Saturday, January 24, 2009

Bruce Springsteen's Newest CD - Working On A Dream

Bruce Springsteen and the rest of the crew of the Wrestler were probably somewhat surprised, especially after the Golden Globe win, that Springsteen's song "The Wrestler" from The Wrestler failed to get an Academy award nomination in the limited-nominee best song category. (Although Mickey Rourke and previous winner Marisa Tomei both picked up acting nods)

Many people had assumed that this song was a shoe-in, not just for the nomination but for the win as well.

For those of you who are Bruce Springsteen or huge fans of Darren Aronofsky's film The Wrestler, a great way to show your love is purchasing Bruce Springsteen's newest CD "Working on a Dream"which comes out on January 27th, 2009.

Bruce Springsteen's been making music for over 30 years, and I've listened to Springsteen's newest CD this week. This is 24th album, this album again reunites Springsteen's classic rock vocals with the E Street Band.

My overwhelming reaction to this CD is general awe and very impressed with the variety, vocal sounds, and overall quality in the album.

Probably the most unique and worth talking about album on the CD is his first track Outlaw Pete which has a very unique sound, and tells the wild west ballade, with an eight minute run time. As Rolling Stones stated..."It’s safe to assume Springsteen will not be performing “Outlaw Pete” at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show."

Outlaw's Pete is a track that has really grown on me, and certainly is not exaust it's eight-minute run time. In fact, my favorite part of the song is about 6 minutes in when the tone and story changes to begins being directed at the love of a Navajo girl cries out, of course Springsteen singing her lament of "Can You Hear Me?"

Beyond this song and a few others most the songs are generally generic. But the fact of the matter is something about the familiarity of Springsteen's voice and sound lends itself to sound like a classic song that has always existed, and perhaps the reason that lyrics like "When the cold wind blows" and "darling we can stop this train" sound like perhaps they were lines Springsteen originally created.

In fact, my favorite track on this CD is buried towards the end at track 10 of 13 with the song "Kingdom of Days." This song is certainly not absent of cliche's, in fact it's loaded with them, but again this song, although a new song just released for the first time with this album, sounds like it's been apart of the American music scene for decades.

Beyond "Outlaw Pete" the other most notably unique tracks on this album is the song "Good Eye" which has a very Southern Blues sound that sounds like it somehow missed the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the song "Queen of the Supermarket."

"Queen of the Supermarket" sounds like it should be a song on the TV show Scrubs, or if just a little bit odder, even on a Weird Al Yankovic album. The song truly is about a crush on a supermarket clerk, and the song contains a slew of odd song lines like "A dream awaits in aisle number two" and "With my shopping cart I move through the heart Of a sea of fools." To top it all off, the song ends with the cadence of a grocery store check-out beep repeating into the distance.

Overall, "Working on a Dream" is simply a pleasant CD with some great tracks, including the bonus track of "The Wrestler." There might be a few songs that don't make the concert line ups or top 40 stations. And if you pay too much attention to the lyrics you might in time get annoyed by songs like "Surprise, Surprise" which is essentially the first Birthday song I've heard on an album in awhile.

You may see Springsteen at this years Academy Awards, but you will see him at the Super Bowl, and you will see his newest album proudly displayed in stores.