done extremely well. And at this point in his career, Bruce still impresses me.

Did anyone hear about the re-issue for "Darkness on the Edge of Town"? It's quite possibly the greatest album of all time so I'm ready for that.

I honestly think the two '78 shows I saw might have been my favorites of all, so I'm really hoping they do, in fact, find some 'usable live footage.'

Pretty much guaranteed to be going to the Toronto show!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090131/...TKwJm8Aq5xFb8C

The Wal-Mart album seems strange anyway -- there's nothing that hasn't been on one of a half-dozen other compilations outside of the tracks from The Rising and Magic, and who's beating down the door for those?

There are a handful of good songs on WORKING ON A DREAM -- one of 'em being the tacked-on-at-the-last-minute "The Wrestler" -- but it's nowhere near the quality of THE RISING or MAGIC.

So I hear Vegas is making book on the songs to be played tomorrow.

I figure in 12 minutes, we get no more than three. I'm guessing "Working On A Dream," "The Rising," and "Born To Run."

I won't say I love the new album but I certainly dig it. Outlaw Pete is probably my favorite song so far. Something about Springsteen doing an eight minute western epic just seems so right. Especially when it starts with the lyric.......

"He was born a little baby on the Appalachian Trail
At six months old he'd done three months in jail
Here at the bank in his diapers and his little bare baby feet
All he said was "Folks, my name is Outlaw Pete."