Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Bruce Springsteen - Working On A Dream


As a massive Springsteen fan I was always going to like the new album but it's even better than I expected it to be. It doesn't have the laser precision political tone that Magic had, it's much more of a varied, fun record. 'Outlaw Pete' is an absolute classic, and 'My Lucky Day' is going to be a live highlight. Other favourites are 'What Love Can Do', 'Good Eye', 'Surprise, Surprise', 'The Last Carnival' and 'Queen Of The Supermarket'. 'Queen' is a strange one because initially I was put off by lyrics like "As the evening sky turns blue/ A dream awaits in aisle number 2" which is just bad. But the song really picks up in the second half and the whole song makes sense then. Really grows on you.

The album has a very 60s kind of sound with a lot of harmonies and some really great melodies. Unfortunately Clarence doesn't make too many appearances which is a bit disappointing. Special mention has to go to 'The Wrestler' which even though it's a bonus track, is still one of the best songs on the album. Out next week, it's going to be one of the albums of the year without a doubt.


How Bruce came to write The Wrestler

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

my favorite is life itself
it´s dark and moody with a happy end
what else do you need from life?
l´chaim

Rory McDonnell said...

Hey man,

Love your blog its great. Am a huge Springsteen fan and can't wait for the album. Did you pick it up online? I can't find it anywhere - is it available on the web? I'll be buying it the first day it comes out.

Rory

Neil said...

Bernt - Life Itself is growing on me. Really liking it now.

Rory - Yeh its available on all the usual torrent sites. A google search will find it easily. Only mp3s so the quality isn't as good as the cd will be. It's a record that really needs to be played loud so the cd will be much better. It's also going to be streaming on npr.org from Monday.