Bruce Springsteen's latest album, "Working on a Dream", was released yesterday, and the reviews are excellent so far. I'll post some of those reviews shortly.

Track Listing:

1. "Outlaw Pete"
2. "My Lucky Day"
3. "Working on a Dream"
4. "Queen of the Supermarket"
5. "What Love Can Do"
6. "This Life"
7. "Good Eye"
8. "Tomorrow Never Knows"
9. "Life Itself"
10. "Kingdom of Days"
11. "Surprise, Surprise"
12. "The Last Carnival"
13. "The Wrestler"

Discuss.

Rolling Stone's * * * * * review (out of five stars):
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BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
WORKING ON A DREAM

To understand the romantic sweep and swaggering musical ambition that define Bruce Springsteen's first album of the Obama era, you have to go all the way back to an artifact of the Ford administration: 1975's "Born to Run." In those days, Springsteen was driving the E Street Band without a seat belt, staying up all night piling on overdubs: glockenspiel, surf guitar, violins, motorcycle noises. With a few exceptions, he's been paring down ever since. But on much of "Working on a Dream," Springsteen finally reignites his early infatuation with the pop symphonies of Roy Orbison and Phil Spector. It's all there from the first track, an eight-minute-long, tragicomic Old West fable called "Outlaw Pete," where he does everything short of dragging an actual horse into the studio: There are tempo changes, chugging cellos, "Once Upon a Time in the West" harmonica wails, massed strings, crescendo after crescendo — and a lyrical closing guitar solo worthy of "Jungleland."

"Working on a Dream" is the richest of the three great rock albums Springsteen has made this decade with the E Street Band — and moment for moment, song for song, there are more musical surprises than on any Bruce album you could name, from the Chess Records vocal distortion on the bluesy "Good Eye" to the joyous British Invasion pep of "Surprise, Surprise." Producer Brendan O'Brien seems to have shaken something loose in Springsteen, who by the Nineties was so focused on his ever-more-novelistic lyrics that melodies and chord changes could feel like an afterthought. On their last collaboration, 2007's "Magic," Springsteen suddenly started writing lush, retro-pop tunes with inventive arrangements ("Girls in Their Summer Clothes" and "Your Own Worst Enemy") — and singing out in an unexpectedly rich, open voice, one that for the first time in decades owed more to Orbison than latter-day influences Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie.

"Working" picks up where those "Magic" tunes left off, and then goes further. As much as anyone, Springsteen has mastered the key sounds of rock's golden age, and he deploys them at will on this album, diving deep into influences that he's only hinted at before on record. At least two tracks lean hard on the Byrds — the jagged, sitarlike guitars on "Life Itself" are pure "Eight Miles High," as are the close vocal harmonies on the tough little rocker "What Love Can Do." The twisted pop fantasia "Queen of the Supermarket" — the lonely narrator has an overblown obsession with a checkout girl — has a Sixties AM-radio vibe reminiscent of Manfred Mann's "Pretty Flamingo." And the dreamy, stacked backing vocals on the celestial love tune "This Life" owe as much to the Turtles as they do to Spector.

For all the overdubs on this album, the uptempo songs have a bracing, first-take feel, capturing the E Street Band's elusive live essence — Springsteen's freewheeling "Seeger Sessions" album may have helped bring that out. Roy Bittan's deliberately sloppy roadhouse piano and Max Weinberg's splattering cymbals make the standout "My Lucky Day" sound like "Exile on E Street," with Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt sharing the chorus Mick-and-Keith-style. Springsteen has had trouble writing happy-relationship songs that rock (see "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town"), but he nails it on "My Lucky Day," which is as much fun as his best Eighties hits.

The youthful energy of the album's music collides neatly with the all-too-adult truths of the lyrics, which — at least on the surface — return to the personal and domestic, after the global sweep of his last few records. The sunny title track is a rare and timely moment of unabashed optimism, and there are some of Springsteen's least conflicted, most devotional love songs here. But even the title character of "Outlaw Pete" can achieve no more than temporary redemption, and Springsteen wonders on several songs how we can hold on to our attachments — and the best parts of ourselves — in the face of "the burdens of the day . . . the weary hands of time." Some of those tunes recount rough patches in a relationship that could stand in for larger, national issues: "Why do the things we treasure most slip away in time/Till to the music we grow deaf and to God's beauty blind," Springsteen sings on the disquieting "Life Itself," which builds tension with claustrophobic rhythms anchored by Garry Tallent's droning bass. "Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?"

If you don't count the soundtrack tune "The Wrestler," tacked on as a bonus cut, the album ends with "The Last Carnival," a plain-spoken, heart-rending elegy for E Street Band organ player Danny Federici, who died of cancer last year. The tune doubles as a sequel to Springsteen's beloved 1973 song "Wild Billy's Circus Story," in which the romance of the circus stood for life on the road — here, the circus is moving on without Billy. "Sundown, sundown/They're taking all the tents down," Springsteen sings in a choked hush, at the bottom of his range. "Where have you gone, my handsome Billy?" The song ends with a choir of what sounds like Springsteen's and Patti Scialfa's layered voices, vaulting up to infinity: For a fallen comrade, it's one last opera out on the turnpike.

BRIAN HIATT

Entertainment Weekly's review:
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Bruce Springsteen
Working on a Dream (2009)

Since reuniting the E Street Band in concert in 1999, Bruce Springsteen has brought that lineup back into the studio to record two widely praised albums. 
As successful as that return has been, though, both 2002's "The Rising" and 2007's "Magic" came from painful places — one an effort to heal after 9/11, the other a bitter Bush-era protest.

"Working on a Dream," the third E Street Band album of the 
new millennium, feels like a sigh of relief by contrast. Springsteen's topical concerns have subsided for now, washed away by a high tide of positive personal feelings. "Our love will chase the trouble away," the Boss promises on the chiming title track. He sounds downright exhilarated on the uptempo pop anthem "My Lucky Day." And good for him. The guy deserves a break after so much 
eloquent angst.

Even so, a handful of tunes make it clear that Springsteen still sees a creeping darkness on the edge of town. "What Love Can Do" restates his humanistic faith with an anxious twist: "Darling, we can't stop this train/When it comes crashing through/But let me show you what love can do." He's bleakest of all in "Life Itself," pleading with a troubled lover in strangled tones. Even at Springsteen's most hopeful, then, his lyrics may always remain subtly haunted. Yet the warm, bright music blasting away behind him reminds fans what they've known for ages: It's hard to stay downbeat for very long when the E Street Band is playing.

Grade: A

LA Times review:
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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

The master of the album format settles for the instant effect of a string of hits.

by ANN POWERS, Pop Music Critic

January 26, 2009

Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential album-era rock star. Hear me out, ye who would argue Beatles-Dylan-Marvin-Brian Wilson-Who-Pink Floyd-Stones: Those artists might have made superior individual efforts, but none has used the long-player form itself more powerfully over the arc of a career, not only to establish a world through song, but to inhabit an enduring persona.

A string of hit singles alone wouldn't have made Springsteen the bard of America's slide from industrial-era swagger into service-economy anomie. He needed the track-by-track architecture of albums to flesh out characters, relate each to the other, extend metaphors and build a palpable, detail-strewn landscape through which they could travel.

The album format also has allowed Springsteen to build a sound, both with his stalwart E Street Band (a metaphor itself for the family connections and community spirit his songs celebrate or lament) and in more minimalist projects. But the album era is over. "Working on a Dream," Springsteen's 16th studio album, is not merely a response to this fact. It's partial proof.

"Working on a Dream" rejects the finer points of literary-minded album rock and aims for the instant effect of a string of hits.

It's a charmingly quixotic move; barely anyone has hits in these dark days of the music industry's decline, and especially rockers over the age of . . . how old are the Jonas Brothers? So give Springsteen credit for even trying. But the enthusiasm he and his team bring to these tracks doesn't redeem them. The best thing that can be said about "Working on a Dream" is that it's boisterously scatterbrained, an exhilarating but minor work.

Only a great artist could make an album that's at once so stirring and so slight. This is the Boss, after all; he can wring meaning out of a dish towel. And he's obviously enjoying himself, recalling the radio hits of his youth and applying their glitter to his template. But he gets lost in the idea of pop, forgetting to attend to the little details that pump blood into his best work.

There's a lot of variation on "Dream," as befits a foray into the singles game. "Outlaw Pete" is Southern rock done up with symphonic pomp. Partridge Family-style bubble gum inspires "Surprise Surprise," and Moby-ish electronics flavor the rough blues of "Good Eye." There's much nostalgia too -- "Tomorrow Never Knows" nods to both Dylan and the Beatles, while "The Last Carnival," dedicated to the late E Street Band keyboard player Danny Federici, floats forth on acoustic finger-picking recalling 1960s-era Laurel Canyon.

If there's a model for this music, it's "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," the best song on "Magic," Springsteen's previous album. That shimmering, melancholy dollop of California beach rock perfectly balanced corn and careful detail. Brendan O'Brien's organizing hand contained the floridity of the E Street Band, and Springsteen, trading in his troubadour's drawl for a crooner's open throat, found the plain-spoken truth in pop's sentimentality.

Several songs on "Dream" aim for the same exquisite mood as that one, and occasionally -- on the love songs "This Life" and "Kingdom of Days" -- Springsteen and crew come close. But they're just as likely to overdo it.

"Queen of the Supermarket," the album's low point, illustrates the consequences of over-flavoring a song, an understandable error for an album artist trying to concentrate his gifts. Roy Bittan's meditative piano opens the track, which has Springsteen moving among the aisles stealing glimpses of his grocery-bagging Beatrice. Had it stayed that spare and mellow, the song might have produced chills. Instead, disco strings, mounting backing vocals and pounding drums turn it into a Broadway number.

It's "The Wrestler," the bonus track that won a Golden Globe for its appearance in the film of the same name, that most clearly realizes Springsteen's undying gift. Tacked on to this shiny package, the song is ancient-school Springsteen: a terse ballad about a beautiful loser, simply arranged around acoustic guitar and modulated keyboards, that gently builds into a secular hymn.

It's the kind of song that says more than its words convey because the listener knows it's part of something bigger. Somewhere -- in this case, in a film, but also in the other songs Springsteen has written that give a different bruised face and gritty voice to the same man -- the story continues. That's how folk ballads work.

Springsteen might be bored of being their champion, but nobody serves them better, even still, than him.

This is an incredible album and Springsteen is such a legend. Although there are a few things that get to me, first of all, there's a strain in his voice that's always been a little distracting to me. It's most apparent in "Working on a Dream" (the song). Also, The album does fizzle out a tiny bit near the end but the last three songs are beautiful. He definitely has a gem in this album. He definitely hasn't lost it. I can't WAIT to hear him at the Super Bowl!

I've got to listen to this album again. After a first listen a few weeks ago, I was bored to tears by it.

quote:

Originally posted by GH:
I've got to listen to this album again. After a first listen a few weeks ago, I was bored to tears by it.

I think you just have to be in the right state of mind. The only track that really bored me was Life Itself.

Is this the album that Bruce Springsteen can finally win his long over-due AOTY award for?

^Nope, U2 is releasing an album...

quote:

Originally posted by T White:
^Nope, U2 is releasing an album...

If Springsteen maintains buzz with this album, he could win.

I have low expectations for the U2 album. Their new single is terrible. Unless the U2 album is a commercial and critical success, I doubt they win another 7-8 Grammys for this album.

I picked up this cd yesterday, and I really like it. 'Working on a Dream' definitely has a different sound from the last two albums. You can tell he was in a more positive frame of mind when he recorded this CD, and I'm not at all disappointed that it has a more upbeat tone, unlike MAGIC, which was totally pessimistic. I've had a couple listens all the way through, and so far I'm loving 'Outlaw Pete' (the strings in this are incredible), and 'Life Itself'. I'm on the fence with 'Lucky Day', but, I think it'll grow on me.

Oh, and I really like 'Queen of the Supermarket'. I think it's a quirky, fun song.

My only complaint is, I think in parts, it's a little over produced.

I think this is another great album from Springsteen. My favorites include Kingdom of Days, The Wrestler, Surprise, Surprise, and My Lucky Day. I think it is better than Magic, and while the Rising will always be my favorite of his modern albums, this is still a great achievement.

quote:

Originally posted by Gucci:
Is this the album that Bruce Springsteen can finally win his long over-due AOTY award for?

After his snub for an album as strong as "Magic", I'm not taking for granted again that he's a given for any future AOTY nominations.

Springsteen promises high-energy halftime show
by JENNA FRYER
AP NEWS

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Anybody who thinks it's tough playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl with 150 million people watching should try serenading Barack Obama with the majestic granite visage of Abraham Lincoln staring over your shoulder.

Bruce Springsteen did.

"It kind of was a good warm-up for this," Springsteen joked Thursday after arriving in Tampa with the E Street Band. "That takes some of the pressure off, you know."

In his first news conference in more than 20 years, The Boss was as cool as ever.

Wearing black jeans, a black crewneck sweater and black boots, Springsteen and his band charmed a standing-room-only crowd by joking about his lack of football knowledge, that the group is still together -- and its members still alive -- and the tremendous year he's having personally and professionally.

"Is there anybody from New Jersey? Don't give them the microphone!" the Garden State native called out before taking questions in his first large forum since a 1987 news conference for Amnesty International.

But Springsteen has reason to celebrate.

His song, "The Wrestler," from the movie of the same name, won a Golden Globe earlier this month, and he followed it with a performance at the National Mall to honor Obama two days before the inauguration. Springsteen was a huge Obama booster during the campaign.

His latest CD, "Working on a Dream," was released Tuesday, and he'll kick off a world tour in San Jose, Calif., on April 1.

"Good times," the 59-year-old rocker smiled. "You just have years where things happen, or years where it's quieter. But what's special for me right now is I really believe our band is going through sort of a golden age. We've made three of what I think are some of our best records in a row, which is really one of the reasons we're here. And the band, on the last tour, played the best it's ever played.

"We've been on the road awhile. We're some old soldiers. But the band is still really burning, and I really want people to know about the record. Good year, you know? It's been great."

So now the band plays Sunday's halftime show of the Super Bowl, which is enjoying a run of booking major talent for the roughly 15-minute slot before the largest television event in the nation. Acts have recently included the Rolling Stones, U2, Paul McCartney, Prince, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The NFL said last year's halftime show with Petty was watched by more than 148 million viewers in the U.S.

Springsteen, for years, had turned down invitations to play the Super Bowl, unsure of the legitimacy of such a performance. After all, for many years the halftime show was made up of local and college marching bands and drill teams.

But Springsteen said the opportunity to promote the album, and the upgraded production team that has given the invitation a prestige factor, changed his mind.

"Initially, it was sort of a novelty and so it didn't quite feel right," he explained. "But it was just like, this is the year. ... Bands of our generation, you can sort of be seen on a stage like this or, like, not seen. There's not a lot of middle places. It is a tremendous venue."

The performance is expected to be a teaser for the upcoming tour, and scores of Las Vegas sports books are taking bets on the set list. Asked who ultimately decides what songs will be played, Springsteen staked his claim as leader of the band.

"I'm the Boss! The Boss decides what we play!" he yelled. "Nobody else decides. People suggest. Hint. Beg. Cajole. But I decide."

Pittsburgh receiver Hines Ward said he was looking forward to the performance, and even had a song request.

"I love Bruce. I hope he plays 'Born in the USA.' He has a great voice when he says, 'Boorrrn,'" Ward said. "He has a lot of swagger about himself. He's very confident. When he's up there performing, it's all about him."

Springsteen only offered one slight teaser, vowing to pack the bands' usual emotion and energy into their brief performance.

"We want it to be a 12-minute party," he said. "The idea of the show is, you are going to the Meadowlands, you get lost on the way. You are watching your clock, 'Damn, the show is starting right now.' You stop at a bar to get some directions, and the bar gets held up while you are there. So that takes another 45 minutes to get out of there.

"You come back and you miss your exit on the turnpike, and you are driving to get back around. And so you make it into the stadium 2 hours and 48 minutes into the show -- that's what you are going to see: the last 12 minutes."

quote:

Originally posted by Atypical:

quote:

Originally posted by Gucci:
Is this the album that Bruce Springsteen can finally win his long over-due AOTY award for?

After his snub for an album as strong as "Magic", I'm not taking for granted again that he's a given for any future AOTY nominations.

Agreed.

Wasn't his snub for Devils & Dust considered a big snub, too?

The Boss was excellent in the halftime show!

I agree. He's so gone but that was so entertaining and the selections were spot on.

Bruce was fantastic tonight!! Awesome halftime show.

Springsteen rocks out Super Bowl halftime show
by Jenna Fryer, Associated Press

TAMPA — One was a 12-minute party, the other a 2-minute proclamation. Bruce Springsteen and Jennifer Hudson used the Super Bowl stage for two very different performances Sunday night: he proved he's still The Boss with an electric halftime show, while Hudson showed she's ready to return to the spotlight after the slayings of three family members.

Springsteen and his E Street Band had turned down numerous invitations to play the halftime show, declining the high-profile time slot because it was a bit beneath them.

Then the show slowly started to draw legitimate acts — U2, The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, to name a few — and Springsteen changed his view of performing in the middle of a football game.

He promised a 12-minute party, and more than delivered by charming the estimated 100 million television viewers with his opening line: "I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up."

Springsteen then threw himself into his four-song set, a highly anticipated series of songs that had Las Vegas oddsmakers taking bets on which tunes he'd select. He opened with "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," and worked in one of his trademark across-the-stage knee slides.

The move wasn't without risk: He slid into one of the on-stage cameras, and seemed to be winded when he transitioned into "Born to Run."

Next up was his newest piece, "Working on a Dream," which was backed by a choir. He then closed out with a playful version of "Glory Days" that fittingly altered the lyrics to fit the occasion: Springsteen's old high school buddy was "a big football player" instead of "baseball," and threw a "Hail Mary" instead of a "speed ball."

He and guitarist Steven Van Zandt then toyed with the crowd as the show came to an end, looking at their watches as the clock wound down. Worried they were about to hit "penalty time," (a referee even raced out and threw a yellow flag), they closed it out right on time.

"I'm going to Disneyland!" the 59-year-old rocker shouted at the end.

It was a completely different energy than the one offered two hours earlier by Hudson, who made her first public appearance since the October slayings in Chicago of her mother, brother, and 7-year-old nephew. Her estranged brother-in-law has been charged in the killings.

Wearing a flowing white top with black leggings and a military-style dark jacket, the 27-year-old singer/actress looked apprehensive and took a deep breath before launching into the anthem.

Hudson, who clocked in at 2 minutes, 13 seconds, looked relieved when she was through.

When she returned to her dressing room, she anxiously asked pre-game show producer Rickey Minor "How did I do?"

"I told her 'Touchdown!'" Minor told The Associated Press after the performance.

"This was such an important performance, because it's the first time everyone has seen Jennifer. But she's in such a great place, with such great spirits and time can heal her wounds. She's on fire right now and totally grounded."

Minor, the music director for "American Idol," has produced numerous Super Bowl pre-game performances, including Whitney Houston's 1991 anthem in Tampa that's considered the benchmark for singers. He said Hudson's two cellphones lit up "like slot machines" following her performance, and she received a moving text message from Jamie Foxx, her co-star in "Dreamgirls."

"His text said 'Amazing. It brought tears to my eyes,'" Minor said. "She's just getting so much love."

Although entertainers can perform live, Minor insisted that Hudson and Faith Hill, who sang "America the Beautiful" before the national anthem, use the tracks the NFL requires them to submit a week before the game.

Hudson made her performance personal.

"She's from the church," Minor said. "So we wanted to give it a gospel feel, use a little organ, rhythm and really give it a feel that matched Jennifer. We wanted her to emote the lyrics and connect with the song."

Hudson's now expected to resume her active work schedule. Hudson, who won an Oscar for best supporting actress for her role in "Dreamgirls," is scheduled to perform at next week's Grammy Awards, and her new video for "If This Isn't Love" is set to debut the week of Feb. 9.

Springsteen calls Wal-Mart CD deal a mistake
USATODAY.com

NEW YORK (AP) — The Boss is owning up to a mistake. In an interview with Sunday's New York Times, Bruce Springsteen says he shouldn't have made a deal with Wal-Mart. This month, the store started exclusively selling a Springsteen greatest hits CD.

Some fans were critical because Springsteen has been a longtime supporter of worker's rights, and Wal-Mart has faced criticism for its labor practices.

Springsteen told the Times that his team didn't vet the issue as closely as he should have, and that he "dropped the ball on it."

Springsteen went on to say: "It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be."

Springsteen released his new CD Working on a Dream this week and performed the halftime show at the Super Bowl.