For those of you like me who had not spent a dime on recorded music for years, you now have reason to. If your Ipod is filled with pirated singles representing nothing more than three minutes of mindless escapism, you now have a reason drop down hard bucks for something that will more than scratch the surface of your musical itch.
Bruce Springsteen has recorded a new CD with his band. I am not going to bore you with a song by song review or a detailed account of the musical evolution of this great American icon. Nor am I going to compare it Born to Run or Born In The USA. But I will tell you if you were once a die hard Bruce fan, then you have reason again to be.
Having spent years with Bruce never far from my turntable and the cassette player, and then CD changer, I had become a bit let down by this cataloguer of our lives. Althoguh two divorces conincided with Tunnel of Love, his greatest introspection, and The Rising, which depicted the heartbreak to hope after world of 9/11. I had somehow felt abandoned. Ignoring his solo tour after reading a bulletin board that said, ‘we paid for a concert not a scolding,’ a decision I later regretted after seeing his Storytellers performance on VH-1.
Perhaps it is the 24 straight hours of Bruce on VH-1 classic. But I broke down and downloaded the entire disc. No 3 minute 45’s of Bruce for me. Hopeful but somewhat skeptical. Not since Tunnel of Love had I thought he had hit an honest to goodness instant classic, although The Rising was very good. His releases had always seemed to coincide with personal events, laying out there in clear cut lyrics and emotion the tangled bundle of ideas and experiences I had had or wanted to have.
If you remember the feeling of that first Bruce concert, or the first time you heard the haunting Point Blank, or the way Cadillac Ranch made you feel you could actually dance, were jealous of the then unknown Courtney Cox, then the good news is Bruce is back. If you remember literally driving away friends because you would not change the record, or ending every musical debate with Bruce is it, or divorcing your first wife because she said ‘Bruce doesn’t know everything’, then Bruce is back.
Is it Bruce’s best? Doubtful, do I miss the straight ahead guitars, long piano intros, and Clarence’s extended soul? Yes. But does it give you hope for the future? Does it make you sit down for the first time in a long time and actually listen to the songs? Yes it does. And does it make you feel good inside that your life long musical friend is back with new thoughts, new lyrics, and new tunes. That it does, very, very much.
Mac McMann writes from the male point of view at http://www.manslant.com
Source: www.a1articles.com