Bruce Springsteen – Magic
Bruce Springsteen has gone back to the 1970s with Magic, his latest album. As soon as you hear the E Street Band invoking “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” in “Livin’ In The Future,” and “Jungleland” in “I’ll Work For Your Love,” you’ll feel like you’re back in the epic days of Born to Run.
In addition to similarities to Born to Run, Magic features loud guitars, yearning vocals and wall-of-sound production. Springsteen hasn’t sounded this overblown in a long time, but surprisingly, the heavily layered arrangements only make the album rock harder.
On many of the tracks on Magic, Springsteen overdubs guitars as if he hasn’t used them on an album in years (listen to the freight-train punch of “Radio Nowhere”), and it lights a fire under the rest of the E Street Band. They sound invigorated and impassioned on “Gypsy Biker,” invoking a sense of the brooding danger felt on 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. The song begins with a lone acoustic guitar and a crying harmonica before the rest of the instruments explode after the first verse, encircling and elevating Springsteen’s yearning vocal melody.
Springsteen’s lyrical style on Magic also harkens back to an earlier period in his career. The lyrics on Magic sound more romanticized than lyrics on other recent releases. Springsteen still talks about the problems facing America—mainly, the Iraq War—but his commentary is often veiled in lyrics that make Springsteen appear as if he is singing about love lost and small-town angst.
And while Springsteen might seem beyond the age of writing about watching “Girls In Their Summer Clothes,” his lyrics, along with Magic’s passionate and ornate arrangements, evoke an image of a young Springsteen writhing onstage as his band gives it all they’ve got on a late night in a dark New Jersey bar. It might make you wish every year was 1975.
