as i said i would yesterday, the following is my review of springsteen’s latest album, magic.

caveat:
if you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you probably are probably already aware of my deep & abiding appreciation of bruce as an artist. i am a fan, an unabashed one at that. you’ve been warned. :>

overview:
while i’m accustomed to listening to a bruce tune and finding within it something personal that he’s sharing in the characters and stories he creates, this album marks a turn towards more explicit political commentary in his music than we’ve seen from him in the past. it took me a while to understand that’s what i was seeing here: i chalk that up to a case of not seeing what you don’t expect to see even when it’s staring you in the face.

however, i think that he’s done a good job of making the commentary secondary to the stories he wants to tell. across 12 songs total, politics clearly takes a backseat to the stories he wants to tell, as for most of the album he isn’t really talking about good governance and his views on it: he’s talking about relationships, fears, all the things that are so universal.

overall: there’s a certain nostalgic quality in listening to this new album: he sorta scours a lot of the style of previous albums. there’s stuff that i could easily have seen being on the radio in the 70s, 80s and even 90s. as a fan of the old “fire & brimstone” bruce, circa born to run, i was tickled to hear the echoes of those earlier incarnations of bruce. at the same time however, there are new sounds and styles that he’s exploring here, esp tracks 4 and 6 (your own worst enemy and girls in their summer clothes, respectively) sound nothing like any springsteen songs you’ve ever heard before.

and i gotta say, it’s exciting to see that after this many years in the business, he’s still growing as an artist. read on if you wanna see how.

methodology:
i am listening to each track a few times, at least three, before advancing to the next track, so i’m really trying to get a feel for each track before sampling what’s next on the album. that’s slowed the actual writing process for me so i missed my self-imposed deadline of getting this posted mid-afternoon (EDT) today, but hey, i’d rather be sure what i’m saying actually makes sense rather than meet an arbitrary timetable that ultimately has no consequences attached to being ignored. :>

track by track review (a separate, complete track list appears at the end of this review):
most album reviews have limitations on space owing to the fact that they appear in print media. well, this isn’t print media, so to heck with that! i’m a very opinionated guy, so i’m gonna hold forth at great length and review each track. heh…according to MS word, this is 2043 words. let’s see rolling stone write over 2k words about a bruce album! :>

1. radio nowhere: OK, i guess i lied when i said that i successfully avoided hearing radio nowhere: i have heard pieces of it here and there. “is there anybody alive out there?” is the question in the first chorus, but the funny thing about this is that bruce is talking about making a connection, a chord he hasn’t really struck this clearly and explicitly since tunnel of love in 1987, in which his then-dissolving marriage to julianne philips was so clearly chronicled. but don’t get me wrong: this is most clearly a song written to be performed with the e streeters—no question about it! i’ve always felt that bruce is best experienced while driving, windows open and the volume cranked, and this is yet more evidence thereof.

2. you’ll be comin’ down: i’m on my second track of the album and already i’m wondering already if this album’s theme isn’t entropy. granted, bruce hasn’t really ever exactly been a pollyanna or anything—my former “girlfriend” k always knew i was depressed if i was listening to bruce—but this track about the fleeting nature of happiness as the second track on the album has me wondering about the roads down which he’s been running lately. listening to this song without listening to the lyrics, you miss everything about it: it doesn’t really sound that dark, but dark it is.

3. livin’ in the future: a track that recalls the sound of his older stuff, like most of darkness on the edge of town or even hungry heart off of the river with the keyboards and that introductory solo by clarence—indeed, it sounds like something he might’ve pulled off an old jersey shore playlist from his early days, and the lyrics recall the fiery wordslinging pyrotechnics of greetings from asbury park and the wild, the innocent & the e street shuffle.

4. your own worst enemy: this is a song that doesn’t sound like any incarnation of bruce you’ve ever heard before—indeed, it sounds reminiscent of mid-career beatles to me, specifically paperback writer—and accordingly, i’m wondering if this represents of bruce-to-come. indeed, were it performed by someone else, i’d never guess it was written by him. i like that it’s difference, a departure, both in terms of songwriting as well as what he demands of himself vocally. while his singing voice has always been, to put it charitably, more to be appreciated than enjoyed even for most fans, he writes for his range well and does a good job covering it. what’s interesting to me about the lyrics here is that as a rule, bruce’s lyrics are rarely explicit and clear about the subject he’s really addressing, yet he’s both here. a very interesting departure.

5. gypsy river: a more conventionally bruce composition, the familiar element of being alienated from others and escape are here in that perennial favorite metaphor of addressing both: the motorcycle. honestly, as i was listening to verse 1, i was thinking about my buddy hunter. good stuff, although i’m liking this least of all the tracks on the album thus far. perhaps that it absolutely needs to be experienced with the wind in your hair.

6. girls in their summer clothes: like track 4, your own worst enemy, this doesn’t sound like a typical springsteen song to me. indeed, one might even at first call it an updated version of the old doo wop tune, “i’m a girl watcher” by the OKaysions on first hearing it. but subsequent listenings, it’s another meditation on trying to make a connection to escape isolation, very familiar territory for bruce, which is brought home more clearly by the keyboard in the chorus, which invokes the shore sound. pet peeve: i was irritated to find a grammar problem in the liner notes (it’s supposed to be “they’re”, not “their”, damn it!).

7. i’ll work for your love: in the past few years, it’s been interesting to see bruce work through some of his thoughts about religion and faith, although despite the explicit catholic imagery present in these lyrics and the fact that this song strikes me as ultimately being about the transformative power of redemptive love, this isn’t what he’s doing in this track: it’s a declaration of love. and i love it. very classically bruce writing, both lyrics and music as well as instrumentation. i can easily see this being slipped into sequences, during concerts, with his older material. for that reason as well as what it’s about, this is my favorite track on the album.

8. magic: ah, the album’s title track…i always think that title tracks are a bit tricky to review in that obviously, the artist perceives them as possessing the weight to sustain to tie together a whole set of other songs, so to me, it’s incumbent upon a reviewer to address the question of why the artist chose to name the album for this particular song. as with other songs on this album, this represents a departure lyrically and musically from what i might immediately associate as being bruce-like. and i’ll confess, this one took me more than a few re-readings/listenings to understand.

what’s interesting to me about this track is that he’s talking about stage magic and what it can do, yet with each verse what stage magic can do keeps increasing so that he goes from first talking about small tricks like making a coin disappear to the verse in which he speaks of the fires of hell on earth, as the chorus repeats “this is what will be/this is what will be”.

one might think that the theme of this album becomes clear at this point, that it truly is about entropy, inexorable destruction…except for springsteen’s known political activism. and with this, i think it becomes clear that he’s talking about the deceptions perpetrated upon the american people by the bush administration.

9. last to die: there are echoes (musically) of various parts of tunnel of love (the album) in this track, too, and its theme of relationship woes and fights would make me wonder what’s going on in the springsteen household if not for the fact that springsteen’s music is never really about himself anymore—when he was younger, sure. but the theme of dissolution of things that matter to the speaker seem to find it a place on this disc. however, i can easily see this being re-contextualized as political commentary, esp during a concert when he can deliver one of his (in)famous long intros.

10. long walk home: this one has echoes of my hometown off of born in the USA but gets as close as he ever does in his music to commenting explicitly on politics: “you know that flag/flying over the courthouse/means certain things are set in stone/who we are, what we’ll do/and what we won’t” [emphasis mine]. about returning to a previous point in life, the narrator is talking about such returns in a very personal way but as springsteen often does, he extends something very personal this out into a larger context for the rest of us.

11. devil’s arcade: it isn’t often one hears violins in the intro to a springsteen song! this one i’m interpreting as a meditation on the life of a soldier deployed in the middle east. again, bruce isn’t big on speaking explicitly about politics in his music IMX, so this along with magic are destined to be blogosphere-fodder, i think, esp given the ever-spiraling stridency of political discussions online.

12. [untitled]: the album is dedicated to the late terry macgovern, who worked alongside bruce for the past 23 years as his assistant, and this untitled track is in his memory. slow and elegiac, there’s no title and no lyrics in the liner notes. i did a little checking and learned that apparently, it’s already got an unofficial title: terry’s song. it’s a shame not to know the actual title or to have the lyrics, b/c it’s a beautiful memory. RIP, terry.

summary:
solid album, the tracks on it are tied together pretty well thematically. i do like the decision to release radio nowhere as a single: i think it’s pretty representative of the rest of the album. if you want to hear it, you can find the video at amazon.

magic isn’t going to supplant either born to run or the rising (my two favorite albums by him, in that order) on my faves list. i sincerely doubt anything ever could, though, and i know i’m gonna spend many, many happy hours listening to this.

thank you, bruce.

track list:
1. radio nowhere
2. you’ll be comin’ down
3. livin’ in the future
4. your own worst enemy
5. gypsy river
6. girls in their summer clothes
7. i’ll work for your love
8. magic
9. last to die
10. long walk home
11. devil’s arcade
12. [untitled] (terry’s song?)