New Spinrgsteen Album Review (Brendan O'Brien discussed)
mjb
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http://www.thestar.com/Entertainment/article/577695
Springsteen's dream sounds like a work in progress
Bruce Springsteen Working On a Dream (Columbia/Sony)
Who's to deny Bruce Springsteen his contentment?
The Boss was apparently so caught up in a rush of autumn-years songwriting excitement towards the end of the sessions for 2007's Magic that he swiftly dragged the E Street Band and producer Brendan O'Brien back into the studio to knock out Working on a Dream with relative speed.
Maybe, after much tireless campaigning for Barack Obama, Springsteen wanted to have something ready just in case there was a presidential inauguration in his future, as indeed there was. He played for Obama's "We Are One" celebration at the Lincoln Memorial last week.
Maybe the death last year of E Street organist Danny Federici got him thinking about how much time he might have left. Maybe he got the call to play this weekend's Super Bowl halftime show a year ago and knew he'd better have some new product in hand to capitalize on the exposure. Or maybe he just couldn't bottle up all the optimism that comes with being a devoted husband and father when the side of right finally seems on the verge of victory again.
Whatever the case, Springsteen doesn't seem to have properly thought out Working on a Dream. It's got a few moments that sparkle – one of them, the wounded theme song of Mickey Rourke's acclaimed comeback film, The Wrestler, has already earned the man a Golden Globe – but it's also got a lot of lightweight tunes that barely mask their half-finished, transitory quality and lazy lyrical content behind a beatific "everything's all right" grin.
Sometimes it reaches for profundity and succeeds, as with "The Last Carnival." It's a moving acoustic paean to the departed Federici, dressed with imagery of a fairground being torn down and moving on to the next town with one fewer member of the entourage boarding "the train that keeps on moving / Its black smoke scorching the evening sky."
Sometimes it reaches for profundity and fails, as on the overwrought and overlong opener, "Outlaw Pete," a hackneyed Wild West tale whose burnished O'Brien production is totally at odds with the supposedly gritty subject matter.
But more often, Working on a Dream sets beneath-Springsteen clichés about the permanence of starlight, sunrise and love to robust E Street bluster that transmits an appropriate upbeat catharsis while each song is playing, but leaves you with very little in the way of melody or a memorable bon mot after the fade-out.
Still others, such as "What Love Can Do" or "Surprise, Surprise," offer little more substance than their titles, repeated over and over while the ho-hum accompaniment grinds on aimlessly.
Unfortunately, the rare tracks that qualify as experiments don't fare much better: "This Life" revisits dreamy Brian Wilson territory explored on Magic with the diminishing returns of familiarity. "Good Eye" is far too polished to be the snarly blues rant Springsteen likely intended it to be.
We can't expect perfection from Bruce Springsteen all the time. But we can justifiably expect him to try a little harder than most, I think, and Working on a Dream really doesn't try that hard.
Top Track: "The Last Carnival." The first tune that really stands out on the record, and it's the second-to-last track.
Springsteen's dream sounds like a work in progress
Bruce Springsteen Working On a Dream (Columbia/Sony)
Who's to deny Bruce Springsteen his contentment?
The Boss was apparently so caught up in a rush of autumn-years songwriting excitement towards the end of the sessions for 2007's Magic that he swiftly dragged the E Street Band and producer Brendan O'Brien back into the studio to knock out Working on a Dream with relative speed.
Maybe, after much tireless campaigning for Barack Obama, Springsteen wanted to have something ready just in case there was a presidential inauguration in his future, as indeed there was. He played for Obama's "We Are One" celebration at the Lincoln Memorial last week.
Maybe the death last year of E Street organist Danny Federici got him thinking about how much time he might have left. Maybe he got the call to play this weekend's Super Bowl halftime show a year ago and knew he'd better have some new product in hand to capitalize on the exposure. Or maybe he just couldn't bottle up all the optimism that comes with being a devoted husband and father when the side of right finally seems on the verge of victory again.
Whatever the case, Springsteen doesn't seem to have properly thought out Working on a Dream. It's got a few moments that sparkle – one of them, the wounded theme song of Mickey Rourke's acclaimed comeback film, The Wrestler, has already earned the man a Golden Globe – but it's also got a lot of lightweight tunes that barely mask their half-finished, transitory quality and lazy lyrical content behind a beatific "everything's all right" grin.
Sometimes it reaches for profundity and succeeds, as with "The Last Carnival." It's a moving acoustic paean to the departed Federici, dressed with imagery of a fairground being torn down and moving on to the next town with one fewer member of the entourage boarding "the train that keeps on moving / Its black smoke scorching the evening sky."
Sometimes it reaches for profundity and fails, as on the overwrought and overlong opener, "Outlaw Pete," a hackneyed Wild West tale whose burnished O'Brien production is totally at odds with the supposedly gritty subject matter.
But more often, Working on a Dream sets beneath-Springsteen clichés about the permanence of starlight, sunrise and love to robust E Street bluster that transmits an appropriate upbeat catharsis while each song is playing, but leaves you with very little in the way of melody or a memorable bon mot after the fade-out.
Still others, such as "What Love Can Do" or "Surprise, Surprise," offer little more substance than their titles, repeated over and over while the ho-hum accompaniment grinds on aimlessly.
Unfortunately, the rare tracks that qualify as experiments don't fare much better: "This Life" revisits dreamy Brian Wilson territory explored on Magic with the diminishing returns of familiarity. "Good Eye" is far too polished to be the snarly blues rant Springsteen likely intended it to be.
We can't expect perfection from Bruce Springsteen all the time. But we can justifiably expect him to try a little harder than most, I think, and Working on a Dream really doesn't try that hard.
Top Track: "The Last Carnival." The first tune that really stands out on the record, and it's the second-to-last track.
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