The Friday Morning Listen: Bruce Springsteen - Magic Roundtable! - Page 2

I've never worn out a CD before, but this disc is in mortal danger.

Lisa McKay:

After listening to pretty much nothing else since Tuesday, I have to say I'm still absorbing this and have a long way to go. My initial impressions? I love this album. Magic stands right up there with some of his very best work, and the thing I really love about it is that it's partly all the things that make Bruce and this band so great, and partly an excursion into a brave new world. Clarence's sax, those stirring choruses, that big noise that this big band makes — all familiar, and what could be better? Bruce talked in a New York Times interview a week ago about his "reinfatuation with pop music" and he uses it to tremendous effect here. A couple of things sound different enough to have nearly startled me when I first heard them, "Your Own Worst Enemy" being a prime example. Where did that opening come from?

As much as this work represents a return to form for the E Street Band, I feel like Bruce has turned a corner personally. For one thing, even though the music is uplifting and pop-inflected, the lyrics? Well, not so much. Unlike much of Bruce's body of work, in which redemption was somewhere down the road - at least a possibility if you worked hard enough and your belief was strong enough - this record sounds more like the work of someone who's trying to come to terms with the notion that faith in a good outcome might not always be enough to see you through. It's hard to watch humanity make the world worse instead of better for over 50 years and not lose your optimism or your faith in the notion that people will always do the right thing. As is always the case, Bruce makes the political personal — "Gypsy Biker", "Devil's Arcade", "Last to Die" are all intimate portraits that tell a much larger story, and it doesn't have a happy ending — and I have to say that when I listen to the album in its entirety, the overwhelming feeling I have is one of sadness. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The highlights? I figured when "Radio Nowhere" was released that there would be even better things to come, and I was right. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" is transcendent — and a perfect example of a soaring pop melody with a stinger in its tail. Everywhere on this record are bits and pieces of disappointment mixed in with the portraits Bruce usually paints. His eye for detail is still good, and his songwriting reaches near perfection on "Long Walk Home", which at the moment is my favorite track. This verse sums up what's great about this record, and I get chills pretty much every time I hear it:

My father said, "Son, we're
lucky in this town
It's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
You know that flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do
and what we won't."

A pop record with some great material for the tour? Most certainly. A political record? One of his most consistently political records yet, I think. He opens the proceedings with "Radio Nowhere" and poses the question: Is there anybody alive out there? Having listened to this for a few days now, I'm still not sure I know the answer.

Article Author: Mark Saleski

Mark Saleski is a writer and music obsessive based out of the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. He is an editor and writer for Jazz.com. He also writes reviews for Blogcritics.org and produces the weekly feature The Friday Morning Listen. …

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