I don't like the way his voice sounds when he sings anymore, it bums me out.
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 00:38 (twelve years ago) link
I dig his voice, I regret the production
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 00:48 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:36 (twelve years ago) link
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
― buzza, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:39 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UASyS-jUKKI
― buzza, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:40 (twelve years ago) link
I'd have fonder memories The Rising had it been released an EP. Man is that thing long
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:42 (twelve years ago) link
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
― epigram addict (outdoor_miner), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:45 (twelve years ago) link
loooool at Bruce's brogue
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:51 (twelve years ago) link
“the robber barons.”
stealin' me pot o' gold!!!
― buzza, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:53 (twelve years ago) link
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
― buzza, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 01:58 (twelve years ago) link
lmao xp
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 02:36 (twelve years ago) link
In case you missed it, fiddle band Bruce doing "Atlantic City" a few years back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARp_F4n6-gE
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 02:40 (twelve years ago) link
The Progues lololol
90 minute version of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, with swirling twin-guitar solo in the middle
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 02:54 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 03:27 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― we can be gyros just for one day (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 04:54 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Whiney vs. (BradNelson), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 05:58 (twelve years ago) link
i do feel like devils and dust is mad underrated
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 06:46 (twelve years ago) link
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'.
― owenf, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 11:53 (twelve years ago) link
xpost "Devils & Dust" is an album you return to after you hear a few songs live and think, hey, these are good! And then you listen to the album and think, hey, this is dull. (See also: "Ghost of Tom Joad"). There's some fundamental problem Bruce has been having in the studio, in that even the albums that should have room to breathe are just as oppressive. It's not a coincidence that "We Shall Overcome" is his best album of the past decade or so, not because he didn't write the songs, but because the production (which sounds pretty live in a room to me) captures the sound and energy of Bruce and the band. The new one has some good songs on it, but once again its qualities are suppressed. Which is why I imagine this stuff will be so good live, freed from their shackles, as it were.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 13:03 (twelve years ago) link
"Long Time Coming" off D&D is one of his best songs of the decade imho.
― ban this sick stunt (anagram), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 13:13 (twelve years ago) link
Sure, why not? But that album, which I tried to listen to again two weeks ago, is sort of deadly. Not as snoozy as Tom Joad, but a real drag. Good stories, dull songs.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 14:01 (twelve years ago) link
What's the song in which the guy fucks a girl in the ass and calls it art?
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 14:04 (twelve years ago) link
Thunder Road
― the Hilary Clinton of Ghostface Killahs (Phil D.), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 14:08 (twelve years ago) link
From your front porch to my front seatThe door's open but the ride it ain't free
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 14:43 (twelve years ago) link
the most obsessive bruce fan I ever met was irish
― iatee, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 14:45 (twelve years ago) link
The new album is a positive surprise for me. I thought he was to old to rock like this, but working on the leftover material from "Darkness..." apparently has helped him regain his old torch.
It took him almost 30 years, but the proper followup to "Born In The USA" is finally here.
― Hongroe (Geir Hongro), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 15:04 (twelve years ago) link
The challopy undercurrent of this post is very Geir, but the praise for an album so light on melody and so heavy on loops and stuff is very un-Geir. I'm torn.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
i made a word cloud of lyrics for all of bruce springsteen's recorded history. I'm really surprised the biggest words aren't "burned", "abandoned", and "automobile."
http://i.imgur.com/ct2oN.jpg
― Poliopolice, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 18:40 (twelve years ago) link
Or "sir."
― we can be gyros just for one day (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 18:42 (twelve years ago) link
Now Ain't Got Know NightBaby BackLittle LoveWell Just Come Now
^^Chinese bootleg Springsteen titles
― "marvellously inoffensive" (Eazy), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 18:43 (twelve years ago) link
damn, that wordcloud is very, uh, springsteen
― meticulously showcased in a stunning fart presentation (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 18:44 (twelve years ago) link
It looks like words used in just about every song of the last 50 years.
― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 19:08 (twelve years ago) link
lol @ "well"
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 19:10 (twelve years ago) link
"well" yeah, but the collective tilt is telling
― meticulously showcased in a stunning fart presentation (contenderizer), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 19:12 (twelve years ago) link
geir, you should write for rolling stone. you have a knack for meaningless "observations" that could be nicely integrated into a promotional campaign.
LOL @ "highway" in that word cloud
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 19:18 (twelve years ago) link
title track on this is awesome.
― Whiney vs. (BradNelson), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 21:33 (twelve years ago) link
"Wrecking ball" title track is not awesome. More like formula
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 22:35 (twelve years ago) link
You guys get on the same page please so I know if I need to bother with this. All this "this is great", "this is awful", "this is awesome", "this is formula" is not helping AT ALL.
― stan this sick bunt (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 22:37 (twelve years ago) link
This is worth hearing. How's that?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 7 March 2012 22:38 (twelve years ago) link
Haha, I was likely going to check it out anyway, I was just entertained by all the back and forth on this. Think its probably a good sign that there is a little divisiveness around this instead of a universal shrug.
― stan this sick bunt (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 22:42 (twelve years ago) link
formula can be awesome. it is pretty awesome here.
― Whiney vs. (BradNelson), Wednesday, 7 March 2012 22:58 (twelve years ago) link
Good piece here: http://www.avclub.com/articles/pays-to-be-the-boss-why-the-bruce-springsteen-busi,70462/
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 8 March 2012 03:39 (twelve years ago) link
Stick with Springsteen's albums from the '70s and early 80s.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 8 March 2012 13:33 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think that anyone would argue that those albums are not better.
My fave Springsteen tour, btw, at least in my concert-going lifetime, was watching him behind "Devils & Dust," actually, when it was just him, a host of instruments and some 160 songs from his catalog, new, old, unreleased, rare, etc. He really made a case for the dustier corners of his career, and found neat ways to refresh the familiar. For instance, I like to post this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4WKYtS4JDk
Tom Joad tour was legendary, too, and that album was dull dull dull.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 8 March 2012 13:53 (twelve years ago) link
Stick with Springsteen's albums from the '70s and early late 80s.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 8 March 2012 14:05 (twelve years ago) link
Great Jody Rosen review
Springsteen has always been a social realist—often, a brilliant one, with songs that captured the fine-grain texture of everyday lives. Here, though, he sounds like a socialist realist. The songs veer into proletarian kitsch: “Freedom, son, is a dirty shirt/ The sun on my face and my shovel in the dirt.” On his best records, Springsteen was simply a storyteller: He wrote about the white working class because that’s what interested him, that’s the world he knew best. In recent years, self-consciousness has taken hold; he’s never sounded so dutiful about his role as bard of the masses. Listening to Wrecking Ball, I was reminded of Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels, in which the successful Hollywood comedy director decides to make O, Brother Where Art Thou, a film that will capture the plight of the Great Depression downtrodden. In “Jack of All Trades” Springsteen intones: “I’ll hammer the nails, and I’ll set the stone/ I’ll harvest your crops when they’re ripe and grown … The banker man grows fat, the working man grows thin/ It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again.” O, brother.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2012/03/bruce_springsteen_s_wrecking_ball_reviewed_.html
― Suede - the fabric, not the band (DL), Thursday, 8 March 2012 14:13 (twelve years ago) link
"We Take Care of Our Own" has a this kinda thing going on:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boPhDRug_SQdeny it if you can!
― andrew m., Thursday, 8 March 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
but the praise for an album so light on melody and so heavy on loops and stuff is very un-Geir
You mean "Born In The USA"? Becaus that album is also full of loops and ostinato based songs. It doesn't always work (the title track and "I'm On Fire" feel a bit too repetitive for me, although I loved the former at 14), but surprisingly often it does. Even a track as repetitive and mantra-like as "Darlington County" appeals to me in some mysterious way. And I think it is much about the ethusiasm and enerty. An enthusiasm and energy that has been largely absent from everything folloing, but which seems to be back on the current album.
― Hongroe (Geir Hongro), Thursday, 8 March 2012 18:23 (twelve years ago) link
Okay I actually really like this, at least compared to his last couple studio albums. Kinda surprised he left the studio version of "American Land" off the standard edition.
― stan this sick bunt (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 9 March 2012 05:12 (twelve years ago) link
no Geir, he means he's surprised you like the new one
― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Friday, 9 March 2012 08:29 (twelve years ago) link