Album Review Friday

Bruce Springsteen has a new album out.   I can remember when that statement would bring immediate excitement, at the period of his career when albums of new material came every two to three years.  This was when exposure to a musician was mainly through their music,  when MTV was embryonic, and obviously no twitter, YouTube, internet whatsoever.  But times change, and careers change.  With live albums, re-releases, books, etc the past ten years or so seem to have included a feast of Springsteen creative output.  As a lifelong Springsteen fan, I admittedly became a bit fatigued with this.  The quality has not always been there, and with every release the effect of each product becomes diluted.  So with his new album solo Western Stars I have been reluctant to listen, expecting to be disappointed.  And I am. 

I was skeptical when I heard a few years ago Springsteen was going to be on Broadway.  Assuming this was the pinnacle of overexposure, I was pleasantly surprised listening to the music he performed for that show.  Sure, the banter between songs seemed forced and slick at times, but the beauty of his music was there.  Listen to “Growin’ Up” from his Springsteen on Broadway and I challenge you to distinguish that from solo recordings of the same song done forty years earlier.  The power is in the music, the words and his delivery.  When that is your focus, it all comes together in a moment that makes him one of the best musicians of the past fifty years.  Unfortunately, Western Stars has none of those moments. 

Overproduced.  That would be the one word to describe this album, and that is the element that makes it so unsatisfying.  Just give us the words, the voice and the guitar, Bruce.  Stop with the string sections, the violins, the horns.  This is most egregious in “Chasin’ Wild Horses”.  The first few minutes are actually refreshing, mostly just Springsteen and some guitar and a quiet banjo in the background.  But then come the strings halfway through, and they do not go away.  They overwhelm the song, and the crescendo of strings and horns in the last minute makes it sound like the soundtrack of some Kevin Costner straight-to-video western.  “Somewhere North of Nashville” has the most promise of the 13 songs on Western Stars.  It starts with some simple finger picking, and Springsteen’s voice echoes what we heard on his best solo album, Nebraska.  It keeps that feeling throughout, and though the piano on the second half is unnecessary, it does not take awake from the song’s simplicity.  More of this and the album would be one to recommend. But by the first note of the next track, “Stones”, the strings and gloss return.  All of the beauty of the previous song is forgotten, buried under overproduction. 

It is easy to think that the strength of Springsteen’s music over the past forty years comes from the dramatic sounds of fist-raising crowd pleasers like “Badlands”, “Born To Run” and “Hungry Heart”.  But when he allows his lyrics to be the focus, the music is just a bonus that reinforces the message his words are conveying.  And this is when the listener feels his power.   “Badlands” is musically a tour de force, but it’s the words that you remember:

                                    I want to find one face that ain’t looking through me

                                    I want to find one place

                                    I want to spit in the face of these badlands

The guitars, drums and keyboards are just gravy for the words and message of that song.  And this is even true of the softer songs of Springsteen’s work.  Listen to “Highway Patrolman” from his masterwork Nebraska.  The song describes the pain of a patrolman whose life intersects with that of his troublemaker brother.  Just Springsteen’s voice, guitar, some harmonica and a few faint touches of glockenspiel.  What gives it meaning is the lyrics, which if they do not move you then check your pulse.

                                    I catch him when he’s strayin’ like any brother would

                                    Man turns his back on his family, he just ain’t no good

I am all for the artist’s ability to chart their own course, to push their growth as they continue to evolve the music they make.  But with that comes realization that they need to know when they have pushed too far, beyond what makes them who they are.  Western Stars is that album for Springsteen. It shows at its core he still has something to offer, but it has been buried beneath layers of overproduction that obscure the beauty of what made his past work so special.