Bruce Springsteen/Madonna

'Wrecking Ball' is a superb, though not optimistic, album from America's greatest rock 'n roller.  Bruce remains this country's most sincere, passionate rock artist, and he's always one of the first to respond to our collective national conscience.  He did so after 9/11 with 'The Rising', and he's doing so here.  What I find so ironic about the music on this album is its contrast to the lyrics -- the music is often uptempo, and sounds like stuff you would hear at an Irish wake.

 

Let's face it -- this country's been going steadily downhill since Reagan was elected in 1980, and any working man should find his thoughts and emotions addressed here.  The songs should sound fantastic live with the E Street Band. 

MDNA is predominantly clustered with Euro dance beats that made me forget I was listening to the same Madonna I got accustomed to in her past attempts. The Material girl does away with her deeper vocals until Love Spent, where her voice sinks to bring in the maturity. In fact, it is that womanly tone that made some of her work stand out: 'Live To Tell', 'Shoobie Do', 'Deeper and Deeper', 'Bedtime Story', 'Human Nature', 'Swim', ' Drowned World...', 'Skin', 'Future Lovers', 'Let It will be' and 'Miles Away'. Her girly twitter on the other hand has given us many classics too, but that was when she was a girl. The fifty plus dame sounds nagging when she complaints about other girls' vanity in 'Some Girls' and sounds desperate to sound fresh at times.

 

Still, the record deserves the A- it has received, and I had predicted this long before Christgau had officiated it. The tracks, because of the Euro dance music, seem tad dated (as if it is a version prior to the actual studio version, had a similar feeling with Robyn's latest album) but they can be played over and over and over and over... no die b... sorry got carried away! **** is wicked, I'm Addicted can make you drunk, Turn up the Radio is great for the car, Gimme All Your Love is mediocre when compared to the remix by LMFAO, and the William Orbit finishers (right from I'm a Sinner to Falling Free) are a level above the rest. A brilliant observation by Mr. Christgau regarding the bonus tracks is that they seem like a respiting catharsis after Falling Free's climax.

 

   

Fall Of Eleven is on their way..!!! A young teen band from Jackson Michigan..!! Keep your ears plugged in... Rock on..!!! \m/

The tug of war over whether Wrecking Ball is distinct or vague has troubled me since The Rising.

I think I've finally broken it down for myself to two sets of questions --

1. Does he always have to name names (Wendy, Mary, Kitty, Sandy, Leah, Sonny, Outlaw Pete, The Chicken Man [yep, there's a real person]) so as not to be accused of being generic? Is the possessive pronoun "our" truly insufficient when it is used in a line as clear as "They destroyed our families’ factories and they took our homes"?

2. Is it categorically impossible to "limn" moral concepts? Speaking of The Chicken Man, in "Atlantic City" Springsteen said, "Everything dies baby, that's a fact/But maybe everything that dies someday comes back" and nobody had a conniption. I happen to think that "There ain't no help, the Cavalry stayed home" is a clear and distinct call to arms, backs, hearts and minds, in other words, to rev up the human engine of democracy. If we don't do it, nobody's going to do it for us. That is not vague.

Yes, I know artistically is a wishy-washy word that doesn't come close to delineating why Bruce was better when he was younger, but it's what I had at the moment. 

Although Bruce has given the thumbs-up to Occupy, there's a disconnect between him and (many? most?) on-the-ground protesters that I think limits the album's effectiveness as protest. His romanticism turns every manual labourer into John Henry, and that in itself isn't a bad thing - it shows we've regressed in the time between "Working on the Highway", when a dude with a shovel could dream of something better, and today, when the JOBS Act on Obama's desk has nothing to do with infrastructure or stimulus but instead contains something called the Private Company Flexibility and Growth Act. But consider one central concern of the current crisis: debt. Springsteen had more to say on this on "Atlantic City", finely limned characters and all, than he has on all of Wrecking Ball. I'm grateful that at least one Boss has my back, yet I don't know how much I'll listen to this album.

Milo: Perfect call on Joan Armatrading.  I can still remember surveying the crowd at a concert of hers (1983, Pier 84 in NYC) and seeing this sea of women--many in couples--and having this fleeting moment of understanding something about subcultural community.  In my relatively benighted and narcissistic late adolescent state, it was a good lesson about being in a crowd that had not been convened with me in mind.   

And interesting to think about all this in the context of Bruce's career.  Many before me have noted how for a good portion of his career he has alternated between superstar moves and conscious efforts to scale back: Nebraska kicks this off, disbanding the E Street Band, Tom Joad, Seeger Sessions, that weird cabaret-style tour in arenas behind Devils and Dust, the record with Joe Grushecky, and so on. 

But also in how he goes on the road into these giant (and once upon a time Giant) stadiums for years at a time and then comes back to NJ and plays the Stone Pony and Holiday shows and reconnects with Southside Johnny, and John Eddie, and Joe Grushecky and now Willie Nile and Garland Jeffreys and Jesse Malin and so on.   (And yes, to answer an old question of Bris Piggy's--it's a man's, man's world.  Bruce's masculinist, heterocentric worldview--see his recent Rolling Stone inteview--has been a challenge for many of us for years.  How thrilling when his video for "Tougher than the Rest" included a gay couple in the scrapbook of images!).  He struggles on and on with that "got what he wanted and lost what he had" dilemma more publicly than most rock stars--while never seeming to doubt that the mass audience is what he wants. 

Interesting also, in this context, is that Greil Marcus--who has written more than once about that the thrill of the moment when a subcultural or small-scale artist meets a mass audience--should have loved Nebraska so much and hated Born in the USA almost equally.

jody -- just read your review and i liked it a lot.  good analysis i thought and very funny.  of course, i like xgau's a lot too.  need to listen to wrecking ball more to know who's i agree with most.  unfortunately i didn't have any definitive positive gut response to the music or lyrics first listen like i had Bruce's earlier records.  but maybe this one will come on slower.  although i think this one was meant not to, which makes me think it won't click like it's supposed to.

Jody: For the record, I didn't read your review. Metacritic seems not to recognize your existence (just as it rarely recognizes mine), and with a few exceptions I used metacritic to get the lay of the land. A few of the Brits were especially dumb, Caramanica merely willful as he too often is.

I, actually, half agree with you, Jody; Xgau can be a little arsey in the wrong areas. Myself, I don't think WB is bad--in fact, it's his best in years--but it's not good enough to buy and listen to on a daily basis, IMO. But, hay, I'm a heretic! This gooey business makes out, that Xgau can insult, even people he may agree with, and exempt himself from it--a little immature, in my books; maybe, I'm wrong.