Re: Shocker! Critic Jim DeRogatis skewers MAGIC
- From: cwb <querosuave.beck@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 09:13:29 -0700
Talk about having decided before even hearing it...what a douche.
I can't stand the guy's pov even without his anti-Springsteen bile...I
sometimes listen to he and Kot's Sound Opinions show here in Chicago,
Jimbo is as predictable as the Cubs. Essentially he'll hate anything
with soul or the least bit rooted in tradition, and embrace virtually
anything that tries to be cutting edge, ironic, etc.
He should have stuck with Dungeons and Dragons, the big turd...
cwb
On Sep 30, 10:45 am, TJB <thomas.berna...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Predictable bile from everyone's favorite self-hating Jerseyan.
************************
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, "Magic"
"I got a coin in your palm / I can make it disappear," the Boss croaks
in the title track for his first album with the E Street Band since
"The Rising" (2002), his folkie but bombastic musing on 9/11. "I got a
card up my sleeve / Name it and I'll pull it out your ear / I got a
rabbit in the hat / If you wanna come and see / This is what will be."
To hear his longtime manager, Jon Landau, tell it, the "magic" of
Bruce Springsteen's latest is the unbridled joy of him rocking out
again with everybody's favorite big band after the stripped-down solo
album "Devils & Dust" (2005) and last year's Pete Seeger tribute "We
Shall Overcome." But it's all just an illusion.
Sure, the Wall of Sound is back, with both the good and the bad -- Max
Weinberg's thundering drums vs. Clarence Clemons' dreadful sax -- and
that familiar mix of '50s rock, doo wop, soul, gospel and country. But
something is off: Springsteen's marbles-in-his-mouth vocals sound more
detached and less committed than ever, and they never gel with Brendan
O'Brien's recordings of those big arrangements, evidence of the fact
that the whole band only flew in on weekends, and the E Streeters
never really played with Bruce in the studio, according to the fan
publication Backstreets.
Then there are the lyrics. "With his new album, Bruce Springsteen
continues to be the conscience of his country," read the headline of a
review in the north-of-the-border National Post, but only a Canadian
who really doesn't understand America would say such a silly thing.
Springsteen always has chronicled a ridiculously idealized and hyper-
romanticized U.S. of A. that exists primarily in TV commercials for
life insurance, and that continues here with lazy toss-offs such as
"Livin' in the Future" (an odd turn toward science fiction with the
chorus, "Don't worry darlin' / I've been there, don't you fret / We're
livin' in the future / And none of this has happened yet"), "Long Walk
Home" ("The flag flying over the courthouse / Means certain things are
set in stone / Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't") and
"Girls in Their Summer Clothes" (wherein the 57-year-old artist sounds
like a dirty old man obsessing over the girls who pass him by).
Welcoming an opportunity to bring back listeners alienated by his
client's admirably liberal beliefs, Landau has also been asserting
that this isn't a political album, but that isn't entirely true. "Last
to Die" certainly seems to be a song inspired by the senseless war in
Iraq ("Who'll be the last to die for a mistake ... The wise men were
all fools"), but since Bruce is pulling his punches for the sake of
poetry, you can't really be sure. The same is true of the single
"Radio Nowhere," which may be an attack on the "soulless" state of
corporate media, or yet another nostalgic homage to a heyday that was
never really as great as the Boss remembers it. When fellow roots-
rockers such as Neil Young and Tom Petty take on these subjects, they
say what they mean, and I'll take "Living with War" and "The Last DJ"
over "Magic" any day.
Then again, as the e-mails sure to flood my inbox will stress in words
that can't be printed here, this New Jersey native -- my dad was born
and raised in Asbury Park, for God's sake! -- is the worst kind of
heretic: A traitorous non-believer who's never fallen under
Springsteen's spell. As the Boss himself said, "This is what will be."
Deal with it.
jimd...@xxxxxxxxxxx
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
.
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