A review of Bruce Springsteen's 'Devils and Dust' without having heard a single note!
2005 brings us a new Springsteen record for a new time. This isn't the Bruce that rocks the stadiums with bombast and righteousness. This isn't Bruce with a 27 piece 'E Street Band'. This is a somber and reflective Springsteen. He reminds us gently on this record that he still is America's greatest rock talent, but without all the whizz bang we have come to expect.
The disc starts off with a plaintive ballad that gently sets the tone for the rest of the record. This isn't the creepy desperate resignation of 'Nebraska', but you sure know it's the same old soul in there. The record picks up on occasion, and doesn't sound entirely like a suicide note. It tells us that even the Boss needs some time off for reflection.
Having toured the world about 19 times over on the Rising, Bruce opted the quieter road. He is touring this spring behind the album in very intimate settings. So no, you won't be seeing him. Those tickets went entirely to scalpers within 4 minutes of each onsale for every city. However, the Boss can't be blamed. Remember that he is the one who sells not a single front row seat to his shows. Never. He holds those and his staff hand them out to the folks with the worst seats in the house for every show.
I was at one of those shows in Denver about 6 years ago. I knew about the front row legend and watched. You could tell that those were folks who couldn't afford a $300 ticket. To their credit though, every last one of them knew every word to every song. That is how, and why, the Boss takes care of his fans.
An excellent bonus feature is that this disc is the first new big release of the new "Dual Disc" format. This is your regular CD on one side, and DVD features on the other. For the DVD fixin's, Devils comes with live acoustic performances of five of the discs tracks, along with lyrics, and the whole album remastered to 5.1 surround sound.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - SFC Ski
I saw Springseen on VH1's "Storytellers" the other night, and it made me appreciate his later work more, almost as much as I like the pre "Born in the USA" songs.
2 - Dave Nalle
I like that you throw in a Tom Waits album at the end there, showing that you're aware of what the new Springsteen aspires to be and can never really achieve.
Dave
3 - SFC SKI
Considering "Nebraska" came out 20 years ago, you can hardly claim Bruce is now trying to be Tom Waits.
4 - Shark
Thanks, DaveNalle. I don't need any more explicit evidence that you're a fucking arrogant idiot with no taste; you've provided it here:
Nalle: "...you're aware of what the new Springsteen aspires to be and can never really achieve."
Thanks again, Davey!
xxoo
S
5 - Cass
I was one of those people who got a front row seat back during the "Ghost of Tom Joad" tour. (My hub and I had nosebleed seats in a small theatre venue!) I had no idea that he did that for all his concerts. And it was awesome, and I knew the words to every song, and it will rank as one of the best things I ever got to do in my life. :)
6 - ClubhouseCancer
I find it utterly amazing that Bruce is being given a pass on releasing a "new" album of ten-year-old outtakes from the awful "Tom Joad" sessions, augmented with some synthesizers. Some reviewers fail to even mention this. We've been waiting for another Nebraska, and we get some warmed over table scraps?
I grew up worshipping Bruce, but his last 20 years of work are just frustratingly bad.
His legendary live shows are still incredible, but now its like that Simpsons scene:
Aging front man: Now we're gonna play a song....
Crowd: (Whooooo!!! Yayyyyyy!!!)
Front man:... From our new album!
Crowd: (Awwwwww... murmur, murmur...)
The Village Voice review of D&D was hilarious, I thought. The writer quoted some lyrics about "blind man waving on the side of the road/at a broken down flatbed Ford" or something, and wondered if the Boss was using some kind of Internet Random Bruce Springsteen Song Lyrics Generator.
7 - ClubhouseCancer
Here's some words for the Internet Bruce Springsteen Random Song Lyric Generator (IBSRSLG):
Chevy
little girl
faith
Ford
county line
union card
hopes
Buick
little baby
pickup
Mary
dark road
dark sun
dark car
night
working
highway
promised land
bar
redemption
More suggestions?
8 - Dave Nalle
Snark, you moron, I've seen Springsteen 7 times in my life. Each successive album since Nebraska has been worse than the one before. Have you LISTENED to Devils and Dust? It's like a Bruce Springsteen parody album. If you actually like his work, as I do, you should join me in lamenting the decline of a once-great talent.
Tom Waits on the other hand, just keeps getting better.
Dave
9 - Tom Johnson
Beware the DualDisc. If you don't mind paying for something that has a high likelihood of not playing everywhere and anywhere you choose, take your chances and buy it. If you actually care about your money, avoid DualDisc at all costs.
10 - Mark Saleski
yea, i've listened to Devils and Dust...just last night as a matter of fact.
it's great.
my review will be posted shortly, which you can piss all over in your usual fashion if you'd like.
11 - HW Saxton
A couple more suggestions for the lyric
generator if I may:
>summer
>rain
>barefoot
>time clock
>t-shirt
>beer
>boardwalk
>promise
>radio
>baby
>memories
>dark night
>baseball
>antidisestablishmentarianism
12 - Vern Halen
Damned if you do, damned if you don't: if Springsteen kept crankin' out the rock 'n rolly stuff from the late 70's early 80's, people would say he was stuck on a formula. If he tried to change things, other would mourn for the good ol' days. There's even some detractors that would say he does both at the same time (?!?).
But is it rock and roll? Better yet, was Springsteen ever only a rock 'n' roller? I believe he was signed on the strength of his acoustic material, so he has credentials for doing singer / songwriter stuff.
I think more than anything, Springsteen's last 20 years of recorded output, which some people don't care for, have become not about Springteen & his artistry, but more about the audience's reaction to their aging idol. I read a quote somewhere that went something like, "People who still listen to rock when they're older aren't trying to preserve their youth - they're trying to preserve their rebellion."
I guess it depends how well Bruce's new material feed into one's sense of rebellion - is this the joyful noise of a man born to run or just another corporate edict from the boss?
13 - Mark Saleski
if you read what he says about the characters he writes about, it's pretty obvious his concerns are not that different than anybody's elses.
there's also a contingent of folks who, while they say that he doesn't write great songs anymore, really mean that they don't like the stance he's taken against our government.
too bad.
14 - Sean
The most over-used word in a Bruce song:
Mister. Half the friggin' tunes are addressed to some mysterious Mr. That and the Monmouth County, Arkansas accent slay me every time.
15 - Dave Nalle
But Mark, he's always been pretty left of center. The difference is that on Nebraska he approached the social and political issues with some wit and humor, and that made it somewhat endearing. The wit and the humor are gone, and all that leaves is a multimillionaire griping about the lives of working people he's completely out of touch with and in many cases issues which aren't all that important anymore.
Dave
16 - Mark Saleski
and you know him personally?
you know the people he hangs out with?
you actually know that he's 'out of touch' with the people he's writing about?
no, you don't.
17 - SeanS
every time he refers to the woman in a song as 'little girl' it creeps me out. As for the Monmouth County Arkansas accent, I live in Monmouth County, New Jersey where bruce was born grew up, and now lives, and no one has the accent he has. Hell, in all the bootlegs from 1973 to 1980, he didn't even have that farmer accent.
As much as I love Nebraska, and it is one of, if not my favorite Bruce album, I think it ruined him. Before that album, he wanted to be the Otis Redding of the Jersey Shore; After that album he wanted to be the Woody Guthrie of the Colt's Neck dustbowl.
It is not about his aging fans relation to his music; It is about an aging musician's slow artisitic decline.
18 - Mark Saleski
right, tell that to all of us idiots who buy the records and attend the shows.
apparently, we don't know any better.
19 - SeanS
I don't know him personally, but he gets his food from Delicious Orchards which is a high end gourmet food store in Colt's Neck. When he shops there he is guarded by a cadre of secutiry guards. Furthermore, Colt's Neck, where he currently lives, is onoe of the wealthiest and most exclusive towns in NJ. There are no working class stiffs living there, nor are they shopping at Delicious ORchards.
Much was made of the fact that some of Bruce's neighbors were killed on September 11, and the personal impact that had on him. I do not doubt the personal impact it had. However, let's not pretend his neighbors were the firemen and cops who ran into those buildings to save lives. His neighbors were bankers and traders, vertiable captains of industry, who perished at their desks that morning. that in no way lessens the tragedy, nor does it in any way lessent he impact those deaths may have had on Springsteen. But Bruce Springsteen the Working Class Hero is a crock of shit.
20 - Dave Nalle
So Mark, you're hanging with Bruce now? Your experience of his world is greater than mine? I'm just drawing conclusions from what he says, what is public knowledge about him and the reality of our country today. How is that different from what you have to work with?
My take on his current music is that he's projecting his perceptions of the world when he was much younger onto today's events and national situation and coming up with the wrong answers. But I've never been that concerned about his politics. My complaint about D&D is that the songs really aren't very engaging lyrically or musically.
And BTW, I bought Devils and Dust off of iTunes and have seen Bruce in concert 7 times, so I'm not exactly a Bruce hater.
Dave
21 - Sean
I'd be curious to know about the immigrants that Bruce knows well enough to discuss their trips to hookers. As for the true believers out there, consider this. It is reasonable to argue that the pile of dreck that is Human Touch is actually not the worst record he has put out in the past 15 years.
22 - Mark Saleski
i never said i was hanging with him. my reactions are about what he's said about his concerns AND about the characters he's written about.
devils and dust along deals several characters including a man who obviously host lost (through whatever process) a past lover, a kid who lost his mother, christ and a guy who dies while crossing the rio grande.
what he's said about this stuff can be found on the dvd...ah shit, just read my review.
this stuff about him being out of touch is just pure conjecture.
23 - HW Saxton
Personally speaking,I'd like to hear him
do something that is musically more in
the vein of "The Wild,The Innocent &...
again.
He seemed to be going in a Van Morrison
type mode on some of the lighter,jazzy
cuts on that LP. What with the great sax
a lot of keyboards and subtly swinging
drums(much more credit should go to Max
and the way he can go from Spectoresque
thump to jazzy swing,he's way underrated
IMO)I think that that sound was really
agreable to his storytelling abilities.
Just my two cents on Bruce,anyhoo.
I doubt if I'll pick this up, but I have
not bought any new Springsteen release
since "The River".
PS:I've gotta agree with Vern. Bruce was
backed into a corner in regards to his
sound. Since it was such a unique sound
that made the BS appeal so strong,any
variations on it were sure to alienate
some of his fan base, excepting the die
hards of course.
24 - Sean
Maybe Bruce said it best when he sang:
"Mister, there's just a coldness in this world".
Maybe you can't truly appreciate the plight of the migrant farm worker until you've tasted the organic fruit of their labors. Can't you see the Boss retiring to his studio room with the organic fruit, his acoustic, a notebook and a whip. He eats the fruit, gives himself a lash or two to get the Catholic guilt up and then begins to compose.
25 - Eric Olsen
HW, totally agree: that early E Street sound, grooving '50s R&B painted across an enormous panorama, ended with Born to Run, and other than a few tunes on The River hasn't returned.