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Least and Most: Somewhere North of Nashville

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Quick side note: I’m addressing these in their presumed chronological order were they to have been released as the albums they’ve been grouped as rather their ordering in the box.

Aside from being a fascinating look at Springsteen’s working process, Tracks II: The Lost Albums provides an insight into his archival management too. Somewhere North of Nashville is a prime example of both: work on the project that became Western Stars actually began in 2010. That places its genesis between Working on a Dream – his last album with Brendan O’Brien – and Wrecking Ball – his first with Ron Aniello. It’s also the period of time when he was rooting around in his vaults for The Promise and the archival box-set release of Darkness…

Given that theWestern Stars project didn’t reach full fruition until 2019 – the process for which we’ll get to in a few albums time – it’s indicative of how many different projects Bruce had (and, seemingly, has) on the go at anyone time. At the start of that project, in 2010, Springsteen told Aniello “come out here, we have plenty of material to work with” and handed over “a country record [that] was basically cut with musicians in LA – live with a tight band – in the 1990s.”

Quite a find I’d guess…. ish. If we go back again to the Bruce Springsteen Timeline and move the dial back to 1995 we’ll find a pretty busy period. Having popped his ‘loops’ album on the shelf, completed the Greatest Hits material and accompanying promotion, Bruce decided to leave the band to it once again and make a ‘country’ record. With two different recording setups in place and a backing band that included a couple of E Streeters, he’d work on the livelier stuff in the afternoon and save the more sombre material for the evening. The story goes that the Boss was originally making one album before the narrative voice and style of the Ghost of Tom Joad material became the more cohesive of the projects and while the ‘other’ material remained a good way to get the band warmed up, it remained in the vault instead.

All we had, until now, was a smattering of track names that were known to have been recorded at the time like ‘Tiger Rose’ and ‘Poor Side of Town’ that were presumed in the same mould as the ..Joad material. Turns out, they’re very much not. Somewhere North of Nashville wasn’t a complete album. It couldn’t have been, really, given that …Joad soon took other focus. Instead, as part of the archival process, Bruce and Aniello recruited the same players that featured on the original material – including Marty Rifkin on pedal steel guitar (if you’re ever wondering ‘how much pedal steel guitar is too much pedal steel guitar?’ this album has your answer) – and added some songs to the mix that matched the initial clutch. Songs such as ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone’ and ‘Somewhere North of Nashville’ (which would be revisited and retooled again for Western Stars) are among the ‘new’ songs.

This isn’t one of the strongest albums in the set. In fact, there’s a lot of material here that could, really should, have stayed in the vaults and nobody would have minded. While it certainly fleshes out the picture of Springsteen’s output during that era and, again, gives a revealing look at his working process, this isn’t a ‘holy crap, Ghost of Tom Joad should’ve been a double album’ revelation. I don’t have to wrack my mind to chose a weak moment here, I’m afraid….

Least: Detail Man

I could’ve gone with any of the three ‘man’ songs on this set to be honest but ‘Delivery Man’ is perhaps the most redundant thematically and, as the third of the set the prospect of an over-active pedal-steel accompanied “baby I’m a double glazing selling man” or “here comes a British Gas boiler repair man baby” arrives there’s no denying the skip button comes in to play. At least ‘Delivery Man’ is funny.

The other element here is that this plays to the weakest link on the album: a few too many of these songs lean into a very particular style of ‘country tonk’ that would sound more at home soundtracking a film with Clint Eastwood and an orang-utan than they do on an album made in 1995.

But….. but, but but. This is still a Bruce Springsteen album and – as I’ve often pointed out – some of his finest songwriting occurred during this decade so beyond the dross, there’s some real gold here and – once you get past the aforementioned ‘country tonk’ – there’s the inescapable sound of a strong, tight band letting rip. You can practically picture Bruce pulling out his notebook of songs and counting them off as they tear into great versions of older material like ‘Janey Don’t You Lose Heart’ or ‘Stand On It’ (the former working beautifully) and the exquisite ‘Under A Big Sky’ which, though dating back to the ’80s as a song, is wonderful highlight.

Having initially binged through Tracks II: The Lost Albums like an addictive Netflix series, I’ve since been spending more time with them on an album by album basis and letting each one breath in its own right and asking myself ‘would I still want to buy this one if it was a stand-alone release?’

Obviously, while that’s usually a given with Bruce I’ve become a bit more selective of late, which is probably why his soul karaoke album still isn’t on my shelves. The quality of his songwriting is usually enough of a reason to pay the price of admission – even if that price is this much pedal steel guitar – and the ’90s were still fertile ground.

Having initially binged through Tracks II: The Lost Albums like an addictive Netflix series, I’ve since been spending more time with them on an album by album basis and letting each one breath in its own right and asking myself ‘would I still want to buy this one if it was a stand-alone release?’

Obviously, while that’s usually a given with Bruce I’ve become a bit more selective of late, which is probably why his soul karaoke album still isn’t on my shelves. The quality of his songwriting is usually enough of a reason to pay the price of admission – even if that price is this much pedal steel guitar – and the ’90s were still fertile ground. When he’s not rhyming ‘Tiger Rose’ with ‘Joe Blows’ some of his lyrics on here are on a par with his stronger material.

Most: Silver Mountain

As with any archival release there’s often a track that begs the ‘how was this shelved?’ On Somewhere North of Nashville that track is ‘Silver Mountain.’ It’s pure gold. It’s catchier than anything resigned to the vault has business being, it’s infectious – of all the album’s songs it’s this one that I find myself singing days after hearing – and the combination of joyous, foot-stomping energy in performance with tragic narrative of forbidden love places it more in line with a rootsy Americana than the cringe-and-pedal-steel of, say ‘Poor Side of Town.’

Least and Most: Streets of Philadelphia Sessions

/ Tony / 2 Comments

If LA Garage Sessions ’83 was the collection of songs I was most familiar with ahead of Tracks II: The Lost Albums‘ release, then Streets of Philadelphia Sessions was the one I was most looking forward to. Despite there being three albums from the ’90s in the set, this was the most infamous of his ‘lost’ albums and one that had been referenced variously over the years as either his ‘loops’ or ‘hip-hop’ album as all that was known was that it utilised the same drum-machine and loop approach as his ’94 single ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ but that, due to it being ‘another relationship album,’ was benched.

Going back a way – and as previously quoted on one of my former Springsteen posts – Bruce said of it: “there’s a record that we recorded, mixed and didn’t put out. Bob Clearmountain mixed it, spent a lot of time on it… didn’t put it out. That was, like, ’94. And it still intrigues me. I still go back to it. There are still things on it that I really like, and I may go back to sort of say, ‘Okay, well, why…?’ Sometimes it’s timing, you know. There was a particular reason that I didn’t put out that group of music. Sometimes the timing just doesn’t feel right for that kind of record.”

So why wasn’t the timing right? It was 1994 and if we look once again at the original Bruce Springsteen Timeline it’s an otherwise blank space between his tour to promote Human Touch and Lucky Town with ‘the other band’ and the year before the mini E Street Band reunion for Greatest Hits. The ’90s are often considered a fallow period for Bruce, but this box set has at least upheld my long-held belief that his output remained strong but his continual-second guessing after the relative mauling of the aforementioned double-header of ’92 albums meant we missed out on a lot. And miss out we certainly did for Streets of Philadelphia Sessions is the strongest set of songs he put together that entire decade.

‘Streets of Philadelphia’ was recorded by Bruce alone, using a drum machine and synths. While he bought in other musicians to round it out, he stuck with the ‘demo’ version for release. The success of that song – both critically and commercially – as well as the process, must have unlocked something as he decided to cut a whole album using the same approach. The ‘loops’ disc that Springsteen had been given to use only appears on a couple of the tracks, the rest are spare, bruising and subdued synth-lead pieces but often shot through with piercing guitar work and a number of songs on which a small band was bought in to round out the sound. The album was completed, mixed and was ear-marked for release early the next year (1995) and then, Bruce hesitated. Was it Roy Bittan suggesting that a fourth relationship-focused album would be one too many for his audience that triggered the hold? Was it Springsteen unsure of such a diversion from his established sound? Was it the record label pointing out a ‘Hits’ album was expected? Given that Bruce is now in the habit of ret-conning events to fit a certain PR-Friendly version of history, we’ll never really know. We do know that we almost got it during his residency on Broadway – perhaps he was tired of having such a considered ‘blank’ in his story for the ’90s that he wanted to set the record straight – and that this is only one of two albums in the set that Ron Aniello was forbidden from tinkering with. For which we can all be grateful.

This, for me, is the Springsteen album I’d been waiting for. The over-produced element that plagued Human Touch and Lucky Town is entirely absent, there’s a maturity and confidence in his restraint that means no feel or sound is overdone and nothing overshadows the lyrical content and, perhaps for the only time on a Springsteen record, there’s no feeling that there’s a ‘this the radio hit!’ moment. In fact, in between taking credit for ending the Cold War, Apartheid, world hunger and averting World War 3, Steven Van Zandt points out in his autobiography that it was this lack of an obvious ‘hit’ that lead to Springsteen canning it and reverting to his ‘Nebraska persona.’ Either way, Streets of Philadelphia sessions is a gorgeously produced and crafted set of songs that take the narrative and themes Tunnel of Love ushered in and adds a level of lived-in authenticity that works wonderfully with the singing voice he found in his forties.

If there were someway to have this on wax without plumping down the £300 (ish) needed for the box this wouldn’t have left my turntable this year. As it is, the mp3 versions have barely left my stereo.

Least: The Little Things

You know that mp3 version of the album I have? This isn’t on it. While there’s no ‘that’s the hit!’ moment on Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, this is the dud. While the remainder of this album’s songs feel true, this feels flippant, out of synch with the remainder and unnecessary (almost like the odd tangent of ‘Reno’ on Devils and Dust).

Most: Something In The Well

I could very easily have gone for many another track here. ‘One Beautiful Morning,’ ‘Between Heaven and Earth’ or ‘Waiting On The End Of The World’ are clear highlights but ‘Something In The Well’ is one of those songs that sits amongst his best work and points and future material too. Springsteen’s fights with the black dog are now well-documented but I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a struggle ever put so compellingly into song before that has made me go ‘holy fuck, that’s it’ – what I’ve often referred to as a ‘deep hole in a field,’ Springsteen casts as a well. Like so many other moments across this album, the instrumentation is minimal but not sparse and wholly effective. There’s also an element to the sound – if you strip it back to his guitar and vocal delivery – that’s at one with that which he’d flick back to in the following year for The Ghost of Tom Joad.

What makes Springsteen, when he’s on form like this, great as a song writer is his ability to look within, find what’s inside him and us, and turn it into something we can, and want, to listen to and ‘Something In The Well’ is another strong example of just that.

Least and Most: LA Garage Sessions ’83

/ Tony / 5 Comments

Just when I thought I was out…

In a very selfish and inconsiderate manner, Bruce Springsteen decided to wait until I’d finished my Least and Most series on his work to announce the release of Tracks II: The Lost Albums containing SEVEN entire albums pulled from the vaults.

Except… that’s not entirely true. Of the seven albums one is a mass collection of demos, one an actual album that was ready for release and then shelved, a soundtrack album that never went further than recording, a couple of ’90s album projects that got rounded out by songs added during the ‘boxset’ project, the remainder of a glut of songs recorded while finding the voice / angle for Western Stars and a disc of holdover ‘rock’ songs. However, as these have been packaged, labelled up and marked as albums proper, the Boss has forced my hand here.

There’s a lot of music here. An embarrassment of riches for Springsteen fans. Almost too much to be consumed and considered in one go. Whereas Tracks was pared down from six, to five and eventually a four-disc, 69-song offering, the aforementioned seven albums here (the disc number varying according to format) offer up 83 songs of varying vintage and quality. This being Springsteen, aside from a couple of howlers, the quality here barely drops below solid, often hits dizzyingly high levels and frequently contains moments that make you wonder how they stayed gathering dust for this long. While the marketing around the release contained the suggestion that each of these finds Springsteen playing in genres and sounds unexpected, the truth is that’s only so much hype: taken in context with where these sit chronologically in his ‘canon’ catalogue, they make not only make perfect sense but provide a fascinating insight into his working process.

So, that’s the intro outta the way. Let’s get into it…

LA Garage Sessions ’83

Of the lot, this was the album I was most familiar with ahead of release. I’d mumbled before about the bootleg of a lot of these songs and where they fall in the great Bruce Springsteen Timeline. However, as a quick recap: with most of the songs for Born In The USA written and recorded by mid ’82, the group of songs from his original working tape that he was least happy with the band versions of, was released ‘as is’ as Nebraska. While fully committed to the material and the voice, I think it’s fair to say the positive critical reception to these caused Springsteen to pause for a moment on the big rock record that was in progress. It probably didn’t help that he and Steven Van Zandt had fallen out over creative input and the latter had left the E Street Band.

Holing up in his LA home and thinking a closer-in-approach to Nebraska tact would be the logical next step without dealing with the hassles of band relationships, Springsteen put down another huge draft of material that – having been circulated for years – is now with on LA Garage Sessions ’83.

These are a fascinating and mostly brilliant group of songs. There’s a clear difference between the aesthetic of Nebraska while the song writing matter remains closer to that and his former work than the more direct Born In The USA material, it’s undoubtedly the bridge the between the two sides as well as a massive informer of his work beyond his stadium-ready record. Most importantly, the rounded out sound here shows him taking more confident swings to creating a distinct ‘solo’ Springsteen sound.

While the repetitiveness of the overall disc – there are 18 songs here and three of them start with that ‘Sir, I am a pilgrim and a stranger in this land’ line- the frequent excessive use of reverb and occasionally clumsy synth – means that it’s not going to be a perfect ‘album’ or even lost classic, it is one of the best in this collection and essential listening for a Springsteen fan as a set of what-ifs and roads not taken. For while the production and sound gets gnawing, the songs here are, frankly, fucking excellent and there’s very little to mark out song wise as ‘meh’ or ‘least’.

But, that being whole point of this series…

Least: My Hometown

Ugh… I know! But hear me out: it would be unfair to say ‘this version isn’t as good as it is on Born In The USA‘ because these are obviously demos and would suffer in comparison. But it’s presented here as part of this project and that’s what I’m marking against. It’s just that, for me, the delivery of this song kills it. This is a mature subject matter and yet he delivers it in a weird horse-whisperer rasp that’s not present elsewhere. Again, though, still a bloody solid song.

Most: Unsatisfied Heart

This is actually a pretty tough call. Taking the songs on an individual basis there’s so fucking much gold here. ‘Shut Out The Light,’ for example, has always been one of his best. The provocative ‘Klansman’ is a slice of fried gold, ‘Richfield Whistle’ has long been a favourite character study, ‘One Love’ is a fucking belter and many of these tunes could have been a standout if revisited later in his career instead of left behind as Springsteen continued his perpetual forward motion. ‘Unsatisfied Heart,’ though, is a real stand out for me. It’s as complete as it gets – it’s staggering that while some of the songs from this session were short-listed for inclusion on various Born In The USA iterations, this was never among them. Another of his great character studies of a man whose past catches up to him, ‘Unsatisfied Heart’ straps a killer chorus to the ‘Sir I’m a pilgrim’… line in a song that explores the overall theme of the ‘album’ and gives it a full and glorious melody that, while not given a nod on Bruce’s immediate next, definitely feels like a nod both in substance and vibe on Tunnel of Love.

Well, time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of… mid week spins

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Yeah, they’ll pass you by…

Been a while, again. Life, health, work, marking another year around the sun… things get busy.

Still, ahead of ploughing into a coupe of post series it feels like getting a good toe back in the water by going for another recap of recent acquisitions and spins. In anticipation of the one of those series, let’s start with Mr Springsteen…

Bruce Springsteen – Losin’ Kind

What a year to be a Springsteen fan – Tracks II: The Lost Albums, confirmation that Tracks 3 is on the way and, now, we get Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition. Seemingly released to tie in with ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere’ hitting the screen, this is the one that’s been waited for as hungrily as the fabled ‘loops’ album as it contains ‘Electric Nebraska‘. As powerful as the E Street ‘power trio’ takes on ‘Atlantic City’ and ‘Born In The USA’ are, and subtly tasteful the renditions of ‘Nebraska’ and ‘Reason to Believe’ may be, the decision to can in favour of the original’s stark beauty isn’t questioned by these. Just as worth the price of admission though is the disc of ‘Nebraska Outtakes’. Songs like ‘Losin’ Kind’, ‘Gun In Every Home’ and ‘On The Prowl’ rank among his finest and, as with Tracks – raise a lot of ‘how the hell did this end up on the floor?’ style questions.

Elliott – Carry On

Mazzy Star – Bells Ring

There’s a surprising number of records sat in front of my shelves that are new purchases still awaiting to be filed away – which itself is always a bit of High Fidelity style fun.* Amongst which are lot of recent reissues that have meant some long-time favourites are now in rotation including two albums from Elliott which were barely out of my cd player back in the day. Once pigeon-holed as ’emo’ there’s a lot more to their atmospheric and sweeping tunes that make me think of them more as an ‘ambient Sunny Day Real Estate’.

Mazzy Star’s sumptuous sophomore album, So Tonight That I May See, was propelled along by the surprise dominance of ‘Fade Into You’. Beyond that opening track’s hypnotic charms though are the album’s real beauty and strengths.

Air – Playground Love (with Gordon Tracks)

While I spent a bit of time last summer hunting around Lyon’s record shops and scooping up the first three Air albums it’s only now that I’ve been able to get hold of their soundtrack – and, apparently, second album, The Virgin Suicides – in this instance the ‘Redux’ version. I’ve got no memory of the film, the book is on the shelves though, yet while this doesn’t really work as a second album in the truest sense it’s a lot closer to Moon Safari than 10,000 Hz Legend was and I’ve always got time for an Air album. I just wish they’d rerelease Pocket Symphony and Love 2.

BORIS – Korosu

Turnstile – Never Enough

We were in Third Man Records up in London a week or so back and walked in to the always-welcome thunderous delight of BORIS’ fourth album Heavy Rocks being played out at sufficiently high volume.

Turnstile’s Never Enough album caught me be surprise earlier in the year and has been on frequent rotation since, I can genuinely get behind all the plaudits its been getting. Easily one of the year’s finest albums. Which brings me to Mogwai…

Mogwai – Lion Rumpus

Having been given the recent ‘If The Stars Had a Sound’ Mogwai doc I’ve been hungrily absorbing it when I’m able to get sufficient time with the TV to do so. I forget how many years I’ve fucking loved this band but watching the documentary it’s a wonderfully warm feeling to see just how much love there is for them and to revisit the strange period in time (face masks, social distancing etc) when their The Love Continues album hit number one in the charts and the sense of jubilation it created. As they have a knack for releasing their albums early in the year these days it’s easy to forget that they dropped The Bad Fire in January but it’s been a regular play for me and another of those highlights of 2025’s albums. 

*strictly alphabetical by artist for the main with separate Post-Rock and Soundtracks/Comps sections if you’re curious.

Weekend spins, or what I did on my summer holidays…

/ Tony / 3 Comments

Here we are slap in the middle of La Rentrée and with the chaos and confusion it triggers subsiding somewhat and the rain lashing down like a cow pissing on a rock outside to signify that summer is well and truly in the rearview, it feels like it’s finally time to crack my knuckles, blow the proverbial dust off my keyboard and get back to this and talk about what’s been filling my ears.

It’s certainly been a while. In many ways it’s been the Summer of Springsteen* with both the release of Tracks II: The Lost Albums, the promise of Tracks III and the approaching drop of Nebraska ’82. But we’ll get to that later. I spent, as is often the case, a large part of my summer in France. Booked before the results of a DNA test revealed a large part of ‘me’ heralds from the exact region we visited, I spent a pleasurable couple of weeks driving around Brittany and Normandy with the occasional stop for a bit of record shopping thrown in amongst sampling the local cider and IPA. I’m gonna start the ball rolling with a track from Beach House – a band that I’d been listening to increasingly on that streaming service beginning with S for some time so when I found Once Twice Melody on sale for €15 I wasn’t going to say ‘non, merci.’

Beach House – New Romance

Mew – Am I Wry? No

Beach House sit in that category ‘dream pop’ category that serves as a catch all for those songs with pop melodies wrapped in atmosphere and sonic textures and feels like a lush, blanketed bridge to shoegaze. Mew are one of those bands who, like Beach House, appear so often in such playlists.

MC Solaar – Caroline

I had the pleasure of catching up with Geoff Stephen over at The 1002nd Album Club recently and, while discussing something that’ll appear soon, he mentioned that MC Solaar’s debut – Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo – was listed in ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.’ It’s a brilliant album and MC Solaar, with his ridiculously smooth flow and delivery, combination of hip-hop, acid jazz and soul proved that French music wasn’t all derivative Johnny Halliday slop.

George Harrison / The Beatles – All Things Must Pass (Demo)

In amongst the hype about the upcoming reissues of the first three Anthology volumes and the ‘new’ fourth instalment, I was flicking through Anthology 3 and stumbled on this little gem. Having spent time with Dylan and the Band at the end of ’68, Harrison found is interest in the guitar and his approach to songwriting revitalised – only for songs like this, and others, to receive little interest from Lennon and McCartney. This early demo – from Feb ’69 – and included on Anthology 3 (hence the dual artist attribution) is a beautiful sign of just what a magnificent songwriter he’d become.

Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!

Eddie Vedder – Room at the Top

Listening to the radio while driving through France has become something of a tradition over the last few years that we’ve been doing so. Unfortunately, I think it’s time to find a new station as RTL2 seem to have gotten stuck with only a handful of songs that get played on each DJ’s show. So, in amongst daily blasts of the new Indochine song and uncensored versions of Nirvana’s ‘Rape Me’ it became clear that the French are currently obsessed with Lola Young’s – admittedly brilliant – ‘Messy’ and Chappel Roan’s also brilliant ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ It’s a gloriously well-crafted song and, as Graham over at Aphoristic pointed out, she’s got Dan Nigro in her songwriting corner and they’re just pushing out gold. Makes me think of that glorious period of Madonna’s collaboration with Patrick Leonard.

I mentioned a while back how I’d been enjoying ‘Bad Monkey’ and its soundtrack of Tom Petty covers. Eddie Vedder’s take on Room at the Top (accompanied by his Earthlings band rather than his previous solo acoustic take) is an absolute blast of the great stuff.

And, finally….

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA (Electric Nebraska)

Strap yourself in, here we go: it’s Springsteen time. I mean: holy fuck. Aside from having given us SEVEN previously unreleased albums earlier this year (although really you can only apply that to two of the discs properly), Bruce recently dropped the bombshell we thought we’d never get: Electric Nebraska. Long rumoured and shrouded in myth – Springsteen, fresh from writing and recording with a home four (or eight) track, took said songs to the studio to, as always intended, work up with the E Street Band. Some of them worked, some didn’t, some evolved down the line and ten of them simply sounded perfect they way they were on that beat-up cassette in his back pocket and were released on the stark, beautiful Nebraska. Now, as we near release of ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere’ – the film of the book documenting that period – the fabled Electric Nebraska has been found in the vault, presumably right at the back along with the material coming on Tracks III, and will be released as part of a larger package next month.

To whet our appetite we get the Electric Nebraska version of Born In The USA. It’s rare that a song floors me but this, along with the news of the box, did that. Of the three versions we now have of the song – the other two being the famed Rambo Bruce version the ’82 demo, acoustic blues take on Tracks (and revisited on the reunion tour documenting Live in New York City – this is easily the best take on it. Like the Boss says in the video trailer, it sounds nothing like any of this other electric songs.

That’s it, for now. As I finish working my way through the Tracks II: The Lost Albums to restart the ‘Least and Most’ series, I’ll leave you with another Springsteen song and a highlight from that mammoth collection that shares the same vintage.

*fuck Oasis.

Some producer with computers fixes all my shitty tracks… revisiting Rockin’ The Suburbs

/ Tony / 7 Comments
Background: I’ve had the Ben Folds song ‘Fred Jones Part 2’ in my head on repeat recently thanks to using the phrase ‘it’s time’ a little too often and it got me thinking back to how bloody good an album it came from and that, maybe, it was time to dust off both my copy of Rockin’ The Suburbs and this format. Ben Folds was, of course, previously of the Ben Folds of Ben Folds Five, the band that became one of the defining indie alt-rock acts of the ’90s despite the fact that there were only two other members (“I think it sounds better than Ben Folds Three.”). Their first self-titled album in 1995 was a bit of a slow burn but got them noticed and established as the kind of band Pitchfork wanted you to like (Pitchfork back then, not now). They had a knack for writing songs that felt immediately catchy and singable but with a bit more emotional weight than expected ‘Underground’ and ‘Philosophy’ became cult hits, but it wasn’t until their 1997 follow-up, the brilliant Whatever and Ever Amen, that the train pulled out of the station.
Toward the end of 2000, after a particularly gruelling tour behind 1999’s The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner – a period which Folds later recalled as “financially and career-wise a disaster” – and the few recording sessions for a new album went nowhere, Ben Folds Five took a break. At the time, I was aware of none of this. While I’d hear the band’s name from time to time and may have even caught ‘Brick’ on MTV or MTV2 it wasn’t until 2001 – V2001 in fact – when I caught Ben Folds’ act at a festival that I got hooked. Rockin’ The Suburbs: When Ben Folds released Rockin’ the Suburbs in the fall of 2001, it felt like a sharp, sardonic commentary on everything that was wrong—and right—with the then modern world. He was stepping out of the shadow of Ben Folds Five and looking to establish himself as a solo artist, and while there’s not a huge amount of distance between this and his records with the band,  it’s fair to say that this album is as much about his personal evolution as it is about the cultural moment it was released in. >Now, almost 25 years later, Rockin’ the Suburbs remains a fascinating artefact. Listening to it again in 2025 gives me the strange feeling I get when – per this weekend – I see examples of my early mobile phones and iPod behind glass in the Science Museum. The songs are still great but there’s something very much of a time capsule about the album. In many ways, it feels like a bridge between two eras: the post-grunge hangover of the late ’90s and the digitalised, millennial angst of the early 2000s. For all of that, though, there’s something curiously timeless about its blend of sharp piano lines, quirky pop structures, and deeply personal yet universally relatable lyrics. Take the title track, a brash declaration of suburban boredom that captures a distinctly white-collar angst. But, while his tongue is very much in cheek with his complaints of ‘being male, middle-class, and white’ could “I can feel that someone’s blasting me with hate, and bass, Sendin’ dirty vibes my way, ‘cause my great, great, great, great granddad made someone’s great, great, great, great, granddaddies slaves” make the grade in 2025 even if they are dripping in sarcasm? Possibly not – let alone the mention of ‘my new CD’ – but it’s still a fucking great song.
But while it’s a title track, it’s not indicative of the whole, it’s not all sarcasm and irony. Beneath the punchy, piano-driven hooks, there’s a vulnerability that permeates songs like “The Luckiest” —a deeply heartfelt ballad about love and fate. It’s a perfect example of Folds’ ability to balance the playful with the profound that’s most definitely soundtracked a few hundred first dances at weddings around the world.
The album’s strength, in fact, lies in its ability to walk that razor-thin line between comedy and pathos. Tracks like ‘Not the Same’ and ‘Zak and Sara’ (a favourite then and a favourite now) combine the lightheartedness of pop music with deeper, more introspective themes: loss, longing, and self-realisation. Nor is there any denying Ben Folds owns a copy of Billy Joel’s The Stranger.
Looking back, Rockin’ the Suburbs was too quirky for mainstream radio and too accessible for the alt scene that was ditching pianos for turntables. In the years since, it’s become one of those cult classics that many of us – judging by what I’ve picked up around the likes of Reddit etc – still find ourselves coming back to. It’s both a snapshot of early-2000s indie-pop sensibilities and a timeless reflection on the confusion of early adulthood. Yes, you could say there’s perhaps too much reliance on the “quirky piano guy” trope. But that’s also part of the charm; Folds was, and is, the guy who could craft a song about a mental breakdown (‘Rockin’ the Suburbs’) and then immediately follow it up with a melodic love song that feels both grand and intimate (‘The Luckiest’) or a very touching lament on the quiet, inescapability of time (‘Fred Jones Part 2’)
Maybe that’s the beauty of Rockin’ the Suburbs—it was, and remains, an album about the tension between the mundane and the extraordinary, the painful and the funny, the personal and the universal.
After Rockin’ the Suburbs, Ben Folds continued his musical journey, though the road he traveled became a bit more unpredictable. In 2005, he returned to the piano-driven pop world with Songs for Silverman, an album that was a bit more stripped-back and introspective compared to its predecessor and felt like a deep dive into Folds’ own psyche. Tracks like “Gracie” (a sweet, melancholic ode to his daughter) and “Landed” displayed his growing maturity as a songwriter, and the album itself felt more polished, with fewer of the snarky edges that defined his earlier work. 2011 saw Ben Folds Five reunite for a short period, culminating in the release of The Sound of the Life of the Mind in 2012. The chemistry of the original trio was still intact but didn’t get as much traction as their previous records had. Since then, Folds has embraced a variety of musical projects. He’s dipped into classical music (his piano concerto, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, premiered in 2015), collaborated with artists like Amanda Palmer and Nick Hornby, and even found himself dabbling in pop culture commentary. In 2017, Folds took on a more public role as the artistic director for the prestigious National Symphony Orchestra, from which he’d resign in 2025 thanks to a certain orange, pubic-hair doodling, fascist felon. While I’ve drifted in and out of his catalogue at times, it’s clear his knack for deeply personal storytelling and biting humour remains ever-present. His later works may lack the youthful anger or suburban frustration of Rockin’ the Suburbs and that of the ..Five’s initial albums, but there’s still that same dedication to blending raw emotion with melodic ingenuity—whether he’s writing about parenthood, the disillusionment of aging, or his various collaborations with the orchestral world.

Now’s the time to resurface… Five from Pearl Jam written by Matt Cameron

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Like all Pearl Jam fans, I was taken by surprise by Matt Cameron’s announcement yesterday that “after 27 fantastic years, I have taken my final steps down the drum riser for the mighty Pearl Jam.” While the decision seems to be amicable and Pearl Jam offered a similarly brotherly message, it’s a shocker.

Since joining the band in 1998 after Jack Irons left ahead of the Yield tour, Matt’s been a steady presence behind the drum kit as, per Pearl Jam’s own statement, a “true powerhouse of a musician and drummer… [that] propelled the last 27 years of Pearl Jam live shows and studio recordings.”

Pearl Jam have often referred to themselves as a band of five songwriters and, so, while we await to hear what’s next for both band and drummer, I thought it a fitting time to have a quick look at five of those Pearl Jam songs to bear Matt Cameron’s name on the writing credits.

You Are
Riot Act (2002)

While Binaural -an oft-overlooked gem in the band’s career – was the band’s first to feature Matt Cameron as their drummer, that album’s sole Cameron credit (‘Evacuation’) has never been a favourite so let’s move forward to Riot Act.

‘You Are’ – one of the band’s softer, more inwardly reflective pieces, sits one one of Pearl Jam’s most over-looked albums. While many of the album’s songs bristle with post-9/11 and Bush-era anger and urgency, ‘You Are’ – to which Cameron contributed lyrics as well as music – is a meditation on personal responsibility and connection with an almost dream-like atmosphere which highlights both the subtle persistency of his drumming and his love for an odd time signature and hypnotic groove.

Cropduster
Riot Act (2002)

There’s a certain eerie, almost cinematic quality to “Cropduster,” a song that feels like it’s crawling through the underbrush of disillusionment. With music by Cameron and lyrics by Vedder, the track blends paranoia, frustration, and an unsettling sense of impending doom. The lyrics—mysterious and fragmented—pair perfectly with Cameron’s drum work, which shifts from a steady pulse to a disorienting, almost jittery rhythm.

Unemployable
Pearl Jam (2006)


Encapsulating the feeling of being both trapped by and liberated from the grind of modern life, what I love about ‘Unemployable’ is the combination of McCready and Cameron. It’s a rare one for Pearl Jam songs but Mike’s guitar lines paired with Matt’s off-kilter rhythms is fucking gold.

The Fixer
Backspacer (2009)


Backspacer, Pearl Jam’s shift to a leaner, more streamlined sound contains the song that perfectly captures Cameron’s importance in the band. Credited to Cameron, Gossard and McCready, ‘The Fixer’ is based on a riff and basic song that Cameron had written in 2008 called ‘Need to Know.‘ Listening to that version vs the orgiinal two things are clear – how strong a writer Matt is but also how much more powerful it becomes in the hand of the whole band.

Take the Long Way
Gigaton (2020)

Is Gigaton another Pearl Jam album destined to be over-looked? It’s ridiculous how many people seem to have a gut-reaction to their experimental shifts and would probably only be happy if they only played Ten and Vs. in concert. Gigaton is a beautifully experimental album with a really warm and organic feel that sounds like a lush bath when compared to Watt’s production of Dark Matter. ‘Take The Long Way’ – with words and music by Cameron – feels hard, flirts with sugary pop on the choruses, and reveals more layers with each listen.

Monday Tunes: Scorchio

/ Tony / 6 Comments

Boy it’s a hot one – 32 degrees and more to come. While I try desperately to limit the typical ‘hot enough for you?’ comments and moaning about it being too hot that usually pervades conversation in this country (I fucking love it, any weather that means my thermostat isn’t kicking in and letting the electric company bend me over and shaft me like I’m in prison is a boon), I figured it time to ask, once again, to borrow your ears and mutter about that which has been filling mine of late.

PJ Harvey – The Glorious Land

I went back and forth with PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake album but recently something about it clicked, perhaps it was hearing this song afresh, perhaps it was feeling a similarly scathing view of the country, perhaps it was just one of those things where your ears are just ‘open’ to something at the right time. Either way, I’ve been enjoying ‘The Glorious Land’ a fair bit recently.

Regina Spektor – Better

Lola Young – Messy

Picking up the recent repress of Regina Spektor’s Begin to Hope felt like an ‘orange flame’ time machine back to hearing it for the first time in 2006 and seeing her shortly thereafter in a venue since torn-down for London’s Crossrail project.

Lola Young’s ‘Messy’ is one of those that kept popping up lately in the background – probably because she played that big festival that everyone talks about this time of year. It’s another one of those where I’m forever saying ‘ohh, what’s that song?’ because I’m enjoying it. Although I’m reliably informed I’m a year out of date with this, probably even more so with those I’ve been hearing by Chappell Roan, but at least I’m still managing not to shut myself off to new music.

Omertà – Kremer & Bergeret

Stereolab – Lo Boob Oscillator

Not the South Italian mafia’s code of silence… but an underground French band that manage to combine a two-bass-driven funk groove with post-rock like keyboards for a psychedelic vibe that ticks all my boxes and, for reasons I can’t explain, feels like a natural fit next to the recently-reunited Stereolab tune from 1993. Despite being on a compilation of tunes rather than an album proper, it’s probably their best-known song.

Bruce Springsteen – Maybe I Don’t Know You

It was inevitable that, since Friday, most of my listening has been Springsteen-flavoured. The release of Tracks II: The Lost Albums is as big a drop of new music from Bruce as there’s ever been. Most of my attention, though, was reserved for The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions – the lost album from the early ’90s that had long been rumoured. It feels like a missing link has been found for me, like a favourite album that I’d been waiting to hear. It’s a brooding, bruised but gorgeous vibe with just the right sound mixing. The balance between the synths and loops and the occasional piercing guitar is just spot-on. That he’s been sitting on this for more than 30 years is shocking. Was it the tepid response to Human Touch / Lucky Town? Was it still not being sure of his own ‘solo’ voice? Was it that he thought another relationships album would be one too many right then? Who knows, I’m just glad we finally have it.

Least and Most: Letter to You

/ Tony / 20 Comments

Here we are at the end of the road with Springsteen’s final studio album.

At least, for now. Within a few days we’ll have seven previously unreleased studio albums to absorb and while Tracks isn’t included in this rundown, the albums that make up Tracks II: The Lost Albums are just that, full studio albums. There’s also confirmation that, along with Tracks III (ffs, that vault must have been huge) Bruce also has a new solo studio album ‘in the can’ earmarked for a 2026 release. It’s like he doesn’t read this blog with the amount of work he’s lining up for me.*

Where was I? Oh, yes, for now. Letter To You was an album that came by relative surprise in its timing mid pandemic (he’d managed get the band together for a week at the end of the previous year**) and in its absolute quality and power. Letter to You feels like a much-needed warm hug from an old friend you didn’t expect to see again —if that friend was a thunderous barroom preacher with a worn leather jacket, a telecaster slung over his back and a saxophone-wielding mate waiting in the car.

If this turns out to be the last E Street Band powered album, it’s one hell of a bow out; it’s a combination of everything that was and still is great about it with relatively minimal production or overdub. Springsteen calls back to his past magnificently – the record bristles with revisited old chestnuts like ‘Janey Needs a Shooter’, the mildly Dylan-esque ‘Song for Orphans’, and the swaggering ‘If I Was the Priest’ rubbing shoulders with new tracks like ‘Burnin’ Train’ and ‘Last Man Standing’ that bring the E Street Band’s stadium roar back in full force. While at times there’s an odd juxtaposition between songs written by Thesaurus Bruce and One-Phrase-Repeated-Over-and-Over Bruce, the combination is a winner. It’s like we’ve run into him at a bar and he just had to tell us one last story (or twelve).

Where this sits in the overall Springsteen album run-down I’ve yet to figure out but Letter To You is certainly his strongest and most consistently spot-on since Magic. That it’s the first time since The River that the band worked through songs without having had them demoed first is also clear – there’s a sense of spontaneity and freshness in the arrangements that hasn’t been heard in decades. There’s very little to nitpick about in Letter To You but…

Least: The Power of Prayer

While ‘Rainmaker’ hasn’t aged as well as it could have and ‘House of a Thousand Guitars’ is a little let down by the repetition of its title, ‘The Power of Prayer’ is absolutely the weakest link on an otherwise indecently strong album. Feeling more like it would be at home on Working on a Dream, Springsteen’s gospel inclinations here come off less like a heartfelt epiphany and more like a cliche-laden preacher hitting the stage unprepared. It’s an empty-cliche-ridden snoozer for me, it aims high and wants to hit that uplifting spiritual power of earlier efforts but leans on formula instead rather than feeling. I mean – when was the last time you ran your fingers through the hair of your significant other and thought ‘that’s the power of prayer’***? It may well be sincere but so is a 99p greeting card from Sainsbury’s.

Most: Ghosts

Hands down the album’s finest, Ghosts charges in on a revved-up E Street engine and never lets off. It’s a swirling elegy for lost bandmates and the magic they created together but manages to balance that sense of nostalgia with catharsis. Time passes and moves even for our heroes. You feel old, you feel alive but, for these glorious five and a half minutes you feel together with Bruce and the E Street Band.

What makes ‘Ghosts’ – and the best of this album – work so well in 2020 and 2025 is the sense that these songs didn’t spend too much time in gestation. There’s no feeling of over-working or heavy production. Bruce isn’t trying to venture into a different sonic direction here. He doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, just crank up the Chevy and happily barrel down memory lane.

Letter to You is the grown-up version of Born to Run, with a few hands dragging in sentimental baggage. It’s occasionally corny, but mostly full-blooded and triumphant. And when ‘Ghosts’ kicks in, you remember why you climbed in the passenger seat in the first place: for the ride, for the stories, and for the shared scars of friendship and loss. Life ain’t always a beauty but, hey, it’s alright.

*Of course he does.

** Two thoughts – chronologically this places those sessions in the same year as the final Western Stars sessions as well as those for Twilight Hours on Tracks II. Secondly: these songs were written following a bout of writers’ block and after the death of his friend and on an acoustic guitar given to him by a fan after one of his “Springsteen on Broadway” shows. That’s one hell of a burst of creativity.

***as a Humanist the answer is ‘never.’

Least and Most: Western Stars

/ Tony / 7 Comments

Ok…. let’s get back into it. Western Stars is still the odd one in the Springsteen back catalogue – while it may well be that some of the albums on Tracks II: The Lost Albums will fill in some of the steps that Bruce to get here, it sits apart at the moment; neither the acoustic, bare-bones approach of his other ‘solo’ albums or as ‘rock’ as his other work with full bands. Much like We Shall Overcome.. this is vey much a one-off detour*.

Where this album sits in my own ranking of Springsteen’s albums will vary depending on the mood I’m in: with the passing of time this album’s single-sonic style has meant that it’s not one I reach for typically and if you’re not up for that sound, it’s a skip as very little on here that varies from the ‘Bruce goes big, full-orchestra Glen Campbell / Burt Bacharach / Jimmy Webb’. At times the stylistic choice with its over-emphasis on twang and orchestral pop feels forced (much like a lot that Ron Aniello ‘brings’ to Springsteen’s music of late) and weighs downs songs that, in another setting, might have bounced freer without the need to add them on.

There are, however, a bevvy of solid Springsteen songs on Western Stars that are not only strong enough to withstand the production treatment but flourish in their arrangements and Bruce’s sonic departure. ‘Sleepy Joe’s Cafe’, for example, wouldn’t work in any other context yet here is a great addition. Songs like ‘Western Stars,’ ‘Chasin’ Wild Horses,’ ‘Hello Sunshine’, ‘There Goes My Miracle’ and closing ‘Moonlight Motel’ feel like Springsteen had got a very good core of songs for this project.

Sadly, like a lot of his later-career albums at this point, there weren’t quite enough and so we get some reheated tunes – we know now that ‘Somewhere North of Nashville’ has been repurposed from a mid-’90s project – and heavy production to polish up the lesser tracks.

Take, for example:

Least: Hitch Hikin’

Given that some of Bruce’s previous album openers have been real strong jump-off points (think ‘Radio Nowhere’, ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ for recent examples or ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ or ‘Thunder Road’ or fucking ‘Born in the USA’), Western Stars gets off to a sluggish limp with a song that could’ve been fine were it not for the hammy production and slopping on of backing and orchestration that does nothing for it.

Most: Drive Fast (The Stuntman)

‘Drive Fast (The Stuntman)’ fits very firmly in the list of great Springsteen songs that work well in this album’s context and would actually work well elsewhere – here the orchestra joins and swells as Springsteen’s character piece – an injured stuntman recalling his glory days – unfolds, elsewhere it could just as easily be a Nils Lofgren slide. While this character – like so many on Western Stars – is past his best, Springsteen gives them a beautiful treatment.

*excluding the ‘film’ version of the same album that followed a few months later and stapled on a cover of fucking ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’.