Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

Actually, Backstreets has the clip of him doing "Death," "Jack of All Trades," "E Street Shuffle" and a surprise appearance with, um, Neil Young.

I got about six tracks into the new one and gave up. Really not very good, kinda laboured-sounding.

whats the ILM consensus on 'magic'? i thought it was a pretty solid album, some great tracks (radio nowhere, your own worst enemy, girls in their summer clothes) although not on a par with the classic stuff

"Radio Nowhere" is the only Springsteen single I've liked since "Streets of Philadelphia."

Dunno about ILM, et al, but I liked "Magic" just fine.

the new single is pretty awful. it's so obvious that lyrically, bruce is trying for something ambiguous, multivalent -- but it's just boring and meaningless. and the melody is about as good as the melodies of nearly all his tracks since 1988, that is to say, not terribly memorable.

he's just taken his criticism far too much to heart, and for the past decade+ he's been writing a lot of Big Songs designed for exegesis, but in the dullest of ways.

Neil Young kind of already beat the boss to the 'wrecking ball' although I think Emmy Lou Harris' does the best version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZLOtcUXq_k

I think one thing that oddly puts Springsteen into his own box was that the guy was so infatuated with keyboards and saxophone where many rock and roll fans were obsessed with the guitar. I think it made his classic peroid music a bit more unique and not tied as much to fashion of the time, but in a way also kind of separates it from some fans as it was such a look back sound even when it was contemporary and at least with 'rock' the guitar kind of won the war.

Huh?

Anyway, Bruce is as guitar rock as it gets, and he was only into keyboards in the sense that he was into organ and piano. The synths didn't crop up til much later. His problem as of late is not one of intent but execution. He just hasn't found a way to sound the way he needs to sound.

Also, he's in his '60s.

A great Bruce Springsteen song with a rap, delivered by gospel singer-cum-M.C. Michelle Moore.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKY ROAD")

SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Stars have faded. The sky is still. Sun is in the heavens, and a new day is rising.

MICHELLE MOORE: (Rapping) You use your muscle and your mind, and you pray your best that your best is good enough. The Lord will do the rest. You raise your children, and you teach them to walk straight and sure. You pray that hard times, hard times come no more. You try to sleep. You toss and turn. The bottom is dropping out. Where you once had faith, now there's only doubt. You pray for guidance, only silence now meets your prayers. The morning breaks. You awake, but no one is there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9EbOXYenJY

1) At least Springsteen doesn't rap himself

2) It's really not as bad as it reads (see also: a huge quantity of hip-hop that doesn't always translate to the page)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYUYnoWqct0

Listening to the whole thing (still streaming at NPR). These songs'll make a great show in 10,000-50,000 arenas.

just as $9 hot dogs will make a great dinner in the same

Also interesting that he's going more toward Irish barnstompers and ballads than gospel and blues.

(pubthumpers, or whatever you call them)

Maybe part of the inspiration for this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCY8kaUSZq8

(March 2011)

"Death To My Hometown" is an extraordinarily powerful song for anyone to pull off at this stage of the game. Coming from a 62-year-old stadium rocker, it's miraculous. Definitely the album's highpoint IMHO.

OK, the Homer post was unfair. This is better than I expected.

His last tour typically ended with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qoqsDL0gBk&feature=related

Fwiw, Springsteen's dad was Dutch/Irish.

It's a parallax -- you dig?

http://www.springsteeninireland.com/

This record is about 1000 times better than I imagined.

^^^ Exactly. I suspect it'll be forgotten soon enough, but it's easily his best since "The Rising," which itself took several years of sticking around to prove it would stick around.

huh, i really like "rocky ground," wasn't expecting that

digging this

dammit you people, i may have to listen to this.

BUT I DON'T WANNA LISTEN TO THIS

i kind of don't, since i listened to the last one and immediately regretted it.

I don't like the way his voice sounds when he sings anymore, it bums me out.

I dig his voice, I regret the production

but it's easily his best since "The Rising,"

I'm not a fan of The Rising. It's probably my least favorite of the six he's released in the last ten years.

By the way, how crazy is it that he's released six albums in the last ten years.

Death to My Hometown rages about a community toppled without a shot being fired by “the robber barons.” But it sounds almost cheery, with penny whistle and accordion leading a jaunty march down Main Street and Springsteen even adopting an Irish accent.

lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UASyS-jUKKI

I'd have fonder memories The Rising had it been released an EP. Man is that thing long

i agree w/ vegemitegrrrl. he's been singin' kinda "shouty" since Magic (but it worked on Radio Nowhere) at least and i wish he'd stop it

loooool at Bruce's brogue

“the robber barons.”

stealin' me pot o' gold!!!

Someone wrote a comment that he thought Bruce sounded like the Progues. I never heard of the Progues, the person was right. I just listened to the Progues’ “Dirty Old Town”. Bruce does sound like them, but he is going to take their message to the Whole Wide World, because someone had to make their town a dirty old town and the same ideology destroyed many towns – maybe yours as well. I certainly know how easy it was for me to relate and to add my two cents.

1RMDorey 2 days ago

lmao xp

In case you missed it, fiddle band Bruce doing "Atlantic City" a few years back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARp_F4n6-gE

The Progues lololol

90 minute version of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, with swirling twin-guitar solo in the middle

production/mastering on "death to my hometown" is a mess. cluttered and tinny. can't make out what the jaunty choir is singing on the chorus, if anything.

i love bruce and if i'm not mistaken somewhere in this long thread is an epic conversation b/t me, ally, ned, and other folks in which ally and i defend him to the bitter end. but i really don't appreciate his work of the past decade. it's not as much the persona, the lyrics -- it's the music. so little of it is given any room to breathe. little of it seems to modulate or build in any but the most obvious ways. oh well.

production/mastering on "death to my hometown" is a mess. cluttered and tinny. can't make out what the jaunty choir is singing on the chorus, if anything.

They're singing "Please don't brickwall/this song we worked so hard on"

You're right, sounds completely awful. And Bruce's singing is making me angry.

i kind of don't, since i listened to the last one and immediately regretted it.

i've enjoyed most everything that springsteen's released over the past 10 years and i hated working on a dream. his laziest thing since human touch. but i've liked what i've heard from this one.

also devils and dust is his best album of original material in this whole period (we shall overcome being the best record period), not the rising.

i do feel like devils and dust is mad underrated

ha. I was in Dublin a few years ago and Springsteen was everywhere. On every stereo in every record store, in every bar. There was even a bar called the 'thunder road cafe'. Eventually I went up to a guy in some second hand shop that was playing some live bootleg whatever springsteen thing (that sucked) and asked him what the deal with Ireland and Springsteen was, expecting to say that he was of Irish descent as Josh said but the guy just looked at me, narrowed his eyes and went 'he's just good'.