Like Magic<\/i>, released only one year and a couple months ago, Working On A Dream<\/i> is a superbly lush and meticulously crafted masterpiece. Backed by the E Street Band\u2019s wall of sound and Bruce\u2019s brawny voice, the songs reach extraterrestrial heights without ever sounding cheesy or overblown — even on the ballads, which there are quite a few of this time. Sometimes the lyrics bow in the middle (an example from \u201cThe Wrestler:\u201d \u201cHave you ever seen a one-trick pony in the field so happy and free? \/ Then you\u2019ve seen me\u201d), but Working On A Dream <\/i>isn\u2019t an album with a subversive political message or social commentary. Years of political insight aside, he\u2019s letting out his inner romantic, and it\u2019s just as epic and refined as anything else he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n
Dream<\/i>\u2019s first song, \u201cOutlaw Pete,\u201d is a soaring, eight-minute-long epic chronicling the life of a fictional Wild West caper, with towering violins and vigorous arena-ready guitars. \u201cMy Lucky Day\u201d kicks off with a quick drum roll before the blaring guitars, delitescent piano, and a soulful Clarence Clemon sax solo catapult the song to the clouds. \u201cGood Eye\u201d is a lurching, semiclassic blues rocker where Springsteen howls like a banshee over sawing guitar riffs, dissonant harmonica, and some killer banjo plucking.<\/p>\n
The song production in Dream<\/i> wears its intricate instrumentation like carefully placed jewelry on an outfit; each piece is subtle but essential. The special edition of Dream<\/i>\u2019s accompanying documentary shows footage of Bruce orchestrating in the studio, being his own producer, and making sure every detail of every song is perfect — and the results of his fastidiousness are downright glorious. <\/p>\n
A majority of the songs on this record are power ballads, all of which are endearingly melodramatic and sweet. Bruce falls in love with a grocery store clerk in the flat-out gorgeous \u201cQueen Of The Supermarket,\u201d meditates his life through celestial metaphors in the strummy, folk-rooted \u201cThis Life,\u201d and calmly plucks his guitar and serenades his wife in \u201cTomorrow Never Knows,\u201d a pretty bluegrass number that\u2019s not a cover of the way-experimental Beatles song (though Springsteen could totally pull it off if he tried).<\/p>\n
Even if Bruce doesn\u2019t have much left to say about society, he\u2019s clearly in love with his wife. An interesting song called \u201cSurprise, Surprise\u201d comes near the end of the album. The simple refrain (he just repeats \u201cSurprise, surprise \/ Come on, open your eyes\u201d) is upbeat and tender and doesn\u2019t feel out of placed sandwiched between two ballads. Bruce doesn\u2019t need to write anything more complex than that because the stellar and meticulous musical production speaks for him. Even if the songwriting is a little unsophisticated and unoriginal, he\u2019s probably just saving his social rants for his next masterpiece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":29733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5832],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41349","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\/41349","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\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41349\/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=41349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41349"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}