Bruce Springsteen's New Album: "Magic"

Left to Right: Gary Tallent, Bruce Springsteen, and "Little Steven" Van Zant, November 2007

Landover, Maryland

I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band live, for the first times, in 1978 -- twice on the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour, once in New Orleans and once in St. Petersburg, Florida. At both gigs he and his Jersey-shore band mates cranked out more rock n' fire, laced with burning lead licks from Bruce and gospel/exorcist vocals aflame with intensity. I remember thinking at the time, "How can one little man in a spotlight do that?!"

Gospel wisdom? "It was too many for me." (--from S. L. Clemens)

I never fully recovered; my life-long devotion to guitar rock was now set in granite. If below, I slip into praise of Bruce Springsteen's new album without having listened to it enough to comprehend it, please think of it as a recurring rock critic sin.

Magic is Springsteen's first new studio album of original Springsteen cuts since 2005's Devils & Dust. Rolling Stone magazine gave this new album 5 out of 5 stars, a reviewer's nightmare. What do you write about a record already labelled an "instant classic". (But make your own call, you can hear all the album cuts, in their entirety, at the link that follows.) In his review of Magic for RollingStone.com, David Fricke gets a B in handling his task. He writes in part:

.... Magic is, in one way, the most openly nostalgic record Springsteen has ever made. The arrangements, the performances and Brendan O’Brien’s wall-of-surf production are mined with echoes and near-direct quotes of classic records, including Springsteen’s: the early-Sixties beach-radio bounce of “Girls in Their Summer Clothes‚” the overcast-Pet Sounds orchestration of “Your Own Worst Enemy”, the “Jungleland” ring of Roy Bittan’s piano rainfall in “I’ll Work for Your Love.” “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” sounds like it strutted over from The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. “Livin’ in the Future” is “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” with a new, thick coat of twang and a full tank of lust. [Emphasis and link added] ....

Bruce reinventing old material here is good news for fans; more importantly, he is showing his commitment to personal artistic evolution. Dylan has been doing this very thing, reinventing his old songs, whenever he's stepped on a stage for 45 years. Reworking songs is one of Springsteen's great contributions to the against-the-tide view that "rock n' roll-can-save-the-world".

The distinctive love-story metaphor and mandolins on the title track are irresistible. Roy Bittan's piano into on I'll Work For Your Love is reminiscent of Bittan's masterful, delicate power on Dire Straits' 1980 Making Movies. It's clear that the deep album cuts on Magic show Springsteen bringing new colors to his music and poetry.

True renaissance in rock music today is all too rare. The last time I heard Bruce do this in the studio is his acoustic version of the song "Born in the U.S.A." It's only when the wall of guitars and rhythm section are taken away that the despair of the verses and the sometimes-tragic redemption of the chorus are revealed. (Note: the two rockers I interviewed for this post turned out not to be Springsteen fans, but both cited the album Born in the U.S.A. as their touchstone with his work.)

One final point regarding the opening cut, Radio Nowhere. Rolling Stone critic Fricke gets it just right:

"... A thousand guitars . . . pounding drums," [Springsteen] demands against the racing squall of his band. But “Radio Nowhere” is actually about how we speak and listen to each other through the murk -- "Is there anybody alive out there?” he growls, over and over --and how a firm beat, some Telecaster sting and the robust peal of Clarence Clemons’ saxophone can still tell you more about the human condition than a thousand op-ed words. ....

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are at the head of the class in helping us understand the human condition with "a thousand guitars" rather that 10,000 news analysis essays. It's no accident that

"I learned more from a three minute record, baby,
Than I ever learned in school." (-- Bruce Springsteen)

So let Bruce work his electric-Woody-Guthrie-heir Magic. Why, a skeptic might ask? Just one pearl of an example:

... Well the cops finally busted Madame Marie
For tellin' fortunes better than they do.
This boardwalk life for me is through.
You know you ought to quit this scene too. ...

(from 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
-- B. Springsteen, 1973)

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