I had been looking forward to the new Bruce Springsteen album for quite awhile, and so when the day finally arrived, I trekked down to my local Best Buy to purchase a copy. Not finding the album in the usual section, a kindly salesperson directed me to a special display area that housed the newest releases. A banner announced Working On A Dream <\/i>both in the regular edition for $9.99 and a deluxe edition for $14.99. What to do? But wait — at the end of the display was one vinyl copy in all its sealed, pristine glory for $19.99. Better yet, it contained 180 gram vinyl, plus the cover announced that with the purchase you would be able to download the album. I left the store twenty dollars plus tax poorer but the proud possessor of Bruce Springsteen\u2019s newest music as it was meant to be heard.<\/p>\n
As I have watched my investments and pension plan go down, down, down, I needed some positive Bruce, and in general, that is what I received with this release. It may not be as cohesive as some of his past efforts, but it is a lot more joyous than many of them.<\/p>\n From the opening notes and words of his eight-minute western opus \u201cOutlaw Pete,\u201d you know that The Boss is back. The story is novel-like, with tempo changes and an almost sonic quality in places. \u201cMy Lucky Day\u201d rocks and is an upbeat anthem-type track that he is so good at producing. The title cut continues the run of superior songs and finds Springsteen in a hopeful mood. Three very good songs and I was only three tracks into the listening experience.<\/p>\n My favorite song, at least lyrically, may be \u201cKingdom Of Days.\u201d \u00a0Very few artists have the ability to put feeling and thoughts into words as does Springsteen. This reflective ballad of time and love continues the good feel of much of the material here. \u201cI watch the sun as it rises and sets \/ I watch the moon trace its arc with no regrets\u201d is a calm acceptance of the passing of time as Springsteen nears sixty.<\/p>\n The only lyrics that come close to that sentiment are from the bonus track, \u201cThe Wrestler,\u201d which was written for the movie of the same name. It recently won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song; that it was not nominated for an Academy Award <\/i>is astounding. This gentle presentation belies that the lyrics that were written for a broken-down professional wrestler (\u201cHave you ever seen a scarecrow filled with nothing but dust and wheat? \/ If you\u2019ve ever seen that scarecrow you\u2019ve seen me\u201d).<\/p>\n Other delights awaited as I listened to the album for the first time. The blues leaning of \u201cGood Eye,\u201d the smooth \u201cTomorrow Never Knows,\u201d and the poignant farewell to longtime band mate Danny Federici on \u201cThe Last Carnival\u201d are all worthy additions to the Springsteen catalogue.<\/p>\n Working On A Dream <\/i>certainly lived up to my expectations and finding it on vinyl was a bonus. Records do provide a different type of listening experience. Not only do you have to turn the discs over, which highlights the songs in a way that is not found in the CD format, but records do not travel; a record player is stationary and so is the listening experience.<\/p>\n Having made my pitch for vinyl, it is the music of Working On A Dream <\/i>that is important and will ultimately sell this album. In that regard, it is a definite buy and I have to believe that despite it being only January, it will remain one of the better releases of 2009. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":29733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5832],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41337","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bruce-springsteen","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41337"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41337"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}