bruce springsteen

Least and Most: Wrecking Ball

/ Tony / 3 Comments

It must have been a strange time for the man they call The Boss as 2012’s Wrecking Ball arrived. Entering into his fifth decade of releasing albums, two members of his E Street Band having passed, his albums still hitting the top spot on release but quickly dropping out of view of the charts. Meanwhile he’s a very wealthy man while so many of his fans are facing the brunt of the then-economical issues America was facing. Some, if not all, of these themes are tackled on Wrecking Ball which marked a departure from Brendan O’Brien and the start of his work with Ron Aniello.

Since the comeback of The Rising, each of Springsteen’s albums had something to say about the times in which they were released. From that album’s 911 backdrop came the war-protesting Devils and Dust, Magic‘s swipe at Bush and even … The Seeger Session‘s choice of protest songs was clearly pointed while Working On A Dream seemed a celebration of Obama’s arrival. Wrecking Ball adds the plight of the downtrodden into the mix and seems to aim for a sound that touches on each previous but falls a little short and seems to have forgotten the sense of fun that had been present on so many of his previous albums and replaced it with too many songs where it feels that the words took more focus than the tune and Aniello’s stapled-on effects take the place of a full-band sound; Wrecking Ball contains contributions from several E Street Band members (notable absences include Nils Lofgren, Garry Tallent and Roy Bittan) on a couple of tracks but with most instruments handled by Springsteen, Aniello and various session players.

It’s not a bad Bruce album, though. The songwriting is stronger than Working On A Dream, there’s more consistently good songs and the mix of performers – putting this somewhere between a ‘solo’ album and his ‘other band’ albums of the early ’90s in that respect – works well. There’s a lot to enjoy despite a few howlers, and listening back to it for this I’ve enjoyed it more than previously. Of course, I’ve still go no time for..

Least: Easy Money

Here I could go for the neutering and mangling of ‘Land of Hope and Dreams.’I could swing for the dour trod of ‘Jack of All Trades’. But, ‘Easy Money’…. it just feels so false. It’s an example of Aniello’s production choices that feel tacked-on and, despite the summon-the-masses, foot stomp approach of the song it’s too bloody slight in its substance. There are some heavy handed takes in the first verse but the most frequent lyric in this, literally, ‘(Na-na-na-na-na) Whoa! Whoa! (Na-na-na-na) Whoa! Whoa!’. This and ‘Shackled and Drawn’ sit together as what happens when the dourness of Aniello’s production sucks the air out of songs that aim for …The Seeger Sessions‘ lightness of foot.

Most: We Take Care of Our Own

It was almost too obvious a choice for Obama to use this in his re-election campaign. This is Springsteen at his best – a real call to arms that doesn’t hammer any point too hard but packs plenty of punch. It sounds fresh, akin to his then new-found friends in Gaslight Anthem or Arcade Fire, and relevant. Much like ‘Born In The U.S.A’ it’s an fist-pumper with a bitter current beneath it but that doesn’t overshadow it. Here Aniello’s touch is light and, released as the lead-off single for the album, it felt like a promise of more to come. Also worth paying attention to are ‘Death to My Hometown’, ‘This Depression’, ‘Rocky Ground’, ‘We Are Alive’, ‘This Depression’ and ‘Swallowed Up (In The Belly of The Whale).’

Least and Most: Working on a Dream

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Coming in hot off the back of writing for Magic, Springsteen dropped Working On A Dream a little over a year after that album – his shortest gap between albums for some time. ‘What Love Can Do’ was written toward the end of sessions for the former, but not fitting there and feeling like it was the start of something ‘else’, Brendan O’Brien encouraged Bruce to keep writing for a new album with another handful of songs arriving over the next week.

Working On A Dream is definitely a different beast to Magic. While there Springsteen’s approach to recording with O’Brien and the E Street Band – working with a core group of himself, Max Weinberg, Gary Tallent and Roy Bittan and with additional parts added on later – worked for the leaner, meaner sound that suited the theme of Magic, the songs on Working On A Dream are made for bigger stuff, a painting with more colours with Springsteen trying to use less of a ‘rock’ voice and while the E Street Band could make these songs sound as huge as they presumably were in the Boss’s head, the process here means that band has never sounded quite so constrained and tiny.

Least: Queen of the Supermarket

Not only does this song emphasis the above points of production flaws – all the tacked on layers sound too much like veneer when a big, unbridled band sound could’ve made it soar – it’s just a naff song: our hero has literally gone from singing songs of chrome-wheeled, fuel injected love with Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor to actually singing about pushing a fucking shopping cart and finding “a dream (that) awaits in aisle number two.” FFS, Bruce. And someone had the bright idea of having the fucking barcode scanner ‘bleeps’ in the fade out. Thunder Road has been swapped for a fucking Sainsburys.

Best: My Lucky Day

My Lucky Day is a relatively fast, blistering tune that sounds like a blast was had recording it. Plus, in the context of this album, its fast, rawer sound – at odds with the layers of overdubs etc that blight the aimed-for sound that drapes so much of the album – means its one of the songs on Working On A Dream that works from a production / sound perspective. It’s also surprisingly – given its faster tempo – a wonderful little love song complete with both a guitar and sax solo.

Least and Most: Magic

/ Tony / 6 Comments

There’s little competition for Magic as Springsteen’s finest ‘post reunion’ albums, in my opinion at least. Yes, The Rising has the joy of a rekindled E Street Band and more than many an album’s share of good tunes but Magic is the album that captures the sense of an artist and band now confident in their ‘second wind’ and an established relationship with produce Brendan O’Brien working at strength.

The other element that sells it for me is that while some dismissed this album as ‘just another collection of songs’ these songs are all tied together with a sense of foreboding, a distaste and often anger at the then-current state of America (which probably seem like the halcyon days now) with lines like “Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake/Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break” or “tell me is that rolling thunder or just the sinking sound of something righteous going under” – all backed by the muscular heft of the E Street Band.

Least: Girls In Their Summer Clothes

I know this is probably among the least popular of my ‘least’ takes – at least considering it’s the second most streamed track on the album by a long way – but there’s something about ‘Girls In Their Summer Clothes’ that’s just never sat right with me. It feels too stodgy to be the lighter ‘fun’ song on the album -like ‘Mary’s Place’ or ‘Waitin’ On A Sunny Day’ on The Rising – and Springsteen’s vocal take sounds surprisingly flat or almost disinterested… with a little less heavy a sound it would probably fit better on Springsteen’s next album. Which in itself isn’t a good thing either…

Most: Gypsy Biker

In which Springsteen takes his Vietnam-vet song ‘Shut Out The Light’s “Bobby pulled his Ford out of the garage and they polished up the chrome” line and updates it for a more modern war. In keeping with the heavier-hitting bitterness with which Magic bristles against the decisions of the US, this time instead of the relief of “I’m so glad to have you back with me,” it’s a coffin that’s come home and the cycle is being pulled from the garage to be burnt in the foothills with the kiss-off ” now all that remains is my love for you brother, lying still and unchanged. To them that threw you away, you ain’t nothin’ but gone.”

Least and Most: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Left turn? More like a different road entirely. Springsteen, clearly relishing his career’s rebirth, released three studio albums that varied from each other more than at any other phase of his career. A new E Street Band album was surely on the cards after the success of The Rising but Bruce had a few things to tick off the list first and even that came about via a change in plan.

While putting together material for a planned second Tracks collection, Springsteen found a few songs that he’d cut for a Pete Seeger tribute album. Enthused by the quality and feel of these songs Bruce and Landau wanted to put them out as a stand alone album, except that there weren’t enough. So around the tour behind Devils & Dust, Bruce got the group of musicians that he’d used in ’97 back together for a couple of sessions and cut a shit load more tunes for what was not only his first collection of covers (of folk songs popularised by Seeger) but probably the least obsessed-over album of his career. A volley of great folk tunes – that manage to sound neither entirely Seeger or Springsteen in its approach – that’s not only rough and rowdy but actually sounds like a huge amount of fun was had in recording it.

Least: Froggie Went A Courtin’

‘Froggie Went A Courtin’ closes my copy of We Shall Overcome – as I picked mine up on day of release rather than the later ‘American Land’ version or bonus-track heavy one that’s on the streaming services. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s still imbued with the same loose-but-fun and solid vibe as the rest of the album but at the end of an album imbued with tunes that lean into work songs, protests tunes and narratives that not only fit in with the general Springsteen ouvre but could also be taken to be deliberately selected based on America’s then-current events… it feels out of place. That’s all. At least it’s not ‘The Frog Chorus’.

Most: Mrs McGrath

I can’t really judge any of these songs on anything other than their handling as ‘a Springsteen song’ – though I’ve heard a few versions of this one since – rather than against the originals. For my money ‘Mrs McGrath’ feels so suited to Bruce and his arrangement and handling of it is so total that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find he’d written it. Given that his own writing – both with ‘Devils & Dusht’ and the central theme of Magic was already pushing in the direction covered by this Irish folk song it shouldn’t really be that unexpected. He inhabits it and delivers it with more passion than anything else on here and I’ve often found myself wondering how it would be handled by him outside of the Seeger Sessions Band.

Least and Most: Devils and Dust

/ Tony / 5 Comments

If you look at Springsteen’s discography you’d think that every ten years or so he has an itch to go and write and release a more acoustic leaning, serious album of character-driven narrative. In that respect Devils & Dust – recorded following a short break after touring behind The Rising – fits right in on that schedule.

One important factor to note here, though, is that this isn’t quite the case. While a couple of the songs on Devils & Dust had been heard on his Ghost of Tom Joad tour (often called the ‘Shut the fuck up tour’), the only confirmed new song on here is the title track, the rest had all been recorded by Springsteen between 1995 and 1997, so either during or immediately after Tom Joad but he’d not felt the time was right to drop another acoustic album straight away. Nor, though, did he want these songs to be resigned to the vault either. So Brendan O’Brien was on hand once again to add his enhancements and touches to the core material Springsteen had already recorded, and the new title track.

Whether we’ll ever find out what elements were added or recorded afresh is doubtful. What’s certainly true, though, is that the sonic touches added to the songs on Devils & Dust help it stand apart from Springsteen’s other such albums and lend it a fuller feeling.

So: twelve tracks, all gold? No. There’s a lot of good, solid song craft here as with all Springsteen albums but there are a few tracks that don’t hold up quite as well.

Least: Reno

There was way too much attention given to this song at the time. It’s a bland tune on the musical front and lyrically… well, if we ever wondered how miserable Springsteen thinks getting a hooker in a motel room somewhere would be at least we have the answer here. There’s no need for this song, it’s almost comical how he manages to combine references to the price of anal, blowjobs and a prostitute fingering herself with the oddest with ‘she had your ankles, I felt filled with grace.’ Guy gets a miserable experience with a hooker and distracts himself with reminisces of a former love. Not top of anyone’s wishlist for a Springsteen song.

Best: Devils & Dust

‘Long Time Comin’, ‘All I’m Thinkin’ About’, ‘All The Way Home’ are pretty strong tunes but for my money the newest song on the album is the strongest. The arrangement is probably that which benefits the most from O’Brien’s involvement and it works today as well as it did when the Iraq war was still Springsteen’s focus du jour and the song served as a signpost to wear his songwriting was heading (following a slight detour) on the next full band outing: combining his scathing view of then administration’s decision to lyrics that could be applied out of context and a great tune.

Least and Most: The Rising

/ Tony / 6 Comments

After a relative glut of new music through the ’90s, Springsteen would release five new studio albums before the first decade of the new millennium was out. All but one of these would be produced Brendan O’Brien who, starting with The Rising, would help bring Springsteen and the E Street Band’s sound into a sharper, more urgent focus for the next phase of their career after Bruce himself had realised that he (and his usual recording team) no longer knew how to really capture the band in the studio.

On what was billed as his first album with the E Street Band since Born In The USA (they were used only sporadically on Tunnel of Love) and Springsteen returning to his ‘rock voice’ are fifteen songs of consistent quality and message. Wrapped around the unspoken event of 9/11 from which all songs are pitched from the other side of (though some have their origins in those ’90s albums yet to be released) all deal with how to move forward from that day with the all too clear sense of how vital, yet fragile, our lives are.

It’s by both not naming the event itself and the sheer quality of its songs that The Rising continues to stand up as a strong album in Springsteen’s catalogue nearly a quarter-century on. It was the start of his comeback and rebirth and bristles with a vitality that we’d hoped he and the band could still bring to a studio album.

Fifteen tracks, though, is a chunky album and hints at the old cd-bloat era. Are they all good? Should ‘Harry’s Place’ sneaked in instead of something, should the scissors have been taken out of the drawer for a trimmer album? For the most part I’d say no. The songs are strong and, occasionally, fucking brilliant. But for one, that is….

Least: Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)

There are two outliers on this album for me that feel like echoes of the former E Street Band sound as opposed to the vigour with which most of the new material is delivered. While ‘Waitin’ On A Sunny Day’ gets a pass from me, ‘Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)’ always gets the ‘skip’ button. It lacks the cohesion of over songs, sounds under-realised and very much like a product of studio-writing / shoving ideas together.

Most: Worlds Apart

An absolute peach of a Springsteen tune that couldn’t have come at any other time. The sound, the mix, the vitality of the band, the combination of eastern and western voices, the lyrics swirling the subject between the personal – ‘I seek faith in your kiss and comfort in your heart’ – and the universal, searing guitars and an E Street Band fucking hammering it home. This song, more than any on here – and it’s packed with great tunes including the title track – is proof that while this may be Springsteen’s return to his ‘rock voice’ it’s O’Brien’s production that gives it the oomph it had been missing.

Least and Most: The Ghost of Tom Joad

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Three years, an Academy Award, an awkward E Street Band reunion, a Greatest Hits with a cluster of ‘new’ songs, and at least one scrapped album sit between Springsteen’s first albums of the the ’90s and The Ghost of Tom Joad‘s release in November 1995.

I love this album. It’s only grown on me over the years. It’s easily the most musically subdued in his entire back catalogue – with arrangements even starker than Nebraska – yet its beauty lies in those quiet moments and his willingness to paint striking stories with the slightest of brushes. It’s also worth noting that when that brush flushes with colour in the style of, say, the flush of keys on “Dry Lightning”, it’s down to Danny Federici. While it was clearly another left-turn after the short-lived E Street reunion for Greatest Hits, it’s his most consistent set of songs for some time. Rather than grappling with coming to terms with his wealth and status, Springsteen’s eye is turned outward for a compelling set of stories of those that America had turned its back on – working class, foreign born – by the mid-nineties. As the man himself puts it: “the austere rhythms and arrangements defined who these people were and how they expressed themselves….They were transient and led heard, complicated lives, half of which had been left behind in another world, in another country.”

Least: My Best Was Never Good Enough

Springsteen, in ‘Songs’, describes this as his ‘parting joke’ and a way of satirising the way that complex moral issues can be trivialised. Maybe it’s over my head but I’m not sure the album needed a final ‘gag’ song. It feels a bit like ‘Pony Boy’ slapped at the end of Human Touch as if to lighten the listener. It’s not an inherently bad song – none of these ‘leasts’ are – but it’s far from my favourite on the album and doesn’t really sit shoulder to shoulder with the title track, ‘Youngstown’, the compassion of ‘The Line’ or ‘Sinaloa Cowboys’ or…

Most: Galveston Bay

In a way I feel ‘Galveston Bay’ is one of Springsteen’s bravest songs as a songwriter: the lyrics and the story are of the highest quality but the music is so whisper-thin (delicate picking that’s more intonation than melody and the softest of keys, both courtesy of Springsteen, the only credited performer on the track) yet it demands your attention throughout. There’s no verse / chorus / verse structure here – there are two opening stanzas – as this feels more prose than song – that introduce the two characters without an indication of where we’re heading before tackling a theme straight from a real life event in Seadrift in 1979, tackling – in just five minutes – one hell of a story. A harrowing but redemptive story about how, after getting to a certain point, people can actually make the right choice instead of a deadly choice. It’s more a short story set to music.

I’ve been hooked on ‘Galveston Bay’ since I first heard The Ghost of Tom Joad and that hook has only sunk deeper as time moves on.

Least and Most: Lucky Town

/ Tony / 3 Comments

In theory I should have released this post on the same day as that for Human Touch, right? If only this weren’t a massively busy month for me professionally and personally I may well have done.

However, that does lead me nicely to my thoughts on this album that have changed somewhat in the years since the full album rankings. I think the widest-held belief is that if Bruce were to have taken the best of Human Touch‘s tunes and added them to Lucky Town he’d have had a real victory on his hands and there are plenty of takes out there on what that ‘Lucky Touch’ album would contain.

Thing is, having listened to Lucky Town a lot more over the years, I don’t think that’s necessary. Lucky Town is a really solid set of tunes that feel complete as it is – this is Springsteen in the early ’90s grappling with his concerns (coming to terms with his wealth, his new life as both a married man and a parent) and dealing with them with the same levels of compassion, honesty and humour that underpinned his best work in the previous decades and with some great tunes to boot. What I know wonder, then, isn’t ‘what if Bruce had compiled the best of both?’ but more ‘what if he’d never released Human Touch after all?’ I mean, we’ll never know, but this feels like the start of Bruce second-guessing. He wasn’t sure Human Touch was ready and had sat on it for over a year thinking it needed one more song whereas Lucky Town came together really quickly. Had Lucky Town not had the shadow of Human Touch then I feel Springsteen’s first album of the ’90s would have been received a lot more favourably and probably had a bigger impact.

Anyway, that’s not what we’re here for. It’s a solid album but, sure, it has a few lows of which the standout for me is..

Least: Leap of Faith

Across the two albums, seven songs would be released as singles of which this was the weakest of the bunch if you ask me. I can’t say there’s anything inherently wrong with it, I just can’t enjoy this one, it feels like a by-the-numbers studio session without much true feeling behind it.

Most: Living Proof

I could just as easily go to bat for ‘Better Days’, ‘Local Hero’ and even the title track but ‘Living Proof’ has continued to grow in my esteem over the years and especially as a parent, it feels all the more powerful.

Least and Most: Human Touch

/ Tony / 4 Comments

You know how it is with quotes and soundbites – sometimes their origin gets lost even when the quote itself remains pure and valid. I’ve got a sneaky feeling it was Hall of Fame related – possibly while inducting someone else – but Springsteen is on record and oft-cited as saying “I tried it [writing happy songs] in the early ’90s and it didn’t work; the public didn’t like it.”

Now the problem with this is many-fold and as we now lurch into the ’90s with this series, this feels as good an opportunity as any to address this.

Firstly – pretty sure Springsteen’s work of the previous decades is also littered with ‘happy’ songs too. I don’t think anyone is getting a lump in their throat listening to ‘I’m A Rocker’ or ‘She’s The One’ nor would they with the upbeat songs in the decades to come.

Secondly – it wasn’t the emotional nature of the songs that went unliked. It was the quality.

If there is a third point here, and I’m fairly certain of that, it’s that the ’90s were as prolific for Bruce as any other decade. We just haven’t heard most of it as it’s been shelved. I’ve seen mention, at some point, of five unreleased records from the ’90s. Even Van Zandt mentions going down to Rumson to hear a new batch of songs while the Boss fretted about not having a single yet. I haven’t spoken much about ‘Unrequited Infatuations’ yet but you have to take some elements with a pinch of salt as Van Zandt feels to have single-handedly shaped entire careers and global political movements with just a few sage words at the right time. However, given that he claims that havingtold Springsteen to revisit his Nebraska vibe resulting in The Ghost of Tom Joad, that puts this conversation in the early ’90s. Springsteen’s early ’90s seems to be more a period of second-guessing than it does of making happy songs.

Back to point 2 though…. listening back through the albums in sequence again for this series has been great. It’s also given me a different perspective on this album. I can’t remember the point in my collecting that I originally purchased Human Touch (and probably Lucky Town at the same time) but I know it wasn’t in release order. It makes it all the more evident that quality control suffered a big drop off with Human Touch. There were always lesser songs on Springsteen’s albums but Human Touch feels like the first time in which – rather than give such tunes to other artists or assign them as b-sides – the minor material makes up the bulk of the album and, while it’s not all bad, the good songs feel like outliers. After waiting four and a half years for a new Bruce Springsteen album and getting just shy of an hour’s worth of this lesser material, it’s understandable that it wasn’t well liked.

It could be that there’s a lack of chemistry between Bruce and ‘The Other Band’ that means the weaker elements of the songs can’t be carried over by great playing, but it’s not like he picked up of people that only knew a few chords. The songs are simply ineffective. There’s a song about TV, ffs. There’s also a song about feeling like a Real Man with his girl that actually contains the line “Rambo he was blowin’ ’em down”. It’s come to something when ‘Pony Boy’ isn’t the worst thing on an album.

Least: Cross My Heart

‘Cross My Heart’ is a pretty unforgettable and unremarkable tune. It doesn’t even sound like Bruce is that enthused about it and he’s the one singing it. Listening to Tracks it feels like he had half a dozen that were pretty much the same song as this and may just as well have chosen one at random to put on the finished disc. It tries to lift the beat and find momentum at points but it honestly feels more like a backing track and really sits amongst his lesser material for me.

Most: With Every Wish

Yeah, for all the mountain of filler there are some pretty good songs here that feel exactly how you’d want Springsteen to sound at the start of the ’90s. The title track is a bit of a gem. ‘Roll of the Dice’ – written with Roy Bittan – feels like it could have made a good E Street rave up given a chance.

‘With Every Wish’, though, is the rarest of things on these albums: it feels like a natural Bruce Springsteen song. The gentle nagging melody, the cautionary tale of love, the sweep of strings and a horn (courtesy of Mark Isham’s muted trumpet) that make it feel like it comes from a different, better album. It feels as close to a natural follow on from Tunnel of Love‘s material as you can get. It had me hooked the first time I heard Human Touch and still holds my attention throughout. The fact that it’s more sedate in its pace and accompaniment means not only is the production less overwrought and feel of session players absent but it suits Springsteen’s more mature songwriting themes that little bit better too.

Least and Most: Tunnel of Love

/ Tony / 5 Comments

While he’s never pulled a Landing On Water style curveball, it’s not as though Springsteen has ever really repeated an album formula since he broke through. From the success of Born To Run he dialled the production down for the leaner, meaner Darkness… while Nebraska‘s stark, acoustic desperation was an equally far cry from the sprawl of The River. Following Born In The USA‘s success with a similar stadium-pleasing muscle-bound punch would have been an easy call and the ’80s were full of similar ‘dial it up a notch for more dosh’ examples. Bruce, however, was ready to move on and look inward instead.

Tunnel of Love is one of Springsteen’s finest albums. Where he’d undoubtedly written about men and women before, this time the voice felt real and the vocabulary didn’t feel borrowed. Just as Springsteen himself got off the road and started to look at his own married life and the issues he was dealing with, he took his characters out of their cars and sat them at the table to take a long hard look at each other. As genuine and nuanced a set of songs as he’d ever release with a gorgeous sound and production.

So is there a least favourite lurking among yet another stellar collection of songs? Yup…

Least: I Ain’t Got You

I guess this is here to say ‘this isn’t another ‘rock’ album’ but ‘I Ain’t Got You’ is an odd choice for Springsteen. By all accounts it lead to the second of Springsteen’s three fights* with Steven Van Zandt when he played it for him. As SVZ put it, when Bruce played it to him: “People depend on your empathy!” I said. “It’s what you do best. They don’t want advice from Liberace or empathy from Nelson Fucking Rockefeller! You shouldn’t be writing shit like this!” While it wouldn’t be the last time Bruce wrote in this style (see Better Days’ ‘a life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure’) it’s more jarring thanks to it’s almost entire lack of musical accompaniment.

Most: One Step Up

This one’s easy for me. ‘One Step Up’ is not only an album highlight but one of my favourite Springsteen songs. A pensive ballad with haunting production that’s got just the right amount of that late-’80s vibe and a simple but effective melody that ticks away throughout that’s possibly the most on-the-nose reference to a marriage breakdown as the album would contain: ‘another fight and I slam the door on another battle in our dirty little war.’ It represents not only a break with the past – Springsteen played every instrument on the track himself with Patti Scialfa adding vocal harmonies – but a clear indication as to where his song writing would move him next, only he’d never quite the balance as perfect as this.

*For those keeping score: Fight 1 was over creative and decision making input around the sessions for Born In The USA which led to SVZ’s departure. The third was down to Springsteen’s induction into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without the E Street Band.