Bruce Springsteen, “Jack of All Trades” (2012)
Hearing a lot of good things about the new Springsteen album, but then seems we always do when they’re new. Still, “best since Tunnel of Love” tends to get one’s attention. Here he is on Fallon this past week. What do you think? Worthy or more of the same? Or share your own recent favorites. Or treat as an open thread.
BTW, how did the Seattle meetup go? I had good intentions of making it from Olympia but we all know how good intentions go. I hope a good time was had by all.
Amanda in the South Bay
Wait, we have a new front pager from WA?
Constance Reader
I bought it when it dropped on Friday just to support its message – and I can’t stop listening to it. This is the first time I have bought a newly released album in seven years. It’s that good.
Stillwater
It got 5 stars from Rolling Stone, and they don’t just give those things away.
cathyx
A local independent radio station has been playing songs from this album. I like what I’ve heard so far.
Irony Abounds
It depends on what you are looking for in a Springsteen album. If you are looking for a message, you’ll love the album. If you’re looking for melodic songs that get your heart racing, there are a few songs that you’ll like, but for the most part the album disappoints. It most certainly isn’t an ESB album. Not as sparse as Nebraska and Tom Joad, not as awful as Working on a Dream, but imho, not as enjoyable as Magic or The Rising.
CT Voter
Bruce can sing “Baby we’ll be all right” to me whenever.
JPK
@Amanda in the South Bay: I guess we do! :-)
Amir Khalid
Get the special edition of Wrecking Ball, which comes with two extra songs: Swallowed Up (In The Belly of The Whale) and American Land.
His use of hip-hop in Rocky Ground might seem a stylistic stretch too far for some fans, but it isn’t, really; it’s as American as his folk influences or for that matter his rock and soul roots.
Sentient Puddle
I’m a fan. I think that this is the album Working on a Dream should have been.
Amir Khalid
@Stillwater:
Rolling Stone critics have a bad habit of being too kind to Classic Rock royalty like Springsteen. But he’s earned these five stars. This is a strong album, with resonant lyrics and passionate performances, and of his previous work only The Rising was as topical.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: So I take it you like the album?
joeyess
That was simply a work of a genius. I know that not everyone likes the boss, but the way he can weave a tale of working class angst, progressive values, righteous indignation at the root cause of that angst, and couch it all in the rhetoric of the right is an amazing talent. A talent that, I think, he has been cultivating for some time but has just recently tapped perfectly. This may be a bit over the top, but I believe that he’s becoming a modern day Mark Twain/Will Rogers. Fuck it. I just bought the damn album online.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
You could say that, yes.
Mino
Well, I think he hit every cliche available to him in the lyrics of the lead title. It sounds like his intention was a campaign song for enthusiastic Dems.
Haven’t heard any others.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: That Mr. Omnibus fellow, he’s quick to find the subtle and veiled message, isn’t he?
Yutsano
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Well he is a rather good attorney. One would think that was a skill he developed along the way in his career.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): The whole daylight savings time thing has discombobulated me a bit.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, if you’d saved your own time earlier, your bobble would be less discom now, so it’s all your own fault. Right?
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: Sure, blame the victim. Hater.
scott (the other one)
Not sure it’s his best since the brilliant Tunnel of Love, but it IS really, really, really good. Fantastic to see an artist of his stature (and age) still so hungry. Well worth picking up, absolutely.
Wag
I just watched the performance of Death to my Hometown from his Apollo show this week. Channeling the Pogues to good effect.
patrick II
@JPK:
If you can’t figure out what category to put something in you can always create a new one. John likes that.
JPK
@patrick II: Aw, dang, I forgot the category AGAIN. Thanks for the reminder. I will get the hang of this.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Welcome to my world, counselor. How’s the interview go? I’m angling to enhance my NAMI gig into a position with the Weaver Institute for Law and Psychiatry. The overlap is increasing.
chris
I’m embarrassed to admit it…but I am a techie type…an EE…do my own network mgt at my small biz but dont own an IPOD or any other emusic player. I’m into the tunes like any guitar playing 46 y.o. would be. I am listening to pandora on my droid X. How should I buy this record? Where/how should I be consuming new music?(I got a stack of CD’s currently..LOL)
chrome agnomen
@JPK:
the hell you say! i just wintered a couple of miles outside the nisqually rez.
4jkb4ia
I am horrified to realize that I am almost agreeing with Jon Caramanica. “We Take Care Of Our Own” was a perfect distillation of an emotion that is certainly out there in Blogtopia. This song is the song that Bruce probably thinks his audience expected him to have written, but it was almost redeemed by the last verse.
/drooling at opportunity to get to store to buy record
Sentient Puddle
@chris: Ah, but you do have your own e-music player: Your Droid X! So if you want to go digital, I’d probably suggest Amazon. CD is a perfectly cromulent way to go too.
Mino
@Sentient Puddle: Cromulent “It is commonly known that all other attempts to define cromulent have resulted in severe cases of head-asplode. Also, writing any form of the word without bolding it has been known to reduce sperm counts by at least 0.05%, so I’m not taking any chances. This knowledge, combined with trickery, is one way to potentially kill a grue, but don’t even try to pull that shit with an eurg.”
http://mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/Cromulent
Hat tip.
Montysano
This is a very, very good song. I like it.
That said: for me, I still love Greetings From Asbury Park, and (especially) The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle the best. Born to Run was good, but after that it just didn’t speak to me. His vocals got too shouty. I have huge respect for him, but he rarely finds his way onto the turntable.
suzanne
Love the Boss. One of very few musicians who has, in my opinion, gotten ever more vital and important as his career progressed.
I saw him on the cover of AARP magazine last year. Certainly not your grandma’s AARP.
virginia
His records were a huge part of my youth and young adulthood so I will always have a soft spot for him but, hate to admit it, I’m not a big fan of his mopey elder statesman stuff. Not saying it’s bad or poorly written or undeserving or that I hate it. It’s just not my thing. When I want that sort of vibration I tend to head for the talents of the inimitable Leonard Cohen–or for the anger & pounding of mid to late REM. Still, will always wish Springsteen the best. I’m a Thunder Road girl, I guess.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@chris: I’m still an album-oriented fogie. I buy CDs (used if I can find ’em) and rip them into iTunes. I don’t like paying money for ephemeral bits.
Amir Khalid
One should remember that Springsteen’s songs aren’t quite finished until he’s performed them with an audience. And as always, it’ll be the live audiences that determine which of his songs are classics and which are, well, not so classic.
It’s interesting to wonder what all this will sound like live. For example, I wonder who’s going to do the rap from Rocky Ground. There are three women in the E Street Band. As much as I like Mrs Bruce’s solo work, I can’t for the life of me imagine her rapping, and Cindy Mizelle is not of the hip-hop generation either. Suzi Tyrell is a serviceable backing vocalist, but her main gig is playing the violin.
AA+ Bonds
I think Springsteen believes that the only war is the class war
Gustopher
For me, you can’t beat “The Seeger Sessions”. I really, really want to love the other stuff he’s done, but the most I can manage is like.
I hope someday he does an album of Woody Guthrie songs.
Steven
OK, let’s have an Olympia meetup at the Brown Edition/Bandalabra show Friday the 16th.
Phoebe
Dagnabbit I left Seattle in 2009. Tell me when there’s a St. Louis meet up. Don’t laugh! Centrally located, and has the City Museum in it. Everyone loves the City Museum. True fact.
beckya57
Seattle meetup? A blogger who lives in Olympia? Outstanding! (I live in Tacoma, in between Seattle and Olympia on I-5.)
Will
The album is wonderful. I have not been able to stop playing it.