Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Bruce Springsteen
Devils & Dust
(Columbia, 2005)
His last great studio album? Go on, admit it...
At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious, there are two schools of Bruce Springsteen fan. Firstly, there's the smiley advocate who is happy to refer to Springsteen as 'Broooce' or 'The Boss', holds Born To Run to be his true blueprint release, has no problem with the cheesy sax breaks of this man, saw nothing wrong whatsoever when the E Street Band appeared like this, in public, and regards something like this laugh-it-up rock'n'roll spume as the good-time pinnacle of Springsteen achievement. Then there's the moody snob, whose Quality Bruce criterion is either Darkness On The Edge Of Town or Nebraska, who swoons at any low-key Bruce track that stars our multi-millionaire singer as a married discontent trawling the nighthawk bars or a ghostly blue-collar Joe on the lam from a New Jersey lawman, and who can't help but wince when Patti Scialfa turns up at the 2.45 mark, or Roy Bittan's Yamaha Grand starts plink-plonking away.
Of course, both gangs can live happily alongside each other, and do so regularly at Springsteen concerts, but with his last two albums, 2007's Magic and the recent Working On A Dream, it would appear that the Broooce fans have gotten hold of the critical reins and have started awarding the man four star reviews for albums of songs that would fail to pass muster on 1992's Human Touch or Disc 1 of The River. However, the praise poured on such weevilly sentimental self-parodies as Magic's Gypsy Biker or ...Dream's truly horrible Queen Of The Supermarket ("Each night I take my groceries and I drift away"!), would be less galling if it didn't also follow in the wake of 2005's oddly forgotten Devils & Dust.
Sitting somewhere between the lonesome short-storytelling of Nebraska and 1995's The Ghost Of Tom Joad and the low(er)-key, murky country-rock highlights of 2002's The Rising, D&D was Springsteen divested of his boondock bluster, singing in that confederate whisper he reserves for his more human and damaged tales and shifting into a lonesome coyote howl on tracks like All I'm Thinkin' About and Maria's Bed for those rare moments of romantic transcendence. Produced with a hushed echo that suggested a singer on a bare stage under a single spotlight, D&D's besieged, forsaken mood found a songwriter at his real emotional peak, pulling moments of hope, sunlight and dustbowl poetry from the grey rain and barbed promises of Bush's America.
If the E Street ever do decide to hook up with someone equal to their worth - like Sting, or Tracy Chapman - there will be many Bruce Springsteen fans out there who'll be cheering the decision, albeit in a hushed, lonesome whisper.
Andrew Male
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 20/05/2009
Further Listening
Bruce Springsteen – The Ghost Of Tom Joad (Columbia, 1995)
Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue (Sony BMG, 2008)
Bonnie Prince Billy – I See A Darkness (Domino, 1999)
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Comments
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his last great? come'on ! the sound of "magic"suck
but the stuff is far supérior, "walkin on' a dream"... idem
"devils & dust" is so uneven,only the last track is great to me... just a good record
his best records are the ones with the e street band
bruce needs sound to give his best
anyway bruce is one of the 10 best rock artist of all time
his catalog is so strong
Posted by knup at 11:17 AM GMT 20/05/2009 Report Abuse
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I must say, Devils and Dust is an amazing album that has been oddly forgotten. I definitely ride the Nebraska, Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils and Dust train rather than the E Street band one and think that Springsteen is at his best when he's digging deep, singing soft and slowing it down. Interesting article.
By the way, Tracy Chapman is marketed as a fluff acoustic-pop star, but if you have a chance to revisit her first 2 albums, you might be surprised at what you find. Look beyond the singles.
Cheers,
Cat.
http://www.houseofcat.net
Posted by Cat Johnson at 3:41 PM GMT 20/05/2009 Report Abuse
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No doubt in my mind that this is his finest moment for over 20 years - although run close by The Rising
Posted by Akamiek at 1:08 PM GMT 12/12/2009 Report Abuse
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No doubt in my mind that this is his finest moment for over 20 years - although run close by The Rising
Posted by Akamiek at 1:11 PM GMT 12/12/2009 Report Abuse
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