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Originally Posted By: el_jefe


For the period that is all post-Darkness, it's got some songs that are pretty good. With the tour starting and the first good boots hitting over the next few weeks, 98% of the people here by November will shelve the album, practically for good.




I'm sort of with Eljefe on this. I barely give a fuck wether the album is good or not. I buy all the official releases issued in the Uk and some of the extra track ones, and the Springsteen bank account will always get a few more quid out of me in tour ticket and merchandise, but the main purpose of the album will be to add depth to the live shows. By about the european leg, or sometime next year shows, we will understand the true worth of these songs.
With all the official releases, I play them a few times, leaving myself undecided if its a masterpiece with hidden depth, then grow to love the good ones after hearing ten or so shows from the tour. In fact some of them will shine in years to come when played in different arrangements or solo.
You'll Never Walk Alone
The SPL is a happy family:

We're a happy family
We're a happy family
We're a happy family
Me, Mom, and Daddy

Sittin here in Queens
Eatin refried beans
We're in all the magazines
Gulpin down thorazines

We ain't got no friends
Our troubles never end
No Christmas cards to send
Daddy likes men

I'm friends with the president
I'm friends with the pope
We're all making a fortune
Selling Daddy's dope

(Best part: If you go here to read what people think the song means, someone wrote: "it's about a disfunctional family. the we're a happy family line is ironic, i guess." Italicized to emphasize the stupidity.)
"Too many" is relative to how the lyrics fit into the actual song structure. There are three in particular that in my opinion could have benefited from a bit of editing:

You'll be Coming Down
Girls in their Summer Clothes
Living in the Future

Nearly every note has a different syllable; the listener barely has time to register what is being conveyed because they are listening to what's being sung next. Some things need to be given time to register, to resound, and I think the first two could have been more effective with less imagery. Living' works because it's fun (subject matter notwithstanding) and it's fun hearing Bruce sing it. The first two are supposed to sound 'pretty,' but you're too busy trying to follow it to notice the music.
In his grand apology, King forgot about the night he called me nigger... which is okay, I guess... I'm used to it.

I'm looking forward to many posts from the newly mellow King.


BTW, I've been road testing Magic & it's not a good sign that I've been turning most songs down when I roll up to a light/drive-thru window.

SPL - born Feb 29, 1999 - died Jan 7, 2008... May it Rest in Pieces.
Ok, dt!
Sorry for keeping you waiting.
Like you said, "I'm interested to hear from people whose views I actually respect".

So here it comes, from one Euro to another:
I actually like the album. It's not perfect. Some songs sounds to much like Born In The USA-fillers. But others like "Last To Die" and "Devil's Arcade" are really great. "Girls" and "Coming Down" are also stand-out tracks. Except from that truely brilliant "flags over courthouse"-part Long Walk Home is a decent or good song but no masterpiece. The sound/production - I don't know if a sound that breathed and had more space would have been better. I think the production gives the music a dark and cloudy touch that suits it. I don't think there's a bad song on the album, really.

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Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man, that ain't oil that's blood

Originally Posted By: smokeyjoe
Originally Posted By: kenrico

BTW, I've been road testing Magic & it's not a good sign that I've been turning most songs down when I roll up to a light/drive-thru window.



So what you're saying is that you've gone from not liking it to not liking it in a car?


I haven't spun it in the auto yet, but I gave it a whirling wank in the gazeebo with my new Bose speakers and experienced the kind of bliss you'd be hard pressed to find outside the arms of a devilish mistress. Just joking chums!

Your own Worst Enemy is my favorite! I played along with my harpsichord (personally built for Rameau!) and what a rollicking wank it was! The album reminds me of my favorite tv show, "Magnum PI," which I used to watch through a crack in the wall that revelead the guard's tele. I was imprisoned in Cairo at the time.

I think of the character of Higgins, who always said to his dogs, "Come on, lads!" It's like Bruce did the same, "C'mon lads, let's have a red faced wank in the music studio!"

Cheerio!
?Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.?
-Thomas Hardy
OK, dt, I've given it considerable thought and been open to everything everyone's had to say here (well, except King)...

When it comes to magic, there are usually two kinds of people in the audience: those who are willing to be amazed and mystified by the magician and those who prefer to look for the smoke and mirrors and say quietly to themselves, and sometimes to the rest of us, "oh, I'm not impressed...I know how he did that." As with hypnosis, some are more willing and, consequently, more likely to fall beneath the spell while some canot be charmed. Magicians work in the realm of the willing.

I've got a shiny saw blade, all I need's a volunteer
I'll cut you in half while you're smilin' ear to ear"


Bruce has a rabbit in his hat and it's the new album...if you wanna come and see. But you can't come and see through the eyes of the cynic. You have to look through the eyes of the willing. Or it won't work. That's magic.

This is a great album; it works on so many levels. It reunites the E Street Band like The Rising never did...not with each other so much as with their signature sound. These songs are pure E Street, though the title track and Devil's Arcade embrace new sounds. You might argue that Magic is reminiscent of the sound on Joad or Devil's & Dust to which I'd counter by saying the sheer spookiness of the song alone sets it apart as something new. Bruce has never written anything so eery.

The album also serves as a train of thought on the current American experience lke many of his classic records did. And it manages to paint the familiar landmarks along E Street with a fresh and up to date look.

It's the album I've been waiting for since 1992...if not 1984.

As for those of you who complain that some of the songs sound too much like past Springsteen songs...you're looking too near the surface.

Is Livin' In The Future reminiscent of Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out or Hungry Heart? Sure it is but I don't hear either of those songs in it (well, maybe the breakdown part from the live reunion tour Tenth Avenue) as much as I hear their style evoked in the music. In my opinion, that opening blare of Clarence's sax, the way it immediately grabs you and throws your old and balding ass back to 1975 (or 78, 80, 84...pick your seminal year) is the sweetest thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Is Last To Die really a Roulette redux? I think the only part musically that directly quotes Roulette is that moment just before "a downtown windows flushed with light" when the song goes silent except for the cymbal and then that sharp piano tone. Other than that, the relation is more in the sense of panicked flight than anything else.

Does I'll Work For Your Love play off some of the same Catholic imagery that has seasoned Bruce's work ever since Lost In The Flood and If I Were The Priest? Of course it does. He's used Catholic imagery to great effect all down the line. Why is it now a sin when it never was then?

Do the touchstones in the lyrics of Long Walk Home bring to mind familiar scenes of locations Bruce has visited before, sometimes to lesser or greater success? I won't argue that it doesn't. I'll argue, though, that it is because, finally, Bruce has returned to the detailed style of writing that used to put the listener in the exact time and place of the story being told in the song and, well, that is a relief. At least it is to me.

He's also writing beneath the surface again. How long has it been since you've had to wonder what exactly any Springsteen song actually meant? The idea of linking darker, troubled lyrics with upbeat, misleading melodies and music is another blast from the past that I'm enjoying on this album.

For years and years there has been a common bitch among many here that there is no point in Bruce using the E Street Band if they don't sound like the E Street Band (a la The Rising) and now that they do, the music is called redundant and derivative of itself. We've been holding up each and every release against the classics and complaining that they are nothing like Bruce is supposed to sound and now we hold this one up to those same classics, find that it might compare, and label it pastiche. I may have been the first to call it a pastiche back on the 30-second samples thread but I meant it in a good way.

Is the production somewhat fuzzy? I suppose it is but it doesn't seem like "bad" production to me. I mean, it doesn't seem to hurt the sound of the songs at all to my ears; "Gypsy Biker" doesn't at all seem to be coming from 50 miles down the road. Is there a mushiness to the guitars and drums? I hear it but you can pour a lot of good things out of a blender, depending on what you put into it. And what they've put into this one is some classic Clarence sax rips, Danny's great organ playing, Roy's piano (ah, Roy's long-missed piano), a lot of thoughtful guitar work and some of Bruce's best singing ever.

So, suffice it to say, I love the album, dt. I've fallen beneath it's spell...maybe because, unlike you, who has resisted every new Bruce album for as long as I have "known" you (and that goes back at least to 2000), I am more willing to hear them.

I volunteered.

What I'd like to know, dt, is this: what do you expect from a Bruce Springsteen album? What would make you happy? I've garnered enough about your dislikes from your posts concerning The Rising, Devils & Dust and We Shall Overcome (and now, Magic) to know what you don't want from Bruce. I'd like to hear what it is you're after that he doesn't lead you to.



...whew...I haven't posted anything that long or with that much seriousness around here in years. That being said, I just want to say to my back-room SICKO brothers: have mercy; don't toss me out of the sauna.
BHL's review is an excellent read.

I have some admiration for those of you can still consume a package of work like a CD and reflect by keeping the tracks compartmentalized within that one container. BHL harkens me back to trips in the 1970's to The Mushroom record store in New Orleans, with the intent to buy about 5 albums at a time for $25, and consume them 1 at a time, and repeat them over again.

I like the nostalgia of Gob's basement even though I would never want to see it. I like the way caroljude and smokey have a bond in how they consume these things, and enjoy them. BHL has got it too, but I don't think that the desire to want to know the secret of the trick is a bad thing. It's like I told my wife 10 days ago: When you've seen 44 Yom Kippurs -- the shofar, the atonement, and the fearful mystery of whether you'll be written into the book of life just don't mystify anymore.

In terms of consuming an album within its parameters, I am clear that I lost either the ability or the desire or both to do that a long time ago, probably with the advent of cassette decks. Once I could repackage songs I liked and discard ones I didn't, I no longer ever viewed a release as a self-contained product.

With Bruce, The River also concurrently broke my ability to receive that as one package. Darkness was the last Bruce album that I could listen to whole and with fierce repetitiveness. It was between Darkness and The River that I found my way to bootlegs, and the way that boots delivered you as being vicariously present at the rarest, peak event of that time, further diminished my ability to consume "albums."

Whereas Darkness was a total package to me, The River failed dramatically. After anticipating The River intensely following The No Nukes Movie, I was instantly turned off by so many songs: Hungry Heart, Crush on You, YCLBYBNT, I'm A Rocker, Two Hearts, & I Wanna Marry You. I first liked Out in the Street, but lost my joy for that quickly thereafter. I was even pissed that songs from the few '78 tour boots I had - Sherry Darling, Point Blank, and Ties That Bind - were now popified onto this monstrosity of an album. The worst sin, which we've covered endlessly, was the taking of my most passionately loved boot track Backstreets/Drive All Night form Atlanta '78 - and bastardizing it into that droning studio track.

That's exactly when I lost, as BHL analogized beautifully, the openess to the magic.

Nebraska did nothing to change that. I had two reactions: (1) interesting, unexpected, underground effort. (2) what the fuck are these songs?

Granted - Greetings, Wild-Innocent, Born To Run, and Darkness are all stylistically different in sound from each other, but only Wild-Innocent side 2, Born To Run, and Darkness are packages I would consume in total, and chronologically.

Every album, and every stylistic change Bruce has done after Darkness has not appealed to me in whole. Magic is no different.

I like alot of these songs as table-setters for the live show. Some of these songs I like on even days and dislike on odd days (Gypsy Biker especially.) I need higher treble to enjoy the production.

So, I applaud those of you that can reflect on a release with the boundaried collection as the primary marker.

For me, these are just the next batch in one whole catalog. And I am excited to see which tracks I want to keep listening to, which ones are just listeners for the length of the tour, and which ones are sayonara.

So, I'm not sure which filter or context D-T's coming from. I consider him to be a top-level audiophile in these parts, but if the "album" strikes one as negative, then cut the grist off, and hone in on the tracks you like. Because there are some good ones on this release. With the technology tools this site has delivered to so many of us, Bruce can release Magic, and an hour later, I can have my own Magic EP.
Originally Posted By: BillHortonLives
What I'd like to know, dt, is this: what do you expect from a Bruce Springsteen album? What would make you happy? I've garnered enough about your dislikes from your posts concerning The Rising, Devils & Dust and We Shall Overcome (and now, Magic) to know what you don't want from Bruce. I'd like to hear what it is you're after that he doesn't lead you to.


Well, I could be on something like the old "it's not you, it's me" routine here, but the truth is that I don't know what it is that I'm after. I said years ago that I was gonna kill him because there's no way he'd ever come up with anything new that I'd like more than what's in the vaults, and I guess that still holds.

But I'm not completely down on him. I like The Rising if you miss about 5 or 6 tracks, and I really liked the tour. I said that D&D makes a decent 7 track mini-album that choogles along quite nicely, and my self-compiled 4 disc D&D tour compilation is the favourite boot I own. I can't judge the Seeger stuff as I simply don't like that kind of music, just like I couldn't tell you which is the best Eminem album. Just not my thing.

But this? Well first of all, I really think history will judge these songs as very average. I don't hear any stand outs, except maybe Long Walk Home, but that could just be because it's so damn catchy.

But I'm gonna have to get anoraky again about the sound, because that's what's really disappointing me. Sure, I love the ESB sound - guitars, sax, piano, organ, glock etc - and I know they're all present and correct in here somewhere, but this 60's Spector thing has just clouded it so much.

I've been trying to like this for a couple of days now - got it playing virtually non-stop. But I'm just getting more and more pissed off. Couple of examples - OK, Radio Nowhere, decent uptempo rocker to start, singalong chorus yada yada yada. Then comes the first big let down. You'll Be... starts off and after a few seconds when the band kicks in, it's just mush. I really want it to jump out of the speakers at me, but it's more like "is that it?".

Next track - Livin'... is that the one with the organ solo? That actually made me laugh. I know there's a trademark ESB organ solo going on, but I actually have to strain to hear it.

And on one of the next tracks (either Your Own... or Girls In...) there's an instrumental part that I couldn't even tell what it is. Is it guitar? sax? guitar and sax together? something else? Sorry, I just can't tell.

And then there's the harmonica from 50 yards down the road. And the "treated" piano sound. And the synth-wash clouding the verses in (from memory) I'll Work...

etc
etc
etc

And lyrics? Well, for me, the singing or the music have always been more important to me. If they don't grab me, I'm not bothered enough to go and read the lyrics. I'm sure Waits and Costello have written some brilliant songs, but as I can't stand their voices, I'm never gonna find out.

So, in summary, I know it's got the ESB back doing what they're good at. And I'm sure some of these songs are fine. They're not great, but they're OK. But the muddy sound is really spoiling it for me, and I don't rate the songs high enough to force myself to struggle past that, like we used to do with bootleg versions of Roulette, Loose Ends, Murder Inc etc etc. And Loose Ends, Senator, these ain't.

But don't worry, I'm sure I'll like the tour. I've always wanted to watch a bloke read to me for 2 and a half hours.
Originally Posted By: Patrick
The first one was much better!


Hello Patrick! A fellow classical music fan! I'm glad we've spoken! I will purchase a Morrissey record to play at night in my well lit cafe!

My heart sinks and my loins shrink at the thought, but I must say it appears my Hindu half brother Bakshi has escaped from the leper colony, lost any sense of humility, and is now posturing himself as I, William! I know it was him! It was he who was imprisoned in Cairo. Thanks to my gallant efforts I rescued him! Cursed is he for settling me in such a vile manner!

When father was in Jakarta in 1943 he met a traveling aesthetic from India. Bakshi was the rotten fruit of their love affair! Blasted be father's incorrigible phalice! "A Lover without indiscretion is no lover at all!" Blast Bakshi and his mark upon father's legacy!

In 1962 (not those dreadful eighties!) Bakshi was imprisoned in Cairo for Opium export. I heard news of this during my days in Marrakesh. I picked up a rifle and a stout Negro named Mohammed for 2 pounds and five rubbles at a bizarre and motored to Cairo! I posed as a whore to gain entry to the prison. A women in scarlet I was, yes, a jezebel, I remember it well. When the guard opened the door Mohammed boxed him to defeat and rescued Bakshi! Just like the kangaroos I sparred with on father's land in the outback! And this is how Bakshi repays!!! His deformed hands and disfigured genitals could never wank in the gazeebo! Stop the lies Bakshi! Damn you Bakshi!

William
?Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.?
-Thomas Hardy
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