BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Bruce Springsteen is an enigma wrapped in a riddle. He is not so much a man of mystery as one of great inconsistency. Indeed, one might regard him as practically schizophrenic. (He even wrote a song called "Two Faces" although it is ultimately concerned with a more banal interpretation.) During the seventies Bruce was as great a singer-songwriter as ever there was. Despite his pandering to a disappointingly low-brow audience he was able to combine a natural intelligence with heart-breaking emotion, nostalgic sentimentality, wrathful power and an epic narrative scope that has barely been matched by anyone ever. At times, when he combined all facets into one awesome package - the entirety of Darkness on the Edge of Town or everything compressed into the ten minute majesty of "Jungleland" - he comes across as the greatest and most important artist in the world. Unfortunately, though, that is ultimately only one element to Springsteen's approach. He didn't just want to be a seminal singer-songwriter that nice middle-class lads like myself can cherish and proclaim. No doubt spurred on by the somewhat loathsome Jon Landau Springsteen also desired to be a man of the people. Leader of the common man (and the inconsistency that he can be "one of the boys" and somehow superior to them at the same time is one of the worst results of Springsteen's self-styled image). In short, when 1984 came along Springsteen became the "Boss" and nothing was quite the same again. Not only was the sentimentality and peerless lyricism gone (don't even try and compare something like "Working on the Highway" to "4th of July, Asbury Park") but the stunning musical ingenuity was also jettisoned. In this day and age one wonders why people in the eighties thought those booming snare-drums and cheesy synthesisers were a good idea but, unfortunately, the Boss didn't so much experiment with them as embrace them in all their coarse, outdated glory. Some people also include 1975's break-through Born to Run as part of the Boss' catalogue (as opposed to Bruce's) but it never struck me as anywhere near as reprehensible or, indeed, anything less than a great album. Sure, it is bombastic and self-important and the Boss' red-neck fans probably do enjoy fist-pumping along to the title track as much as "Born in the USA" but that is where the connections end. Can you seriously imagine something as intelligent (both lyrically and musically) as "Thunder Road", "Backstreets" or "Jungleland" appearing on Born in the USA? Of course, it isn't a clean severance and one can often marvel in wonder that a song as brilliantly sensitive as "The River" appears on the same album as an excruciatingly lifeless ballad that Bruce wheezes his way through like a bad pub singer ("Drive All Night"). Yessir, no one quite achieved a startling balance between genius and mediocrity like Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen.

Of course, the "Boss" image I could easily live with if it didn't affect the quality of his actual output but, sadly, that was never going to be the case. Brucey was hardly likely to pick up legions of red-neck admirers with understated ballads about the moral decay of small-town life and lyrics like "Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain/Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame". If the Boss was to truly cement his image as rock'n'roll icon of the people he needed synthesiser hooks as dumb as one could get, a unique and unsettling fusion of country and western guitar licks with pounding snare-drums and choruses moronic enough for even the dimmest of fans to sing along to. You know, I really wouldn't mind Born in the USA if about a third of it wasn't made up of offensively moronic filler. Inevitably as Bruce slipped into middle-age his greatest crimes were committed and, unfortunately, 1992's nadir Human Touch doesn't even have a "Bobby Jean" or "My Hometown" for me to hold dear. Thankfully, I'm writing these reviews just at the best possible time for Bruce as last year's The Rising FINALLY saw him re-embracing the good elements of his original career and, as a result, FINALLY saw him releasing another great album. I should note, though, that I'm going to all-but-ignore Bruce's live recordings. I've listened to various live albums of his but I ain't going to be buying them as, as far as I'm concerned, they are the odious extreme of his "Boss" persona. My life would have been somewhat richer for not having had to sit through "4th of July, Asbury Park" complete with snare-drum backing. Furthermore, those embarrassing anecdotal vignettes he inserts into certain performances are both toe-curlingly cheesy and, furthermore, flat-out false (he didn't fail his medical for conscription, he pretended he was gay to get out of it). I honestly don't care about Bruce's personal background but I would prefer that I don't have to listen to him brazenly lie about it to make him seem even more like "one of the guys". Springsteen doesn't really speak to me about my life but I've always got a huge amount of time for lyricists as intelligent as him and the lack of identifying does not mean I don't still find most of his seventies songs hugely affecting. Furthermore, there is one area that we are both in agreement over - we are both inexplicably proud of our hometown. Although I've never been to New Jersey, in the likes of "Jungleland" and "My Hometown" I see a nostalgic reflection of Liverpool life and all the elements (both pleasant and unpleasant) that contribute to making one's hometown an inextricable part of oneself. As anyone who has ever been to Liverpool will tell you, "the poets round here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be" never seemed truer.

"Madman drummers bummers and indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat/In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat/With a boulder on my shoulder feelin' kinda older I tripped the merry-go-round/With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground." It is perhaps fair to say that of all the artists a certain Robert Zimmerman influenced our old friend Bruce Springsteen was more enamoured with him than most. Of course, it is hardly unusual for budding singer-songwriters to struggle to cement their identity straight from the get-go and although Springsteen has always been obviously a fan of Dylan's it did not take him too long to cultivate very much his own image. At his best Springsteen is a great lyricist and although he does fumble his wordplay a little too much for comfort on here he still strikes upon some iconic imagery and his nostalgic romanticising of his hometown state is still at the forefront of his artistry. Musically, too, he is uncertainly drifting from bar-room acoustic minstrel (the muddled and unimpressive "Mary Queen of Arkansas") to jazzy Van Morrison-esque songsmith ("Spirit in the Night") to Dylan imitation folk-pop ("Blinded by the Light", "For You"). Only on the portentous mini-epic "Lost in the Flood" (an embryonic pre-cursor of "Jungleland" if ever there was one) does he really strike upon what would soon make him great and, even then, it is far from as assured as his highlights in that field. As it happens, however, the unassuming, almost naive nature of Springsteen's debut often results in it being hailed as one of his most appealing and best albums. Although I think the songwriting clearly isn't at a sufficient level to have this paraded as one of the great debuts in musical history it is deceptively strong, unassumingly pleasant and certainly does not deserve to be overlooked (particularly when one thinks about the sales figures of Born in the USA). Obviously, a first-time buyer back in '73 might not immediate earmark Springy for great things but I'm sure he'd be drawn back to the turntable more often than not as the ingenious little hooks in the likes of "Blinded by the Light" (famously covered by Manfred Mann), "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?" and "For You" start to sink in. Indeed, the only song out of the nonet that should have been ditched is the aimless acoustic ballad "Mary Queen of Arkansas". You'd be hard pushed to come up with another song that sounds more like it was being written on the spot and when you hear Springsteen fumble his way through, searching for a hook or even a chorus, you can't help but wonder why he didn't write one first. The other sorrowful ballad, "The Angel", can also draw ire but I kinda like the sentimental imagery and Springsteen's vocals are appropriately emotive. It almost goes without saying that he hadn't found his "voice" yet but one certainly couldn't accuse him of being a bad singer even at this stage and the bouncy, unpretentious hooks more than make up for any loss of vocal power. Furthermore, the nostalgic romanticising of his hometown and its inhabitants is already emotionally affecting and, at this early stage, still fresh and optimistic. It is certainly interesting to compare the enthusiastic iconic imagery of his urban heroes with their awe-inspiring mystique and alluring romantic charms to the soul-destroying matter-of-fact portrayals of the same people on Darkness on the Edge of Town with their appealing imagery stripped away and the awful truth horribly exposed. The small-town gangsters in "Lost in the Flood" are still heralded as modern-day Robin Hoods and Springsteen talks-like-he-wishes-he-could-walk with the closing "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" ("I could walk like Brando right into the sun then dance just like a Casanova"). Indeed, it is such youthful zest and naivety that mark this album out (as well as the next one) as distinct from the rest of his catalogue. The swinging melodicism of "Spirit in the Night" documents a typically youthful excursion, mainly involving girls, beer and the New Jersey beaches, whilst "Growin' Up" is almost a hymn for the awkward youths ("when they said come down I threw up") and is Springsteen at his very least pretentious. On the other hand, "For You" is an impressively wordy love song which is obviously indebted to Dylan's "I Want You" but with a melody infectious enough to allow it to avoid accusations of unoriginality. As it happens, I regard Springsteen as one of the few lyricists to actually come close to matching the original and best but it is on subsequent albums, when he sufficiently developed his own style, that he stands out most. Indeed, that pretty much sums up this album and Springsteen's overall career. As someone who started out as a competent Dylan-imitator he quickly and brilliantly developed into a great individual artist in his own right. Still, this album stands out as a brief reminder of a time when the Boss was still just a distant rumbling of packed stadiums and MTV-endorsed music videos.

Like his debut Bruce's second offering (released in the same year one should impressively note) was still distinct from the sort of musical and lyrical aesthestics that would make his name. Lyrically, the content is much the same, with New Jersey and its loveable inhabitants being wistfully romanticised and nostalgically glorified, but his ability has undoubtedly moved up a notch with the second half in particular containing an immaculate set of verse. Musically as well, things have very definitely started to move into gear. As the title suggests the "legendary" E-Street band have been recruited by Bruce (mainly from gay bars if the photo on the back is anything to go by) and therefore his musical palette has increased and widened. Bob Dylan is still watching over proceedings ("Mary Queen of Arkansas" is unfortunately re-attempted in the form of the rambling acoustic "Wild Billy's Circus Story") but Van Morrison has obviously been playing quite a bit on Bruce's New Jersey juke-boxes with more of the songs expanded into jazz-flavoured free-form musical journeys. Indeed, this album is almost certainly the most musically adventurous Bruce ever put his name to and, as a result, combined with the fact his lyrics are still exuberant and optimistic often sees this album appealing to people who don't generally like his more famous bombastic arena rock. Certainly anyone who was dissing Bruce in my company, as well as getting a punch on the nose, would be instantly directed to this album for evidence of when he was simply a great singer-songwriter with no strings attached. The E-Street band even experiment with funk on the opening title track as Bruce tries to generate an "E-Street" groove, used to back his joyful account of his like-minded Jersey peers out to have a good time. As well as the lush ballad "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" (one of his very best) Van's influence can be seen with the closing ten minute "New York City Serenade" which presents a gorgeous panoramic sweep of New York complete with an angelic piano chord progression and a string arrangement that Bruce practically coaxes out with his dynamic vocals, ranging from an awed hush to a heart-breaking cry as he narrates the trials and tribulations of the kids out and about in the Big Apple. When one remembers Astral Weeks is primarily concerned with nostalgic reflections of growing up in Belfast, backed by rambling but lush jazz-influenced and orchestral-aided arrangements it is not hard to pin-point the obvious debts to Van Morrison. On the other hand, "Kitty's Back", although drawing on the big-band jazz of some of Van's work ("Jackie Wilson Said") is more rock'n'roll than acoustic with the E-Street band throwing in plenty of jazzy guitar licks. As it happens, the first side of the album is merely good rather than fantastic and is what prevents this release from achieving the 10* that I was so sorely tempted to give it. That said, second track "4th of July, Asbury Park" is one of my all-time favourite songs (by Bruce or otherwise). Its sensitivity, musically and lyrically, is astonishing and is pretty much something that Springsteen never matched again. The arrangement is, of course, beautifully affecting with the E-Street band complementing Bruce's acoustic guitar in a way that was notably missing on the similar numbers from the debut. The lyrics are even better as one finds oneself helplessly sucked into his account of life in one of New Jersey's beach-towns with the hero all-too-familiarly struggling to make sense of adolescent life. The climatic middle-eight is one of the most wistful and beautiful moments ever captured on record with the arrangement breaking down to allow Bruce to yearn for his lost-love ("the kids say last night she was dressed like a star in one of them cheap little seaside bars, and I saw her parked with loverboy out on the Kokomo"). Amazingly "4th of July" is not even the best song on the album. That honour falls to what is almost certainly one of the greatest songs ever - "Incident on 57th Street". The story is immaculate as failed crook Spanish Johnny cruises into town only to get laughed back out by the serious criminals. He finds himself comforted by Puerto-Rican Jane who falls in love with him on the spot and attempts to redeem him and get him to renounce his deviant aims. However, in the last verse, Johnny hears of a chance to make his name and leaves Jane to condemn himself to a fruitless, premature death all in the name of misguided glory. Such an epic narrative is of course captured with an equally epic arrangement and it easily stands out as one of Bruce's all-time great songs. The organ hook on the chorus is so transcendent it almost doesn't sound like a musical instrument at all but some kind of divine power transmitted straight into your mind. Words really cannot do such a song justice but, believe me, it is something you've GOT to hear. The second half is fleshed out with another sweeping epic, sandwiched between "Incident on 57th Street" and "New York City Serenade", in the form of the light-hearted and furiously energetic rocker "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)". Lyrically, again, it sees Bruce in a far jollier state of mind than the rest of his seventies classics and it brilliantly culminates with a real rush of a middle-eight, featuring his car (naturally) getting stuck in the swamps of Jersey. One might find it possibly smug (given he is obviously aware of the rock'n'roll legacy he is about to secure) but the fact that he sings the whole number with a smile on his face is enough to keep me smiling along at home. From now on, though, his classic rockers are mostly going to be concerned with far more serious subject matter as Bruce outgrows his youthful naivety and starts to see his state's inhabitants for what they really are. Still, though, it is an album like this that reminds us how youthful he once was and is an even better bet than the debut given the jump in songwriting quality. One question, though, why did he put a picture of Italian footballer Alessandro Del Piero on the album cover?

From: ddickson@rice.edu

Uh. . . are you sure that's Alessandro del Piero on the cover? Looks like Bruce to me. Maybe I've just gone crazy.
Great album, anyway. His best of the '70's. I give it a 10.

With the obvious increase in quality in his output people were starting to take notice of Bruce and in the run-up to the release of his third album he was featured on the cover of several notable magazines and infamously promoted as the "future of rock'n'roll" by his-soon-to-be-manager-and-producer Jon Landau. With this increase in popularity Bruce saw his future away from the Van Morrison-style jazzy meanderings of previous releases and instead foresaw something ultimately grander and unfortunately more commercial. There is no real doubt, retrospectively, that this album represents the first confident footstep towards establishing the "Boss" persona and then, sadly, nothing would ever be quite the same again. Paradoxically, though, this break-through release is nothing short of incredible. It remains the one release in his career that is almost uniformly heralded by both haughty critics and his red-neck fan-base alike. In truth, his attempted musical innovation (essentially an appropriation of Phil Spector's production values into epic rock surroundings) was not as ground-breaking as he might have hoped and, indeed, the height of its influence only goes as far as Meatloaf's overblown and overrated Bat Out of Hell. That said, it is hard to say the musical advances are a disappointment in comparison to The Wild, the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle as the power of the arrangements of the majority of this album is absolutely astonishing. At times you don't even notice a recognisable melody within seminal album opener "Thunder Road" but the sheer power of the gradual climatic arrangement makes it a classic almost all on its own. The other star of the show on display here is, unsurprisingly, the lyrics. In the space of two years Bruce has grown up and, as a result, started to see his hometown environment for what it really is. Of course, he would famously reach the zenith of his maturity on the following release (before he was even 30) but the seeds are sown on here with the small, industrial towns morphing from scenes of youthful adventure to dreary death-traps where one starts slowly dying as soon as they leave school. In "Thunder Road" the youthful innocence of high-school is over, "the graduation gown lies in rags at their feet", and the protagonists must either waste away like their parents and peers or take flight with the uplifting denouncement "it's a town for losers, we're pulling out of here to win". "Backstreets" paints much the same picture of the loss of innocence and the realisation that every living moment is a slide towards death and the chilling finale brilliantly captures the desperate realisation of the futility of life - "Remember all the movies we'd go see/Tryin' to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be/Well after all this time we find we're just like all the rest/Stranded in the park and forced to confess". Of course, unlike the following release, Springsteen hasn't quite fallen out with his protagonists yet and although Jersey is painted in a less than pleasant light there is still hope for its inhabitants. Obviously, as "Thunder Road" and "Backstreets" make explicitly clear, there are no heroes on show but that doesn't mean anyone should give up hope altogether. Whilst they're still young there's still hope and the title track documents such car-dominated dreams with a majestic power that perfectly encapsulates Springsteen's message. It is actually one of his few hits that I'm willing to unconditionally uphold and its famous middle-eight ("the highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive") is arguably one of the most epic and powerful moments ever committed to tape. Unfortunately Mr. Inconsistency himself cannot maintain such power and glory throughout a single album and the limp power-ballad "She's the One" is barked out with uncharacteristic complacency whilst "Night" is a generic rocker that puts too much faith in Springsteen's and Landau's production tricks to pull it through. One might even stretch to saying the jazzy r'n'b of "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" and the understated piano ballad "Meeting Across the River" are good songs rather than great ones but, on a personal level, I find both convincingly enjoyable. Besides, although they are only four out of eight songs the actual best tracks consist of over 2/3rds of the running time and, furthermore, they combine to form some of the greatest music ever experienced. The set is played out with an epic finale of astonishing power and a number that is regarded by my good self as another of the greatest songs of all time - "Jungleland". The arrangement is absolutely peerless, beginning with an unnaturally evocative piano intro before expanding to sketch out a complete portrait of New Jersey life, culminating with a saxophone solo that tells a story all on its own and finishing with another climatic coda, documenting the aftermath of both a raging battle and just another day in the life of "Jungleland". In spite of the rampant escapism of the rest of the album "Jungleland" sees Springsteen drawn back into New Jersey, his narrative opening with the team's home-coming, detailing the naive romances of the adolescent kids and culminating with a bloody but ultimately fruitless battle between rival gangs. In the over-excited "they'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light" Springsteen loses himself in the romanticising of the brutal, aimless violence of petty thugs and in the final denouement ("they wind up wounded and not even dead") he grants them a concept of honour that masks the futileness of their actions. It is a poetic portrayal of a city that barely deserves such romanticism but, as I've said, anyone with an attachment to their hometown can appreciate the spirit which overpowers him. Although the lyrics have a depressing under-current throughout the album a surface listen does not immediately suppose such cynical fatalism. "Backstreets" apart, with its harrowing cry of a chorus, the rockers on here suggest a salvation that is still within reach and although Bruce tries to dispel the notion of heroism you can sense that the protagonists are unwilling to believe him. Three years on, however, and Bruce was no longer prepared to paper over the cracks.

With Landau entering the picture Bruce was forced to undergo legal wranglings with his previous management company and, as a result, his proposed follow-up to his break-through release was put on ice. When Bruce finally came round to recording it he was not a happy bunny. Paradoxically, though, what came out was not an On the Beach-style rant at record companies and the awful life of a rock'n'roll star. Instead, Bruce again turned his attention back to his small-town heroes and escapist adventurers. Except this time round he does not paint such an optimistic picture. The kids who dreamed of escape on Born to Run were only talking-the-talk and within a few years they'd settled down, married young and ended up in dead-end jobs like their parents with "eyes that hate for just being born". Not only have they realised there are no heroes but they have been forced to admit that it is impossible for them to become them. The Wild and Innocent times seem even further away now and instead of joyously fumbling around in a search for romance and good times, five years on, the characters no longer even believe in romance or good times. Instead, they either sit on their porches after a hard day's labour and painfully resurrect their dreams about a way out or else seek escapism in mindless acts of violence ("you just better believe, boy, somebody's gonna get hurt tonight"). This album is more than just a matter-of-fact portrayal of people living dead lives, though, as Bruce draws the whole set together with a final glimpse of redemption. As far as concept albums go this is far subtler than most and in the title Bruce hints at both the problem to these people's problems and the solution. Although the very notion of a darkness on the edge of town is brilliantly evocative Springsteen uses it to represent a mental block on behalf of the townsfolk who, for all their angst, are too scared to venture beyond the "darkness", out of their small-town hell and into the real world. The album is dove-tailed by two songs of defiance and, ultimately, redemption. The opening "Badlands" uncharacteristically refuses to recognise the desperation of the situation with the defiant "I don't give a damn about the same old played out scenes/I don't give a damn about just the in-betweens" as the protagonist swears his promises in Born to Run were not false after all and he's still gonna break away from his doomed peers ("it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive"). Of course, the character who dreams of "The Promised Land" seems more delusional than strong-willed and the optimism of "Badlands" may be perceived as equally false as a result. Thankfully, though, such ambiguity is cast aside with the thrilling finale in the form of the title track. In the final denouement the protagonist, after losing his job and his wife ("those things don't seem to matter much to me now"), leaves the town and heads for what lies beyond the darkness - "I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost/For wanting things that can only be found/In the darkness on the edge of town". As far as conclusions go it is pretty much the best, with a draining release of salvation. Although the lyrics and concept make up the high-point of Bruce's career the sheer quality of the music on offer should not be overlooked. The arrangements are less bombastic than Born to Run and, often, superb in their subtlety. Some of the songs are typically brilliant E-Street styled rockers ("The Promised Land", "Prove it All Night") but the likes of "Something in the Night" and "Streets of Fire" are beautifully arranged, with the piano being prominent but still understated. Bruce's vocals on the latter are a real highlight of the album, too, as he reaches almost soul-like power to match the explosion of the chorus. A career high, undoubtedly. Shamefully, it took me a long time to fully appreciate the merits of this album as I originally dismissed the cathartic "Adam Raised a Cain" as ugly (in fact its power is spine-chillingly brutal) and the centre-piece "Racing in the Street" as boring when, in fact, it is an understated piano ballad of immense desolate beauty. Although the highlights are perhaps not as high as the previous release Bruce can at least put his name to one consistent album as only the touch-turgid "Factory" comes anywhere near to undermining the quality of the rest of the album. As has been pointed out by many commentators other than myself, it was certainly a brave move of Bruce to paint such a bare picture as there were undoubtedly people from these sorts of towns that were able to lose themselves in the imagery of Born to Run. To be told that their wistful dreams of escape are barren and false is hardly likely to endear themselves to Bruce. On the other hand, the album does undoubtedly end on an optimistic note. Furthermore, though, I find it hard to believe that many of his fans really would identify with something like this or even, indeed, if it is actually that accurate. Without wishing to become too embroiled in risky comments on class, it always struck me that these sorts of people were not the type to wallow in depressing music. Speaking purely from a British point of view, when you see these chavs and spivs from their Kent or Essex small-towns like Chatham or Southend, speeding round in their souped-up cars and getting drunk in order to get some blood on their shirts and shoes I can't help but think they don't quite have the same frame as mind as the characters on here. Do they do these things out of sheer boredom, frustration and a dwindling will to live or simply because they actually enjoy them? Personally, from an outside perspective, the latter seems more plausible to me. Still, they can't all be content with such a life and there's no doubt Springsteen expertly captures the frustrations of small-town living. In that respect, the second verse of "The Promised Land" pretty much sums up the whole experience - "I've done my best to live the right way/I get up every morning and go to work each day/But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold/Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode/Explode and tear this town apart/Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart/Find somebody itching for something to start". In brilliantly documenting such desperation Bruce created his masterpiece and was well on his way to potentially becoming one of the all-time great artists. Unfortunately, a couple of releases down the line, and Springsteen disregarded such brutal realism and with youth fast fading was again willing to romanticise lives that, quite frankly, don't deserve it.

The River was something of a watershed release for Springsteen in more than one sense. Primarily, it cemented his position as a popular artist (on both sides of the Atlantic) and was the penultimate step in establishing himself as a veritable "American Legend". Such popularity was achieved, however, through a route that further commercialised his sound after the bombast of Born to Run and whisperings of the "Boss" first started to appear with the release of this album. On the other hand, although there are preliminary elements of Born in the USA on here, the majority of this album is still sufficiently intelligent, sensitive, and sporadically dark (the title track continues the theme of the previous album) in both the lyrical and musical sense. Although this album is the first to miss out on the 197- seal of approval (ie. any album of his released in the seventies is worth getting) it still seems a strong and authentic enough release for me to laud it as his final great album (for twenty years, anyway). As is no secret, this is his sole double-album release (although presumably The Rising would be a double-set if released on vinyl) and, appropriately, it both benefits and suffers from the effects of such an approach. On the plus side, of course, it means we get more music and most of it is pretty much great. On the down side, with similar predictability, it means we also have to sit through more filler. Rather unfortunately, all bar one song of the filler is of almost exactly the same style - moronic red-neck rock'n'rollers that are so lightweight they'd practically float away if they weren't used to intermittently stem the flow of good songs over the two discs. They thankfully don't use the offensively cheesy synthesiser/snare-drum combo of the similar numbers on the following-but-one album but there ain't nuthin' to justify their inclusion, apart from as a disappointing invitation for red-neck fans to hail the "Boss". Some are quite fun, I guess, ("Sherry Darling", "Cadillac Ranch") but taking them away and condensing the album down into a single would leave you with a far less dubious 9* award. Insult is added to injury with the insipid, plodding eight-minute power-ballad "Drive All Night" which is embarrassingly misplaced given the quality of Bruce's other ballads on the album. When one hears him wheezing through the chorus or barking about "heart and soul" one is left practically begging for a bit of Bon Jovi's class in that department. Still, "Drive All Night" aside, the rest of the filler is hardly meant to be that important and, bar the odd exception ("Ramrod" sucks harder than a vacuum cleaner), easy enough to sit through. The majority of this album, of course, is pretty much up to the standard set during the previous decade. Disc 1 opens and closes with the two greatest classics on the album in the form of the absurdly melodic "The Ties That Bind" and the timeless regret of "The River". The latter is another of his unusually deserving greatest hits with an ominous (predominantly) acoustic arrangement documenting another desperate tale of crushed dreams and ruined lives. In truth, though, the subject matter of the title track is something of an anomaly as most of the lyrical content of this album reverts back even past Born to Run to times when the kids were still having fun (the strutting, cock-sure "Out in the Street") or looking for love ("Two Hearts" and "I Wanna Marry You"). As it happens, my parents listened to this album a lot when it came out (the year I was born into this life) and I was apparently a big admirer of "Two Hearts" in my infant state. These days, however, and my affection has switched to the more worthy numbers. "Independence Day" is a poignant ballad about the fragile relationship between a father and son (a favourite topic of Bruce's, given his own difficulties with his old man) and the motown-esque "Hungry Heart" was a deserved hit from the album. Bizarrely, according to Bruce himself, he originally wrote it for the Ramones but Landau made him record it himself. Even more bizarrely, it is actually something you could easily imagine the Ramones singing. Much like Physical Graffiti the fact that most of the classics appear on the first CD suggests if one is looking to condense the double set into a single one you might as well just throw away the second disc. I, however, disagree. There aren't any obvious hit singles but the ballads thrown onto disc 2 continue the fine form of the first CD, even if they are less subtly interrupted by the red-neck knock-offs. "Point Blank" begins the second disc as ominously as the first ended whilst "Stolen Car" belatedly continues such weighty ruminations. The best two numbers on disc 2, though, are undoubtedly the superior ballads "Fade Away" and "The Price You Pay". Bruce's vocal performance on the former is agonisingly authentic whilst the solemn latter number again warns against the perils of settling down too early in life. Indeed, this album, probably due to its elongated nature, can be rather inconsistent in its message as well as its quality. At times he is sounding off about how terrible life can be but then joyfully celebrating the thrill of romance or the simple pleasures of driving a fast car. For evidence of this, we go straight from the optimistic, romantic "I Wanna Marry You" to "The River", whilst disc 2 has a brainless homage to fast cars ("Ramrod") on the same side as a pertinent warning about the consequences of driving recklessly ("Wreck on the Highway"). It seems that Mr. Inconsistency also fancied playing at being Mr. Ambiguity for a while as well. Again, then, we are confronted with another inconsistent album but with several highlights as high as you like. Furthermore, with albums as stretched as this, do you positively weight it for all the good stuff or negatively weight it for padding it out with unimpressive filler? Obviously I've gone for the former option but it is a real pity Bruce put me in this dilemma in the first place. Unfortunately, I've got to do what my "Boss" tells me.

In one of the stranger twists in music history, before Bruce became the "Boss" and sabotaged his own career, artistically, whilst simultaneously cementing his legend commercially (ie. he sold out), he made a temporary about-turn and returned to making dark music about dark lives. Furthermore, he completely and utterly stripped away the bombast of his arrangements and made this album essentially entirely unplugged, without the assistance of the E-Street band. I believe he originally intended to record this stuff with his band but upon hearing the songs in demo form decided they would actually sound better as they were. In a sense it was a brave move but Bruce is not a stupid man and he obviously realised with his growing popularity he could afford to release one non-commercial album before returning to more mainstream territory. Furthermore, an album like this was also obviously going to increase his stock amongst the snobbish critical elite, therefore giving him the best of both worlds. Of course, it isn't even THAT radical to release an album like this. Loadsa artists go back to basics at certain stages in their career (Neil Young's Comes a Time springs to mind) and it is hardly an amazing concept that Bruce should honour those in whose footsteps he is following such as Woodie Guthrie, Johnny Cash or even early Bob Dylan (given Bruce's debut was effectively a homage to Dylan's subsequent mid-sixties output). That said, it is nice to hear an album by Springsteen that isn't consciously eyeing the lucrative low-brow American market and, to that end, one can ignore the odd less-than-exhilarating moment on the album in favour of a sound artistic unity. The lyrical theme of the album, although obviously depressing, actually has its focus a little below his usual working-class Jersey chums to the real losers in the world - chancers, crooks, vagrants, murderers, and the decent, honest folks that are so poor that they get sucked into the criminal underclass with all the rest. (As if to reinforce this point Bruce even uses the line "I've got debts that no honest man could pay" twice on the album, in separate songs.) The overall concept of the album also diverts away somewhat from Springsteen's usual shtick as instead of being asked to sympathise with these down-and-outs or glorifying the false dreams of broken lives the accounts he gives in the songs are unerringly matter of fact. Even varying from the psychotic serial killer of "Nebraska" to the families sliding into poverty in "Mansion on the Hill" and "Used Cars" to the honest Joe turning to a life of crime to make ends meet in "Atlantic City" even to the weary cop and his futile attempts to look after his miscreant younger brother in "Highway Patrolman" Springsteen never changes his tone so that each account ends up sounding like it comes from the same page. Of course, you can take the actual stories on their own merits and judge the characters accordingly, but there's definitely echoes of Johnny Cash's refusal to judge his criminal characters in his songs. Indeed, the likes of "Nebraska" and "Johnny 99" were seemingly written with a potential "prison" album in mind. In which case, it would have been interesting to see exactly how low Springsteen would have stooped in pandering to his audience ("I tell you, there's no folk like prison folk"). Obviously, given Bruce's lyrical ability, the stories are all pretty impressive but, ultimately, what determines whether you actually pay attention to them is decided by how interesting the actual songs are. To that end, against the odds, Springsteen comes out on top. Only the classic "Atlantic City" is instantly memorable (helped by being the only song to contain a catchy chorus) but the understated guitar picking and gentle vocals are easy on the ear and once you get sucked into the various tales you find some subtle hooks reappearing in your subconscious long after the original listen has ended. Although these demos were apparently meant to be recorded with the E-Street band's help it is hard to envisage something like the title track or "Highway Patrolman" as a full band effort. That said, there are some tracks that may well have ended up as E-Street rockers and to that end it is intriguing to hear them stripped of the bombast and reduced to their bare bones. The repetitive palm-muting of "State Trooper" adds infinitely to the isolated desperation of the protagonist whereas the addition of something like a cheesy synth line may well have ruined it. "Open All Night" in a full band style may well have sounded like a River out-take whilst the optimistic finale, "Reason to Believe", probably would have worked equally well in both settings. Unfortunately, Springsteen has never been one to write a batch of great melodies (a lot of his early success rests on his superb arrangements) and therefore stripping away the flashiness was always only going to bring limited success. Although the flaws are not overwhelming an album like this was unlikely to match his peak output and critics that herald this as his greatest work really need to stop trying to show off. That said, it is obviously appealing to people like myself who are rather snobbish about Springsteen's overtly-commercial work and it is no coincidence that Springsteen's last really good album for two decades was also the last one to not try too hard to appeal to the general pop market. The masses may well have spoken but one can't help but feel Bruce would have been better off not listening to them.

Over a decade after beginning his career as a Dylan-influenced singer-songwriter and with middle-age approaching Tom Waits mustered together all his artistic strength, spread his wings, drew in fresh influences and released Rain Dogs - one of the greatest artistic achievements of the twentieth century. Bruce Springsteen started dressing in red, white and blue, bought a snare-drum and a set of synthesisers, and wrote an album of pop songs specifically designed to win over once and for all the general American public. I don't want to come across as too snobbish (after all, the phrase "low-brow" has crept into this page on several occasions) and it is not the people themselves that I have much of a problem with. Bruce showed on Darkness of the Edge of Town that he could both write great music and brilliant lyrics that pulled no punches about the desperation of small-town living. So why, six years on, did he suddenly decide that sort of life was not so bad after all? Why did he do so to a soundtrack of moronic synthesiser hooks, dumb country and western licks and rudimentary pop melodies? The truth is, it seems to me, he decided instead of offering them his sympathy he'd rather have their money instead. Clearly the average blue-collar Joe did not want to mope around on his porch listening to the agonising power of "Streets of Fire" or crying silently to "Racing in the Streets". He wanted to boogie along to "Working on the Highway" and "Darlington County". I may be a snob but such cheap selling-out does not garner any respect from me. In typically canny fashion, however, Bruce tried to appeal to such snobbish fans by retaining the depressing elements that initially appeared to be missing. Sure, the title track was written strictly with the intention of getting the red-necks to pump their fists in the air with patriotic pride to the retarded chorus but have you actually read the lyrics? They're all about how Vietnam vets get pissed on and how America isn't really great after all! Thanks to Bruce us clever folk can laugh at all those dumb red-necks who don't realise what sentiments they're really singing along to. (By the way, I've always found it interesting that the film First Blood came out at a similar time concerning similar material and it too saw its anti-hero ignorantly rehashed as a model of rank patriotism in its subsequent sequels.) Speaking of things getting pissed on take another look at that album cover. What exactly is he doing in front of the American flag... Well, I'm not buying it. Look, Bruce, you can sell out if you want but you ain't getting my respect at the same time because you're simultaneously making fun of the people making your fortune. Furthermore, if you're going to sell out could you at least write some better songs? I mean, if this album was all of the quality of the admittedly classic "Dancing in the Dark" I might have a lot more time for it. Unfortunately, between 1/3 to a 1/2 of it is useless and often downright offensive. Christ, how could he be pulling things like "Cover Me" or "I'm Goin' Down" out of his arse when he spent the last decade showing us what great things he was capable of? I've even got special words of reprimand for the execrable "Glory Days" which has since gone on to achieve laughable greatest hits status. It really, really amazes me that when I go into a pub with his Greatest Hits on a jukebox I'm invariably subjected to the flat-lining "Glory Days" when the likes of "Incident on 57th Street" or "The Ties That Bind" aren't even available (and that applies to the new Essential compilation as well). In fact, the really disappointing thing about this album (as opposed to Human Touch and Lucky Town) was that Bruce was still at the peak of his powers. I've no doubt that if he'd wanted to he could have created an autumnal masterpiece (cf. Blood on the Tracks and obviously Rain Dogs). Instead, he used his powers for evil instead of good. This disappointment is highlighted by the fact there are a few tracks on here that are suggestive of Bruce at his peak (amazingly, two of them were the only non-singles from the album). "No Surrender", "Bobby Jean" and "My Hometown" are all romantic slices of nostalgia that painfully remind us of what Bruce used to be like. "No Surrender" is a great little retro rock'n'roller that celebrates the music Bruce and chums listened to in school, complete with 50s-style backing vocals. "My Hometown" is a bitter-sweet portrait of one's hometown (more modest than "Jungleland" but more concise as well) which should strike a chord with anyone who feels a sense of civic identity. It opens with Bruce as a kid being shown round by his dad and documents the trials and tribulations of the city. Just as the protagonist and his wife start considering moving away he repeats his father's actions with his own son and the song ends with the circle complete and the cycle continued. Even more evocative (no mean feat) is the peerless "Bobby Jean". Springsteen's tribute to his lost friend (Steve Van Zandt, who was just about to start a solo career) is absolutely heart-breaking and is about as romantic towards a friend as one can get without turning gay. The fact that Van Zandt stuck around long enough to actually play on the song does rather compromise the lyrics but there's no doubt the last verse is one of the most emotional Springsteen ever recorded. Such highlights are only just enough for this album to achieve a mediocre status, however, and I have somewhat compromised my bitching by awarding it an obviously decent, if flawed, mark. The fact is that Bruce was still talented at this point and even the songs that are slicker than oil have a certain merit to them ("Downbound Train" in particular). Hell, I'll even admit to quite liking the start to "Darlington County" (no way is it a 5 minute song, though). The fact is, however, this just ain't good enough. Sure he secured his fan-base and made his fortune but that doesn't mean I have to be pleased for him. Ironically, one of the main benefits from this album is probably the fact that it directly inspired the far superior Slippery When Wet. And that kinda sums up the whole thing. You can't help but wish Springsteen had left this sort of thing to Bon Jovi and carried on his whole intelligent, sensitive and superior singer-songwriter shtick instead. Alas it was not to be. Screw the Boss, indeed.

Of course by the time Bruce became the "Boss" he was well into his mid-thirties and few artists maintain their form as they reach their forties. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for him, his wife left him. Therefore, instead of hearing a 37 year old man pandering to red-neck teenagers Bruce was again forced to grow up and face the concerns of growing old alone when he previously thought he had all that sorted. Therefore, lyrically speaking, this album is refreshingly authentic and, at times, evocatively emotional. On the other hand, as I've said, Bruce was getting old. And old people, generally speaking, are no good for nothing. Therefore, his songwriting ability was finally showing signs of waning. Despite the similar circumstances this ain't no Blood on the Tracks with only sporadic highlights, a few complete lapses in quality and an overall sound that is usually described (either supportively or maliciously) as "adult contemporary". Now genre descriptions don't usually bother me as long as the music is good and, quite frankly, I'm glad he's had to mellow out a bit and that he was too depressed to repeat the likes of "Working on the Highway" or "I'm Goin' Down". Like I said, this is the first album of his that suggests his superhuman songwriting powers were deserting him (the first where he starts to sound old) but, on the other hand, the sheer modesty of it all prevents it from actually slipping too far into mediocrity. The moronic "Spare Parts" (arguably the worst song he'd written thus far in his career) fails miserably to recreate the spirit of Born in the USA and the mumbling "Cautious Man" is as dreary as the similar numbers on the future Ghost of Tom Joad but, thankfully, the second side is mostly made up of consistently pleasant (if hardly great) acoustic numbers dealing with his lost love. The first half is far more inconsistent but, to match the two dreadful numbers, it does contain two of his best songs of the decade. "Tougher than the Rest", bizarrely, still rests on his synthesiser/snare-drum combo but, for some reason, sounds menacing, atmospheric and sad all at the same time and, as a result, stands out as one of the most evocative numbers on the album. It also, I hasten to add, contains one of the best and most memorable melodies of all the tracks on here. "Walk Like a Man", on the other hand, is markedly less melodic but, if anything, even more evocative. It is essentially an open letter to his ageing father in which both apologies and respect are offered and is a brilliantly emotional account of how one learns the concept of a dignified life through their relationship with their father (well, men anyway). I've always found it surprising that one of the most famous tracks from this album should be the title track. The metaphorical lyrics are quite clever but the keyboards still sound rather cheesy and it has never stood out, to these ears, above anything else on this record. It is not that it isn't a decent song, of course, but hardly something I'd want lauded as a greatest hit. On the other hand, "Brilliant Disguise" is at least something that better warrants an inclusion on the best of compilations. The sheen of it is undoubtedly easy on the ear but the melody is one of the best on the album and, like "Tougher than the Rest", the chorus is one that stays with you after the CD clicks to a stop. I am also a fan of the restrained "Two Faces" which is another number that requires more than one listen for its merits to sink in. Again, rather bizarrely, the silly synth solo that pops up at the end seems to improve the song rather than ruin it. The second half and the album as a whole plays out with three more interchangeable slow, lightweight but ultimately pleasant acoustic numbers that display Bruce showing unusual restraint in his old age and, of course, wondering where it all went wrong. That said, it isn't quite as melodramatic as Blood on the Tracks and although Springsteen seems like a generally nicer chap than Dylan I couldn't say how much at fault he was for the breakdown of his marriage. In any case, he remarried in a few years and gave us the wedding album in the form of 1992's Lucky Town. In between he abandoned such restrained ruminations and gave us another album of good-time, stadium-filling, fist-pumping rock'n'roll action in the form of the rather rubbish Human Touch. As for Bruce's last 80s album it does show signs of a talent losing his touch but, ultimately, its restraint and modesty ensures there ain't too much wrong with it. It is just as well for Bruce that I'm one of the few people of my generation to really rate Sting as a solo artist.

Unfortunately Bruce's newly found modesty and restraint only lasted for one album before he tottered back into the studio, now past forty, to record another fist-pumping set of "rock'n'roll classics" (used in the loose sense) to get those kids jumping again. For some reason, as with Darkness on the Edge of Town, the release of this album was delayed by a year or so and in the mean-time Bruce decided he had so many more great, timeless classics that he should record a whole new album. Therefore, one lucky day in 1992 both this album and Lucky Town were released simultaneously onto the unsuspecting public (only a year after Guns n'Roses had attempted the same trick in the form of the Use Your Illusion duo). The latter was fairly obviously recorded later in time than this one, though, so it seems the most sensible way to split them up is to review this one first. I might have referred to this being "rock'n'roll for the kids" but, really, Bruce was too old for that kind of thing now. The kids in 1992 (one would hope) were listening to generation-defining classics like Nevermind and Rage Against the Machine (although preferably not Pearl Jam's Ten). What time did they have for a washed-up vet like Springsteen? I realise we should cut him just an incy bit of slack given this was probably actually recorded in the late eighties (or at least before grunge properly broke) but can we really take a nineties album seriously that still has such a blatant use of the migraine-inducing snare-drum/synthesiser combo? It sounded pretty shit in the mid-eighties, how the hell Bruce thought it was still all the rage in the nineties is beyond me. Like I said, this boy's getting old. Other than the out-of-date production tricks the other obvious sign that his days in the sun were temporarily over comes with such an overwhelmingly unimpressive set of tunes. As I've said, most artists seem to fall upon hard times in their forties (and inexplicably get back on form in their fifties) and if the fourteen tracks on this overly long album show us one thing it is that Springsteen was finally reaching bankruptcy in terms of inspiration. One of the fast-paced rock'n'rollers is acceptable ("Roll of the Dice") but the likes of "Gloria's Eyes", "The Long Goodbye", "All or Nothin' at All" and the despicable "Real Man" (even Bon Jovi had realised that sort of moronic stadium rock was a thing of the past) are spectacularly generic and uncomfortably limp. Like all middle-age rockers desperately trying to recapture their youth (although, ironically, Bruce was much more subtle in his peak years) listening to them is pretty much the equivalent of watching your parents dance at weddings. Due to his age, Bruce does fare a little better with the more mid-tempo rockers with the opening title track representing the closest this album comes to a classic (and it is certainly a greatest hit of his nineties period) and the underrated, moody "Cross My Heart" at least showing a little restraint and maturity. That said, the anti-lesbian rant "Man's Job", "Soul Driver" (pan-pipes?!?) and "Real World" sit in the track-listing like dumplings, adding to the stodge-factor but with no discernible benefit. At least the semi-famous single "57 Channels (and Nothin' On)" attempts some kind of diversity with its reliance solely on a plodding bass line but the lyrics are utterly unfunny and are another attempt by Bruce to bond with his working-class fans despite his immense personal fortune (he's still Brucey from the block). Unsurprisingly, the restrained ballads are not too unpleasant and "With Every Wish" is passable and "I Wish I Were Blind" downright decent. Indeed, Bruce obviously had an inkling that he was best trying to act his age with respectable ballads and the like as the subsequently recorded album mainly surpasses this one (not that that is anything to be particularly proud of) through its increased modesty and glimpses of a mature dignity. For this album, Bruce was still unsuccessfully battling his middle-age and resulting artistic stagnation and, as a result, released an album that is both over-ambitious and laughably uninspired. Still, it is not as if his original fans were disappointed with this kind of thing, given they'd grown old with him. By way of example, my old man (apparently a fair old fan of the "Boss") regards this as his favourite album of Springsteen's entire career. For someone like me, though, it is nothing but a big fat - but not unexpected - disappointment. Old music by an old man for old people.

In a reverse of the circumstances that dominated Tunnel of Love we are again spared the release of a truly poor album by Bruce's marital arrangements. This time, and not much of an age after his initial divorce, Bruce married again (to backing singer Patti Scialfa, the sly dog). Therefore, instead of going through the motions for the sake of some snare-drum classics, he was again actually inspired to write something containing some kind of emotional investment. As a result, about half of this album consists of sappy love ballads that are at least reasonably tasteful and thoughtful. I mean, they obviously aren't up to the standard he was maintaining during the mid-seventies but that was to be expected. When these kinds of artists reach their boring farts phase it is best if they keep it simple and tasteful and, thankfully, Bruce picked up on the hint for this release. Even the rockers unconcerned with his newly-wed bliss are unambitious and solid enough to pass by without offending the long-suffering listener. But, at the end of the day, that is about as good as this album gets. It is very definitely a case of "maximin" (that's for the political philosophers amongst you) as Bruce maximises the distance from condemnation by minimising his ambition. For starters, there's only ten songs which pass by within forty minutes (Human Touch would barely have made a good EP, let alone a 14 track hour long album) and the taste-o-meter rarely flashes into the red with no synths, not much snare-drum and a modest exuberance that more befits a man of his age. In other words, he is relaxing with the adults rather than trying to roll with the kids. I hasten to remind you, of course, that this album was recorded at least a year after Human Touch. This recording gap is most evident in Bruce's vocals which, finally, have also started to show signs of age. He has developed more of a nasal rasp which, although does not prevent him from blasting out the rockers, means he was effectively forced to tone-down the attempted power of his arrangements. He actually sounds rather like Bob Dylan did in his forties (although not quite as nasal) and this album as a result sounds almost interchangeable with all the exercises in mediocrity Dylan had released in the previous decade. It is rather funny, when you think about it, that Bruce started out in the seventies by imitating Dylan's sixties material and ended up in the nineties still ten years behind the master. Obviously the 90s was Bruce's turn to go through the barren forties and it is a rather sad state of affairs that this was the best he achieved in an entire decade. Even Dylan managed to finish his decadus horribilis with Oh Mercy. Of course Springsteen didn't actually put out a huge amount of material during the 90s, no doubt content to concentrate on his 28-hour live shows with the rape and pillaging of his glory days (pun intended) through insensitive reworkings. On a similar note, this album actually starts rather worryingly with the typically brainless "anthemic" number "Better Days" which, despite a belated absence of snare-drum and synths, is notably uninspired and prematurely suggests nothing has changed. Thankfully, though, the rest of the album ventures into safer waters with most of the ballads being at least pleasant and most of the rockers self-consciously unimportant and inoffensive as a result. "Local Hero" and "Leap of Faith" (both with gospel backing singers) are exceptionally generic but the title track saves face as a much darker number than we'd expect at this stage in Bruce's career with a driving power behind it that even suggests a brief flirtation with subtlety. Another mid-tempo rocker worth the time of day is the redeeming "Living Proof" which offers evidence of some kind of thought process going into the writing of it (although it is a little snaretastic). The ballads are probably the brightest highlights on here, though, with both "If I Should Fall Behind" and "Book of Dreams" being unambiguous love songs to his newly acquired wife. The modesty of the arrangements is kinda nice and the choruses for both are at least melodic. As you can probably tell, it is difficult to say anything really positive about this album other than the fact it is better than it might have been and mostly inoffensive enough. It is so ridiculously average, though, that it is hard to even associate it with the likes of The Wild, the Innocent, Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. I realise they were written whilst he was young and at his peak but it isn't impossible for artists to keep their relevancy into middle-age. I don't want to force Bruce into a corner or anything but, again, the fact is Tom Waits released the brilliant Bone Machine the same year that this and Human Touch came out. I'm not saying Bruce was ever likely to match such a feat at a similar stage in his career but it was still ultimately his choice to go down this path. That Boss has got a lot to answer for.

Hang on a minute - Bruce decided he did fancy following in Tom Waits' footsteps after all and playing the challenging artist once again. He ain't a man high on inspiration at this point, though, so in order to again create an "arty" album he returned only as far as back as the last arty album he'd made, 1982's Nebraska, and decided he'd have a go at remaking it all over again. To be honest, if he couldn't be bothered to think of a new artistic statement to make then I similarly can't be bothered to think of new ways to describe it. For this album Bruce completely and utterly stripped away the bombast of his arrangements and made this album essentially entirely unplugged. The lyrical theme of the album, although obviously depressing, actually has its focus a little below his usual working-class Jersey chums to the real losers in the world - chancers, crooks, vagrants, murderers, and the decent, honest folks that are so poor that they get sucked into the criminal underclass with all the rest. The overall concept of the album also diverts away somewhat from Springsteen's usual shtick as instead of being asked to sympathise with these down-and-outs or glorifying the false dreams of broken lives the accounts he gives in the songs are unerringly matter of fact... Bored yet? 'cause you will be if you are actually unfortunate enough to listen to this album. Unlike Nebraska Bruce simply failed to write a batch of anything approaching good songs. The lyrical stories mostly aren't too bad, to be fair, and if you just read them as stories you do get a feel of the desperation of the situations the characters find themselves in or the inherent self-destruction that inflicts so many criminal down-and-outs. If I happen to glance through the song-titles what I tend to associate with them is the actual story they tell rather than any kind of vocal hook or clever arrangement. The terrible truth is, the vast majority of these songs, taken actually as music (which is what this is supposed to be, after all), are terribly, terribly dull. I guess it might be do with the fact the songs on Nebraska were (apparently) not actually meant to be acoustic and therefore half of the interest is in hearing the unexpected transition from the usual E-Street bombast. For this album, Bruce obviously wrote them with the strict intention of releasing an acoustic album and therefore the desolate power of the likes of "State Trooper" or "Atlantic City" is replaced by thoughtless, powerless acoustic meandering. Indeed, this is mostly sadly indicative of a man who has either forgotten how to write songs or simply did not have the energy to do so. I don't really understand how he thought writing one infuriatingly melodyless and inherently boring song after another would constitute a good album. He clearly wrote the lyrics in advance and then just kinda went through the motions in providing everything else. In musical terms, there's two songs that I can remember and one of them, the title track, is actually a fairly decent song. If you were to compile an EP entitled Bruce Springsteen's 90s Greatest Hits I think "The Ghost of Tom Joad" would warrant an inclusion. Of course, I enjoy Rage Against the Machine's cover more but the lyrics are pretty much brill (particularly the coda's paraphrasing of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath) and Springsteen should at least be applauded for that. Indeed, he was obviously so pleased with the lyrics that he actually deigned to bless the song with something resembling a chorus. To a lesser extent we get "Youngstown" which is at least buoyed by an atmospheric keyboard line. Given I've pretty much run out of things to say about the actual music after mentioning two whole songs all that is left is to refer to the lyrics and their stories. Most of them, of course, concern poor folk who try but ultimately fail to go straight ("Straight Time", "Highway 69") or poverty-stricken immigrants dying as a result ("Sinaloa Cowboys", "Balboa Park"). The most interesting story is maybe the Vietnamese fisherman who clashes with his outraged American townsfolk ("Galveston Bay") or the ex-soldier who gets a job on border patrol and gets conned by a pretty Mexican immigrant into assisting a drugs smuggler ("The Line"). As you've probably worked out by now, though, you'd be better off printing the lyrics out and reading them as (very) short stories instead. That way, you could actually listen to a good album while you did so. At this juncture there ain't much to be gained by hammering home the same point as I made in the previous two reviews but, suffice to say, Springsteen's middle-age uselessness was just as apparent when trying his hand at something serious. It is a relief, really, that he waited seven years to finally follow up this album and, when he did so, he actually had some serious inspiration (of a rather extreme kind, of course). In sum, the nineties were not quite what one would call a golden period for Mr. Springsteen and, as is the norm, a middle-aged artist was no real artist at all.

As everyone bar ostrich-imitators knows one September morning in 2001 some planes flew into some buildings and nothing was quite the same again. I don't want to get drawn into much of a discussion on the situation itself given it didn't affect me personally a great deal but, if one thing is for sure, it has certainly shown us just how evil the world actually is. If anything, seeing such death and destruction so vindictively waged by all sides almost makes one think those traditional fire-and-brimstone religions might have been on to something after all. Still, as Curtis Mayfield rightly has it, if there's a hell below we're all going to go. In musical terms, the response was just as unappealing with either reprehensible war-mongering (Neil Young) or narrow-minded patriotism of the worst sort (including even Paul McCartney who doesn't even come from America and yet won't give an insignificant percentage of his personal fortune to build Everton a shiny new stadium to benefit his REAL hometown. What a prick.) With all these oh-so-American artists leaping on the sympathy train for their share of the cash-in (Limp Bizkit covering "Wish You Were Here"?!?) one artist, an American legend no less, saw the disaster for what it really was. After all the puffed-up All-American hero crap he'd been trying to mould into his "Boss" image Springsteen finally took the chance to return to the real people involved in such a tragedy. Instead of waving the flag and lynching the towel-heads Bruce wrote a set of songs concentrating only on the personal loss suffered by the victims. Sure, there is the odd dip into glorified heroism ("Into the Fire") but the majority of the songs are barely about September the 11th at all. They're about what happens when friends, family and relatives die tragically and how people react to such circumstances. It is utterly refreshing that Bruce finally saw sense and shook off the Boss image to return to his roots as someone who is authentic, emotional and, above all, intelligent. In historical terms this was his first album since Born in the USA to reunite him with his famed E-Street band. To be honest, it actually is not all that noticeable as the use of contemporary producer Brendan O'Brien ensures this album sounds quite unlike all his others. Furthermore, to avoid repeating myself ad nauseum I'll make these statements now: This is his best album since The River, it contains his best rockers since "Bobby Jean" and his best ballads since "The River". It obviously goes without saying that 9/11 wasn't a good thing but the fact that it finally inspired Bruce to pull his fucking finger out and remember just what made him such a great artist all those years ago is very definitely a positive aspect. Bruce also continues the general trend of returning to form in his fifties (given the long delay since the last album one wonders whether he deliberately waited until his fiftieth birthday before writing again) and, in that sense, actually closed the gap behind Bob Dylan to a mere five years, with this pretty much matching Dylan's 1997 masterpiece and return-to-form Time Out of Mind. The other none-9/11 point worth making is the fact that this is almost certainly Bruce's most melodic album EVER! Much as I love the seventies stuff it is as much the lyrics and arrangements that earn the plaudits whereas on this album he just works full-tilt to get almost every song (well, 2/3rds anyway) to contain a really infectious vocal melody or catchy hook. Has he ever written something as melodic as "Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)" or "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" before? I seriously doubt it. Of course, I should mention the fact that this is almost as long as The River and, true to contemporary trends, fills up most of the space of the CD. As you should know, you won't often find me praising excessively long albums and, regrettably, that continues to be the case on here. It is a great album, of course, but if he'd cut off the odd track - particularly the generic rockers "The Fuse" and "Further On (Up the Road)" and maybe one ballad ("Paradise"?) - then we'd be looking at something very special indeed. Still, though, this album alone contains more great material than everything from the past two decades (Nebraska onwards) put together. Two of the most famous tracks from the album - "Lonesome Day" and "The Rising" - are two of his greatest rockers bar none with the former exploding the album into life and the latter forming its climax with its accumulating gospel hook. Like I said, the lyrical concept is also absolutely immaculate with mourning of genuine loss taking the place of jingoistic chest-beating. "You're Missing" paints the starkest portrait possible whilst the superb "Nothing Man" laments the subsequent emptiness of existence. Perhaps the most evocative track on the whole album, though, is the glorious "Mary's Place" (borrowed from the equally doomed Sam Cooke) which combines happiness and despair perfectly as the mourners try to face their tragedy with defiant optimism. The political aspect is momentarily dwelt upon with the ominous "World's Apart" apparently written from the point of view of the terrorist whilst "Skin to Skin" naively hopes the tragedy can draw different races and nations closer together (in hindsight, of course, the opposite inevitably occurred). The album ends with the optimistic "My City of Ruins" which is an unfortunately (if still heartfelt) sentimental salute to New York and its inhabitants. Not that I dislike the song itself but it is the only moment when Bruce draws his attention away from personal tragedy and returns to his "leader of common man" stature. Still, it is a triumph in itself that Bruce responded to such a tragedy in such an intelligent way and the fact that he did so with his strongest album in my lifetime is even more reassuring. It has been a long time coming and it took the greatest of tragedies to inspire it but, finally, Bruce Springsteen as intelligent singer-songwriter is back.

Given that Springsteen's 2005 release draws mostly on the depressing mediocrity of Lucky Town and The Ghost of Tom Joad it would appear that the renewed glory of The Rising was a mere blip, and not the sign of a second prolonged period of success. Of course, what was the difference between The Rising and the other four albums released in the last two decades? Answer: The presence of a certain E-Street Band. It is no surprise, therefore, that the conclusion Springsteen fans are quick to jump to is that he simply cannot do solo albums. Personally, I would like to stick up for Bruce. It must be wholly frustrating to have outsiders dictate the way you can and cannot make music, particularly when the indirect conclusion is that you are not good enough to make great music off your own back. I have complete sympathy for him if he decided he wanted to make his own album the way he wants and to hell with anyone who tries to stick their noses in. I will always have more patience with a bad album by someone trying to do something they feel is right than one produced by someone who is lazy and is happy selling-out. That said, of course, at some stage one actually has to listen to the damn thing and the problems relating to quality simply will not go away, no matter how sincerely or how hard the artist tried to make a great album. When looking over Springsteen's career it is an unavoidable observation that, apart from the initial success of Nebraska, nearly everything Springsteen has since released without his backing band's assistance has been bereft of any redeeming qualities. And so, unfortunately, it proves to be the case on here. It still has its moments, such as the ominous opening title track which is well arranged and features a decent enough vocal melody but then you could say exactly the same thing about The Ghost of Tom Joad and we all know how that album fared thereafter. Like that album, it is clear that Springsteen seems to think one simply does not need to bother with vocal melodies if one is writing a down-beat narrative set to sparse acoustic backing. Of course, with the absence of any embellishments, stripped just to vocals and guitars, the vocal melody becomes the most crucial element of the song and without it there is simply nothing to remember. It is difficult to release a great acoustic album and it is certainly not the lyrics alone that make, for instance, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan or Neil Young's Comes a Time so appealing. During the moribund DVD that accompanies the album Springsteen explains he wanted the melodies to be bare and austere to match the matter-of-fact portrayals of the lyrics but, as with Tom Joad, it just means the listener fails to pay attention to the vocals and the meaning of the song only comes out when one reads the sleeve-notes. Speaking of which, the way Springsteen sometimes explains the references in the songs is rather patronising and again suggests he puts little stock in the intelligence of his fanbase. The lyrical concept is very much the same as his other acoustic albums, concentrating on people much less well-off than himself with the whiff of misguided, well-intentioned but nonetheless demeaning condescension. It does feature by far his most sexually explicit song to date, the dreary "Reno", but I personally find it rather uncomfortable. His cool credentials were enhanced, though, when Starbucks banned the album as a result. Although the 'austere' acoustic material is all drab dirges this album just about excels Tom Joad with the inclusion of some upbeat material, most of which rivals Lucky Town for genericism, but manages to engage enough interest to provide some sort of merit. The two most interesting numbers come with Bruce's surprising and rather amusing decision to pretend that he is Neil Young. Both "Maria's Bed" and "All I'm Thinkin' About" feature Springy attempting to croon his way through with a cracked falsetto. Both performances end up with plenty of bum notes but, somehow, they also end up being surprisingly endearing. Perhaps because of the flawed concept or perhaps, more likely, because both have pretty nifty little vocal melodies, proving Bruce could produce decent songs on his own if only he went about it the right way. As it is, he sticks to going about things the patently wrong way far too often for this to represent anything other than a steep drop from the quality of The Rising and a persuasive advert for the contribution of the E-Street band. Indeed, Silvio Van Zandt and co probably get more satisfaction from listening to this album than the average Springsteen fan. If pride comes before a fall Springsteen should have swallowed his the day he finished Tunnel of Love.

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Email me at: jackfeeny@yahoo.co.uk