Bruce Springsteen Albums (20)
What The Critics Say
From its bright, brittle production to its tossed-off postage stamp cover art, Working on a Dream is in every respect a companion piece to Magic, an album that's merely a set of songs, both sprawling and deliberately small, songs that don't necessarily tackle any one major theme but all add up to a portrait of their time. Magic chronicled the dog days of Bush where Working on a Dream is designed as a keynote to the Obama age, released just a week after the inauguration of the U.S.'s 44th president and not coincidentally containing not a little optimism within its 13 tracks. This sense of hope is a tonic to the despair that crept into the margins of Magic but it's easy to posit Working on a Dream as pure positivity, which isn't exactly true: a hangover from W lingers, most vividly in the broken spirit of "The Wrestler," and Bruce mourning departed E Street Band member Danny Federici with "The Last Carnival." Springsteen peppers his tribute with images recalling the early days of the E Street Band but saves a revival of their wild, woolly sound for the opening "Outlaw Pete," a cavernous, circular, comical epic reminiscent of Springsteen's unwieldy portraits of rats on the Jersey Shore. "Outlaw Pete" is Working on a Dream at its best, playing like nothing less than The E Street Shuffle as reflected and refracted through Arcade Fire's naked hero worship, casually highlighting how producer Brendan O'Brien has gently nudged the Boss toward new musical avenues. Many of these new sounds are drawn from the past, often feeling informed by Little Steven's Underground Garage -- Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren's guitars chime like the Byrds; the band knocks out a tough little blues number on "Good Eye"; and Springsteen shows a knack for pure pop on "Surprise, Surprise" and indulges his ever-increasing Brian Wilson fascination on "This Life," whose percolating organs and harmonies rival the High Llamas. All this rests nicely alongside the Boss' trademarks -- galloping rockers that fill a stadium ("My Lucky Day") and their polar opposite, his intimate acoustic tunes ("Tomorrow Never Knows") -- which all make Working on a Dream read like a rich, inventive, musical album...which it is, to an extent. The ideas and intent are there, but the album is hampered slightly by the overall modesty of Springsteen's writing -- by and large, these are small-scale songs and feel that way -- and hurt significantly by the precise, digital production that muffles the music's imagination and impact. A large part of Springsteen's appeal has always been how the E Street Band has sounded as big and open as his heart, but Working on a Dream, like Magic before it, has a production that feels tiny and constrained even as it is layered with extraneous details. It's possible to listen around this production and hear the modest charms of the songs, but the album would be better if the sound matched the sentiment. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Hailed as Bruce Springsteen's return to rock upon its release in fall 2007, Magic isn't quite as straightforward as that description would have it seem. True, this does mark another reunion with the E Street Band, only his second studio album with the group since 1984's Born in the U.S.A., giving this a rock & roll heft missing from his two previous albums -- the dusty, literary Devils & Dust and the raucous We Shall Overcome: The Pete Seeger Sessions -- and unlike The Rising, the first E Street Band album of the new millennium, there is no overarching theme here. It's just a collection of songs, something that Bruce hasn't done since Human Touch, or maybe even The River. All the ingredients are in place for a simple, straight-ahead rock album, except for two things: Springsteen didn't write a lot of flat-out rock songs, and with his producer Brendan O'Brien, he didn't make an album that sounds much like a rock & roll album, either. Magic is bright and punchy, a digital-age production through and through, right down to how each track feels as if it were crafted according to its own needs instead of the record as a whole. Underneath this shiny veneer, the E Street Band can still lift this music toward great heights, infusing it with a sense of majesty, but this is an E Street Band that was recorded piecemeal in the studio, pasted together track by track as the group fit sessions into their busy schedules. This approach gives the album a bit of a mannered, meticulous sound not unlike The Rising, but such careful construction was appropriate for Springsteen's cautious, caring 9/11 rumination; on Magic it tends to keep the music from reaching full flight. Then again, the songs here don't quite lend themselves to either the transcendent sweep of Born to Run or the down-n-dirty roadhouse rockers that cluttered The River. There's a quiet melancholy underpinning this album. It's evident even on the hard-driving "Radio Nowhere," whose charging guitars mask a sense of desperation, or the deceptively breezy "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," which grows more wistful with each passing chorus. "Girls" is also indicative of how Magic doesn't quite feel like classic E Street Band, even when it offers reminders of their classic sound: like "Born to Run," it trades upon Phil Spector, but here the band doesn't absorb the Wall of Sound; they evoke it, giving the song a nostalgic bent that emphasizes the soft sadness in his melody. This oddly bittersweet vibe that is shared by "Your Own Worst Enemy," whose baroque harpsichords -- uncannily reminiscent of the Left Banke -- are the biggest curveball here. That is, it's the biggest specific curveball outside of the overall feel of Magic, which is far too somber to be called just another rock & roll album. The solemn, sepia-toned picture of the Boss on the cover is a pretty big tip-off that there may not be a whole lot of good times coming on Magic, but it's a surprise that this is not only not as joyous as We Shall Overcome, it doesn't have as many moments of sunny relief as The Rising, which had "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" and "Mary's Place" among its quiet, artful grief. Here, the joy and the sadness are fused, skewing such otherwise lively numbers as "Livin' in the Future" -- which otherwise sounds like it could sneak onto the second side of Born in the U.S.A. -- toward the sober side. Springsteen also targets war and politics throughout the album, either through metaphors (the title track, where the audience is suckered by a con man) or blunt declarations ("Last to Die"). All this toil and tension doesn't make for a very fun album, but 2007 isn't a very fun time, so it's an appropriate reflection of the time. The thing of it is, despite some fine moments of craft -- both musical and lyrical, whether on "Gypsy Biker" or "Long Walk Home" -- the songs aren't written with the keen literary eye that made Devils & Dust play like a collection of short stories. Like the music, the words just feel a shade too deliberate, rendering Magic just a bit too overthought -- hardly enough to make for a bad record, but one that isn't quite grabbing, even if it is helped immeasurably by the E Street Band in old pro mode. And what's missing comes into sharp relief as the album draws to a close with "Terry's Song," a quickly written and recorded tribute to Terry Magovern, Springsteen's longtime friend and assistant. Compared to the rest of the album, this simple tune is a bit ragged, but it's soulful, moving, and indelible, immediate where the rest of the album is a shade distant. After hearing it, it's hard not to wish that Bruce would record this way all the time. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Live in Dublin by Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions band documents the final show of the group's long tour in support of the album that took them across the U.S. and Europe. Along with performances from the album itself, the show is peppered with Springsteen's own tunes. The deluxe double-CD contains 23 songs performed by a 17-piece band that includes a full horn section, backing chorus, numerous guitars, dobro, banjo, keyboards, accordion, field drums, sousaphone, euphonium, pedal steel, fiddles, standup bass, and more. The most prominently featured members of the band include Soozie Tyrell, Marc Anthony Thompson, and, of course, Patti Scialfa (who all offer wonderful duet performances). This recording stands in sharp contrast both musically and emotionally to the studio offering. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was recorded by a band that captured immediacy and intimacy: there is a certain raw savoir faire resulting in a bristling kind of joyous energy that only a large group of musicians unfamiliar with one another can provide. Springsteen's a perfectionist; some of the rough edges left on the studio album are a welcome surprise. Here, many of those same songs -- many of which come from out of history and time -- are performed by a band that became a spit-shined, polished, and utterly professional unit. Live in Dublin offers dazzling versions that have been honed and sharpened. This is a long way from Pete Seeger and his solitary banjo playing singalongs for folk festival audiences all over the globe; and yet, somehow not. But there is something more detached about this show -- and the video doubly enhances that studied feeling -- though its sheer musicality and virtuosity is a wonder. The horn charts are brilliant; there is room in some of these tunes, such as "Erie Canal," for old New Orleans jazz-styled soloing and interplay; the mannered time keeping is captured not only by drums and bass, but by the chorus' vocal phrasing. The show opener, "Atlantic City," is radically rearranged; it's now a near-monotone blues song. In this way it resembles the kind of re-tooling that Bob Dylan often gives his songs live to keep them interesting. Other tracks from Springsteen's catalog on the first disc include "If I Should Fall Behind." This one is done -- at first -- as a tender 19th century waltz between Scialfa and her husband. Then it transforms itself seamlessly into a communal sing, and in this way becomes a different song altogether, less intimate, but perhaps more profound. The pedal steel guitar treatment in "Highway Patrolman" is enhanced with upright piano, multiple acoustic guitars, and pedal steel. Springsteen's new version of Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" premiered at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006. It's complete with added lyrics that highlight the plight of Hurricane Katrina survivors; here it remains raucous and forceful. "O Mary Don't You Weep" is more fully a gospel tune here, its dynamic is over the top. "Jacob's Ladder" (a Seeger original) closes disc one. It's a wild Dixieland cum gospel romp with full-on horns (including Sousaphone), popping field snare, and bass drum. Tyrell's great violin break -- sometimes it seems as if she "gets it" in terms of the historical nature of these songs better than anyone else in this band -- and wide ranging call and response chorale are a breathtaking finish. "Long Time Comin'" from Devils & Dust opens disc two, and this reading is a far more compelling one. Like "If I Should Fall Behind," it's so much bigger than the songwriter. It belongs not only in this mix, but in the way it's performed to the culture as shared experience. It's followed by an overly long, radical redo of "Open All Night." executed as a late-'50s rock & roll song with a very polished Andrews Sisters-styled female scat, before a male chorus engages them in call and response. It sounds more like something from Pump Boys at the Dinette , or, better yet, Guys and Dolls. It's a way of kickstarting a crowd for the second set; and no matter what one thinks of it musically, it works to that purpose. The Western swing (think Asleep at the Wheel) pedal steel solo and Sam Bardfeld's fiddle solo kick it into high gear, not to mention Springsteen's own acoustic guitar solo; and as has been proven thus far, the horn charts are spectacular. The accordion, fiddle, and brass driven "Pay Me My Money Down" is an entirely new reading of the traditional number. Its easy Cajun-esque 2-step and chorus-line-chorus structure is the loosest and most spontaneous-sounding thing on this entire set. There are great surprises for anyone who didn't see this tour with the inclusion in the set list of both "Growin' Up" and "Blinded by the Light," from Springsteen's debut album (the latter is a bonus cut). The former begins as a solo acoustic tune with a new melody and becomes a string and horn driven, skittering country song. The latter, with a Latin rhythm, Cuban son structure, and minor key signature, is a new song entirely. In addition, Springsteen's inventive folk song treatment of "When the Saints Go Marching In" is here, as is the singalong gospel number "This Little Light of Mine." This, as the official close of the show, is a crowd-pleaser and a barnstormer. The chorus vocals are simply stunning. The band just burns as a unit, and for a moment or two, it feels as if the charts have been burned and they are on the wire without a net. Two other bonus tracks are included (they were recorded for the original Seeger Sessions offering but not included on the final CD). They are Live in Dublin takes of John Hurley's and Ronnie Wilkins' "Love of the Common People" and "We Shall Overcome." These feel like they add something to the sense of heritage that initially gave birth to the Seeger Sessions project. "We Shall Overcome" is a defining moment here. Introduced by Springsteen as: "This is the kinda the song that got us started here, so uh..."; it's a soft-spoken element of surprise that closes the entire release with a moving and even spiritual sense of dignity. It is also the only song here that doesn't feel like a number Springsteen has remade in his own musical image.For many listeners, this will seem like a wild celebration, yet all the polish and glimmer this band displays -- perhaps unavoidable after such a long run playing together -- feels very different, not distant so much involved in the song as in the performance. It feels like a recording that doesn't resemble the songs of the "people" any longer, but more like another live -- and far more musically adventurous -- Bruce Springsteen record. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all. It simply means that what was mercurial and puzzling and sometimes even maddening about The Seeger Sessions as an album feels defined and perhaps even actually finished here. Not just the in the sense of the band being at the end o
'We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions'
Release Date 4/24/2006
Tracks 32
Label Columbia
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is an unusual Bruce Springsteen album in a number of ways. First, it's the first covers album Springsteen has recorded in his three-decade career, which is a noteworthy event in itself, but that's not the only thing different about We Shall Overcome. Springsteen, a notorious perfectionist who has been known to tweak and rework albums numerous times before releasing them (or scrapping them, as the case may be), pulled together the album quickly, putting aside a planned second volume of the rarities collection Tracks after discovering a set of recordings he made in 1997 for a Pete Seeger tribute album called Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger. Enthralled by this handful of tracks -- one of which, "We Shall Overcome," appeared on the tribute -- Springsteen decided to cut a whole album of folk tunes popularized by Pete Seeger. He rounded up 13 musicians, including some who played on those 1997 sessions, and did two one-day sessions in late 2005 and early 2006, swiftly releasing the resulting album that April. As Bruce stresses in his introductory liner notes, these were live recordings, done with no rehearsals, and We Shall Overcome does indeed have an unmistakably loose feel, and not just because you can hear the Boss call out chord changes in a handful of songs. This music is rowdy and rambling, as the group barrels head-first into songs that they're playing together as a band for the first time, and it's hard not to get swept up along in their excitement. Springsteen has made plenty of great records, but We Shall Overcome is unique in its sheer kinetic energy; he has never made a record that feels as alive as this. Not only does We Shall Overcome feel different than Bruce's work; it also feels different than Seeger's music. Most of Seeger's recordings were spare and simple, featuring just him and his banjo; his most elaborately produced records were with the Weavers, whose recordings of the '50s did feature orchestration, yet that's a far cry from the big folk band that Springsteen uses here. Bruce's combo for the Seeger sessions has a careening, ramshackle feel that's equal parts early-'60s hootenanny and Bob Dylan and the Band's Americana; at times, its ragged human qualities also recall latter-day Tom Waits, although the music here is nowhere near as self-consciously arty as that. Springsteen has truly used Seeger's music as inspiration, using it as the starting point to take him someplace that is uniquely his own in sheer musical terms. Given that, it should be no great surprise that Bruce also picks through Seeger's songbook in a similar fashion, leaving many (if not most) of Pete's well-known songs behind in favor of a selection of folk standards Springsteen learned through Seeger's recordings. (Author/critic Dave Marsh researched the origins of each song here; there are brief introductions within the album's liner notes and thorough histories presented on the official Springsteen site.) While the songs featured here adhere to no one specific theme -- there are work songs, spirituals, narratives, and protest songs -- it is possible to see this collection of tunes as Springsteen's subtle commentary on the political state of America, especially given Seeger's reputation as an outspoken political activist, but this record should hardly be judged as merely an old-fashioned folk record. We Shall Overcome is many things, but a creaky relic is not one of them. Springsteen has drawn from Seeger's songbook -- which he assembled in the '40s, '50s, and '60s from traditional folk songs -- and turned it into something fresh and contemporary. And even if you have no patience for (or interest in) the history of the songs, or their possible meanings, it's easy to enjoy We Shall Overcome on pure musical terms: it's a rambunctious, freewheeling, positively joyous record unlike any other in Springsteen's admittedly rich catalog. [We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was released in the U.S. as a DualDisc, containing a CD on one side and a DVD on the other. The CD side merely contains the album. The DVD contains the album in PCM stereo (there's no 5.1 mix, although given the big-band nature of this session, this album would have sounded great in Surround Sound), along with two bonus tracks, the rollicking "Buffalo Gals" and the moody, soulful "How Can I Keep from Singing." Both bonus cuts are excellent and should have been on the album proper. There is also a 30-minute video program that chronicles some of the recording of the album, but it's not a documentary: it's more of a performance film with commentary, and while it could have been longer or had more commentary, it's still quite enjoyable. Finally, We Shall Overcome also was released separately as a vinyl LP.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'Hammersmith Odeon, London '75'
Release Date 2/28/2006
Tracks 16
Label Sony
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 is the disc for those fans who didn't want to pony up the big money for the 30th anniversary edition of Born to Run and its two DVDs. This is the soundtrack for one of them, the Hammersmith Odeon concert, from beginning to end captured in vibrant sound. This show has been revered by tape traders and bootleggers for decades and never has it been presented better, thanks to Bob Clearmountain's fantastic mix. What makes this show so historically important is that it was the first time the band was able to travel overseas to play. (They were barred from doing so in the United States because of a legal battle with Springsteen's former manager.) In any case, well in advance of the gig the notorious British music weeklies began to create a pick-and-pan hype to build and topple a potential new rock messiah as they did all the time. Or, as Springsteen in his liner notes writes, "...this week's Next...Big...Thing." The band was terrified yet geeked to play the hallowed hall. These guys were scared; it fueled the gig, and they pulled it off in spades. They have everything to prove, and plenty to stare down. (Hell, the media hype almost made them the standard-bearers for the entire history of American rock, whether they wanted to be or not -- and they may not have believed it themselves, but they played like they felt the responsibility for it, overtly referencing Sam Cooke, Isaac Hayes, and even Boyce & Hart by including pieces of their tunes in Springsteen originals, showing where it all came from. And then, by using a portion of Celtic soulman Van Morrison's "Moondance" -- who was taking his own bit from David "Fathead" Newman's read of his former boss Ray Charles -- in "Kitty's Back," they reveal clearly that the Beatles, the Stones, and the Who were nowhere to be found on this night.) Most of all, the E Street Band had the quivering guts and naïveté to pull it off. These guys play their asses off; it's as if tomorrow they'll die, so what the hell. The tape proves this show to be adrenaline-filled and fear-drenched. This is a mind-blowing gig. It was filmed for preservation and forgotten about until being resurrected by Springsteen. The highlights? Hell, everything here. It begins with a tenderly desperate, under-orchestrated "Thunder Road," sprints head on into a burning "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" before whispering into a free jazz intro to a dramatic, swaggering "Spirit in the Night" that oozes street-smart Jersey soul. And the train never stops; it only slows a bit for moments at a time. And it's not for the band to catch its breath; it's for the crowd, whether it's the frighteningly intense "Lost in the Flood," the shuffling country roots rock that introduces the rollicking "She's the One," or the swaggering anthem of "Born to Run," which only take listeners through a little over half of the first disc! They had the audience after "Spirit," but they were into something deeper, wilder -- check the spit and vinegar in "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" -- so they kept pushing harder. This was a young band that musically was as good as anybody on that night. They were rehearsed, confident, and armed with a collection of songs that virtually any musician worth his or her salt would kill to have written even one of. Disc two offers no letdown. There's arguably the single most intense read of "Jungleland" on tape, and a riotously joyful version of "Rosalita" to counter the theater of darkness just visited upon the crowd in the previous song. This version of "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" is pure street urchin romance taken to the nth level. The E Streeters' read of the "Detroit Medley" is an homage to Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, whose scorching takes on Little Richard's "Jenny Take a Ride," "Devil with a Blue Dress," and "Good Golly Miss Molly" offer spiritual inspiration. They stay on full stun with "For You" and cap it all with "Quarter to Three," leaving the crowd to fall back into the night, wondering if they could believe what they'd just witnessed. Springsteen himself says the night was a blur to him and he never looked back for 30 years at the film or even listened to the show. While the soundtrack is only half the experience of the Hammersmith Odeon 1975 document, it's a worthy half and a necessary set to add to any Springsteen live shelf. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Every decade or so, Bruce Springsteen releases a somber album of narrative songs, character sketches, and folk tunes -- records that play not like rock & roll, but rather as a collection of short stories. Nebraska, released in the fall of 1982 during the rise of Reagan's America, was the first of these, with the brooding The Ghost of Tom Joad following in 1995, in the thick of the Clinton administration but before the heady boom days of the late '90s. At the midpoint of George W. Bush's administration, Springsteen released Devils & Dust, another collection of story songs that would seem on the surface to be a companion to Nebraska and Ghost, but in actuality is quite a different record than either. While the characters that roam through Devils & Dust are similarly heartbroken, desperate, and downtrodden, they're far removed from the criminals and renegades of Nebraska, and the album doesn't have the political immediacy of Ghost's latter-day Woody Guthrie-styled tales -- themes that tied together those two albums. Here, the songs and stories are loosely connected. Several are set in the West, some are despairing, some have signs of hope, a couple are even sweet and light. Springsteen's writing is similarly varied, occasionally hearkening back to the spare, dusty prose of Nebraska, but often it's densely composed, assured, and evocative, written as if the songs were meant to be read aloud, not sung. But the key to Devils & Dust, and why it's his strongest record in a long time, is that the music is as vivid and varied as the words. Unlike the meditative, monochromatic The Ghost of Tom Joad, this has different shades of color, so somber epics like "The Hitter" or the sad, lonely "Reno" are balanced by the lighter "Long Time Comin'," "Maria's Bed," and "All I'm Thinkin' About," while the moodier "Black Cowboys" and "Devils & Dust" are enhanced by subtly cinematic productions. It results in a record that's far removed in feel from the stark, haunting Nebraska, but on a song-for-song level, it's nearly as strong, since its stories linger in the imagination as long as the ones from that 1982 masterpiece (and they stick around longer than those from Ghost, as well). Devils & Dust is also concise and precisely constructed, two things the otherwise excellent 2002 comeback The Rising was not, and that sharp focus helps make this the leanest, artiest, and simply best Springsteen record in many years. [Devils & Dust was released only as a DualDisc, a disc that contains a CD on one side and a DVD on the flip. The DVD contains a 5.1 mix of the album, plus a 30-minute film containing interviews with Springsteen and footage of him performing five songs live in the upstairs of a house; in other words, it's a staged performance, not a concert. The interviews are enjoyable, if not particularly interesting, while the live acoustic performances are not strictly unadorned -- "Reno" has pianos and synthesizers discreetly murmuring in the background, "All I'm Thinkin' About" has synths and backing vocals. It's a fine little film, but not something that merits frequent repeat viewings. The CD side appears to be copy-protected -- it did not read in either a PC with Windows XP or a Mac with OSX, so it cannot easily be ripped as MP3s.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"Yes, life is very confusing, we're just trying to get on with it." -- Art Carney as Harry Coomes in Harry and Tonto. The many voices that come out of the ether on Bruce Springsteen's The Rising all seem to have two things in common: the first is that they are writing from the other side, from the day after September 11, 2001, the day when life began anew, more uncertain than ever before. The other commonality that these voices share is the determination that life, however fraught with tragedy and confusion, is precious and should be lived as such. This is a lot for a rock album by a popular artist to claim, but perhaps it's the only thing there is worth anything. On this reunion with the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen offers 15 meditations -- in grand rock & roll style -- on his own way of making sense of the senseless. The band is in fine form, though with Brendan O'Brien's uncanny production, they play with an urgency and rawness they've seldom shown. This may not have been the ideal occasion for a reunion after 15 years, but it's one they got, and they go for broke. The individual tracks offer various glimpses of loss, confusion, hope, faith, resolve, and a good will that can only be shown by those who have been tested by fire. The music and production is messy, greasy; a lot of the mixes bleed tracks onto one another, giving it a more homemade feel than any previous E Street Band outing. And yes, that's a very good thing. The set opens with "Lonesome Day," a midtempo rocker with country-ish roots. Springsteen's protagonist admits to his or her shortcomings in caring for the now-absent beloved. But despite the grief and emptiness, there is a wisdom that emerges in questioning what remains: "Better ask questions before you shoot/Deceit and betrayal's bitter fruit/It's hard to swallow come time to pay/That taste on your tongue don't easily slip away/Let kingdom come/I'm gonna find my way/ Through this lonesome day." Brendan O'Brien's hurdy-gurdy cuts through the mix like a ghost, offering a view of an innocent past that has been forever canceled because it never was anyway; the instrument, like the glockenspiels that trim Bruce Springsteen's songs, offers not only texture, but a kind of formalist hint that possibilities don't always lie in the future. In contrast, "Into the Fire" seems to be sung from the perspective of a deceased firefighter's remaining partner who, despite her/his unfathomable loss, offers a prayer of affirmation, and the request to embody the same qualities he or she displayed in paying the ultimate price for selflessness. A Dobro and acoustic guitar bring in the ghost of a mountain melody, and Max Weinberg's muted snare and tom-tom rhythm offer the solemnity of the lyric before Roy Bittan and Danny Federici shift the gears and offer a nearly symphonic crescendo on the refrain: "May your strength bring us strength/may your faith give us faith/May your hope give us hope/May your love give us love." The second time through, the last line subtly changes to "May your love bring us love." While the band is in full flower, the keys are muted under sonic ambience and the snaky lone acoustic guitar and Weinberg's thundering processional drumming. Likewise, the revelatory rock & roll on "Worlds Apart," complete with a knife-edged wail of a guitar solo by Springsteen that soars around a Sufi choir is not only a manner of adding exotica to the mix, but another way of saying that all cultures are in this together, and it unwittingly reveals that great rock can be made with virtually any combination of musicians. It's a true scorcher. "Further On (Up the Road)" is a straight-ahead rocker complete with knotty riffs and plenty of rootsed-out, greasy guitar overdrive -- most of the album does, but that's one of O'Brien's strengths as a producer -- that are evocative of Mike Ness and Social Distortion's late efforts. Lest anyone mistakenly perceive this recording as a somber evocation of loss and despair, it should also be stated that this is very much an E Street Band recording. Clarence Clemons is everywhere, and the R&B swing and slip of the days of yore is in the house -- especially on "Waitin' for a Sunny Day," "Countin' on a Miracle," "Mary's Place" (with a full horn section), and the souled-out "Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)." These tracks echo the past with their loose good-time feel, but "echo" is the key word. Brendan O'Brien's guitar-accented production offers us an E Street Band coming out of the ether and stepping in to fill a void. The songs themselves are, without exception, rooted in loss, but flower with the possibility of moving into what comes next, with a hard-won swagger and busted-up grace. They offer balance and a shifting perspective, as well as a depth that is often deceptive. The last of these is a bona fide love song, without which, in rock & roll anyway, no real social commentary is possible. The title track is one of Mr. Springsteen's greatest songs. It is an anthem, but not in the sense you usually reference in regard to his work. This anthem is an invitation to share everything, to accept everything, to move through everything individually and together. Power-chorded guitars and pianos entwine in the choruses with a choir, and Clemons wails on a part with a stinging solo. Here too, the chantlike chorus is nearly in symphonic contrast to the country-ish verse, but it hardly matters, as everything inside and outside the track gets swept into this "dream of life." The album closes with "Paradise," a haunting and haunted narrative offered from the point of view of a suicide bomber and a studio version of "My City of Ruins." These songs will no doubt confuse some as they stand in seemingly sharp contrast to one another, but in "My City of Ruins," all contradictions cease to matter. With acoustic pianos and subtley shimmering Memphis soul-style guitars that give way to a Hammond B-3 and a gospel choir, Springsteen sings "rise up" without artifice. In this "churchlike" confessional of equanimity, Springsteen reaches out to embrace not only his listeners, but all of the protagonists in the aforementioned songs and their circles of families and friends. The album ends with an acknowledgement of grace and an exhortation to action. With The Rising, Springsteen has found a way to be inclusive and instructive without giving up his particular vision as a songwriter, nor his considerable strength as a rock & roll artist. In fact, if anything, The Rising is one of the very best examples in recent history of how popular art can evoke a time period and all of its confusing and often contradictory notions, feelings, and impulses. There are tales of great suffering in The Rising to be sure, but there is joy, hope, and possibility, too. Above all, there is a celebration and reverence for everyday life. And if we need anything from rock & roll, it's that. It would be unfair to lay on Bruce Springsteen the responsibility of guiding people through the aftermath of a trag
'Live in New York City'
Release Date 3/27/2001
Tracks 20
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Compared to the gargantuan Live/1975-85, 2001's Live in New York City seems like the very definition of restraint, but consider this -- not only does it span two discs, it leaves out a considerable portion of the set list from the show and thereby the set list of Springsteen's celebrated 2000 reunion with the E Street Band. Some critics complained that this record was little more than a tie-in to the HBO special of the same name, but even if that's true, the record would have merit since it illustrates exactly why this group should never have parted ways. In a sense, even if this is the third live album in Springsteen's catalog, it's the first that attempts to replicate the feeling of an evening out with the E Street Band (the Live/1975-85 box tried too hard to be an ultimate experience; MTV Plugged captured a transitional phase). Though most reunions feel a little forced, this feels natural, yet never nostalgic, since the track listing never relies on the predictable. There are no hits in the conventional sense -- outside of "Born in the U.S.A." tucked away on the second disc and an initially uncredited "Born to Run" -- but there are many fan favorites interspersed with a few obscurities and new songs, most notoriously the protest song "American Skin (41 Shots)." This works in Springsteen's favor, since there's no pandering -- only the joy of making music with the band that understands him best. This doesn't really result in something essential, even if the new songs are quite good, but if you've ever been a fan, it's hard not to warm to Live in New York City. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'The Ghost of Tom Joad'
Release Date 1/1/1995
Tracks 12
Label Sony Japan
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What The Critics Say
In 1982, with Ronald Reagan in the White House and much of America torn between a newly fierce patriotism and the dispassionate conservatism of the dawning "Greed Is Good" era, a number of roots-oriented rock musicians began examining the State of the Union in song, and one of the most powerful albums to come out of this movement was Bruce Springsteen's stark, home-recorded masterpiece Nebraska. In 1995, Bill Clinton was president, America was congratulating itself for a new era of high-tech peace and prosperity, and Springsteen returned to the themes and approach of Nebraska with The Ghost of Tom Joad, an album that suggested little had changed in the past 13 years -- except Americans had gotten better at ignoring the increasingly sharp divide between the rich and the poor, and that illegal aliens who had come to America looking for the fabled Land of Milk and Honey were being forced to shoulder a heavy and dangerous burden in America's underground economy. With several of its songs drawn directly from news stories, The Ghost of Tom Joad is more explicitly political than Nebraska (more so than anything in Springsteen's catalog, for that matter), and while the arrangements are more full-bodied than those on Nebraska (five cuts feature a full band), the production and the overall tone is, if anything, even starker and more low-key, with the lyrics all the more powerful for their spare backdrops. While there's an undertow of bitterness in this album's tales of an America that has turned its back on the working class and the foreign-born, there's also a tremendous compassion in songs like "The Line," "Sinaloa Cowboys," "Balboa Park," and the title cut, which lend their subjects a dignity fate failed to give them. Individually, these songs, either angry or plaintive, are clean and expertly drawn tales of life along this nation's margins, and their cumulative effect is nothing short of heartbreaking; anyone who pegged Springsteen as a zealously patriotic conservative in the wake of the widely misunderstood Born in the U.S.A. needs to hear this disc. The Ghost of Tom Joad failed to find the same audience (or the same wealth of media attention) that embraced Nebraska, but on it's own terms it's a striking and powerful album, and certainly one of Springsteen's most deeply personal works. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
'In Concert/MTV Plugged'
Release Date 1/1/1993
Tracks 26
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Released in Europe to coincide with Bruce Springsteen's spring 1993 tour of the continent, this album is a 13-track, nearly 72-minute audio version of Springsteen's video concert broadcast on MTV in the fall of 1992. It was part of the network's Unplugged series, but after performing the first, previously unheard song "Red Headed Woman" alone on guitar, Springsteen shouted, "All right, let's rock it!," and departed from the acoustic format. (The album's title has an "X" drawn through the "Un" of "Unplugged.") Eight of the selections come from Springsteen's 1992 albums Human Touch and Lucky Town, and the relatively minor tracks from the former benefit from being sequenced among the more ambitious songs from the latter and such old favorites as "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Thunder Road." Though Springsteen and his new band don't "rock it" too hard for the most part, a notable exception is a performance of the previously unrecorded "Light of Day," a title song Springsteen wrote for a 1987 movie. Here, he gives a taste of the enthusiasm and spontaneity he can bring to his live performances. But this is an album of small pleasures rather than a major performance statement. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
