Wrecking Ball (Special Edition)

I think this is a really fine Springsteen album. Although I have been a fan for decades I don't think that every album is a classic, but I suspect that this may turn out to be one. The man certainly hasn't lost any of his ability to write a fine song, and there is a passion and often a rage running through Wrecking Ball which gives it real power. There is also a variety of material and styles here - country, gospel and even a little rap make an appearance - with some deeply introspective, almost Nebraska-style moments through to driving rockers like the title track, which I find makes the whole thing a riveting listen from beginning to end.

It is the rage which strikes you most forcibly. Springsteen has always had a passionate love of his country and of its ordinary, decent people. He now also has a raw despair and fury at those who cheat those people and twist his country away from what he thinks it should and could be. This is thunderously and uncompromisingly overt in several songs - for example Jack Of All Trades ("If I had me a gun I'd find the bastards and shoot `em on sight") and Death To My Hometown:
"...Send the robber barons straight to hell -
Greedy thieves who came around
And ate the flesh of everything they found
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now
Who walk the streets as free men now
And brought death to my hometown."

Powerful stuff, and a great song which is sung with a fury and blame very different from the sad, fatalistic acceptance of economic hardship in songs like The River and My Hometown in the 80s. There is more on this album than just rage, though. Springsteen's strength as a songwriter has always been his ability to write a good, straightforward tune and to convey important human experiences and truths through singing about the small specifics of life, especially working life. He does a great job of that on this album and it is also good to see that he can still write a fine, direct love/lust song in You Got It.

That great voice is still just as great, and the production is, as always, excellent. There is, of course, one giant absentee and I found the huge gap left by Clarence Clemons yawned at me on occasions, despite a fine brass section. Clarence makes his only appearance on Land Of Hope And Dreams - Track 10 - and to hear him suddenly so far through the album was almost unbearably poignant. It is a great tribute to a man whose sound I have loved and which has followed me down three decades and more.

I warmly recommend this album, especially to those who may be wondering whether they really need another Springsteen album. I think you do need this one - it is excellent.

(By the way, the Deluxe Edition contains two extra songs tagged onto the end. For what it's worth, I think they are OK but nothing special. You may want to spend the little extra for the sake of completeness and for the extra artwork, but my feeling is that the album comes to a natural, well-judged close with We Are Alive and I actually prefer the album without them.)

I was lucky enough to be at the Giants Stadium on September 30th 2009 when Bruce strode out and first performed "Wrecking Ball" and got the MP3 of it a short while later when it was released so to see it on the new album was a bit of a shock especially as the album includes "Land of hope and dreams" too as the live version of this has appeared on the "Live in NYC" album before. Is he having trouble writing songs I thought but then when I read that he rejected 40 odd songs to put this album together I guess that he's crafted this album to tell the story as he wants to tell it (and as "Land of hope and dreams" features the last recorded sax that The Big Man left us with it would be valuable for that if it weren't a great song anyway).
This is a very dark album and as close to a concept album as you'll ever get from Bruce Springsteen - he starts with "We take care of our own" which, if you listen to the lyrics, "we "being the USA patently do not although I can see it being a rabble rouser.
The album next deals with the subject of "Easy Money" - a theme obviously explored before in "Meeting across the river" on "Born to run".
He explores the themes of being a working class blue collar kind of guy who wants to find work - wherever it can be found - in the next two tracks - "Shackled and drawn" and "Jack of all trades" then comes the first of the real stand out tracks - "Death to my hometown" which sounds very much as though this was a hangover from the "Seeger Sessions" album.
"This depression" finds Bruce in, well, depressive mood as the song's title says - this is the album's "low" point as the songs from hereon in are hopeful starting with the folksy sounding "You've got it" - what is "it" though ? I think it's hope.
The next track - "Rocky Ground" looks to become a stone cold classic, folky and very "religious" in it's language even incorporating a little rap in the lyrics. The chorus sounds like a Southern baptist evangelical choir. It's fabulous.
Next up the aforementioned "Land of hope and dreams" - again a fabulous track, full of hope at where "we" are going now - on "this train" full of "whores and gamblers"
The ordinary edition ends with "We are alive" again full of religious symbolism - the message here is that the body may die but the spirit never will
The special edition adds "Swallowed up"(in the belly of the whale) which, if it isn't an old hymn, damn well sounds as if it should be and concludes with another version of "American Land" which sounds the same as the version on the "Seeger Sessions" album - still a great track even if I do wonder why we need it again !

So there you have it - one man's journey (and it is mainly one man as the E Street Band don't make much of an appearance on this album) from despair into hopelessness and out the other side into a (hopefully) bright future.
To my mind, and having only listened to it three or four times, I think it's great. It sounds to me like a cross between "Nebraska" or "Tom Joad" and "The Rising" with a healthy dollop of "The Seeger Sessions" thrown in for good measure

Springsteen made a huge mistake on his last two albums, Magic and Working on a Dream, by having Brendan O'Brien as producer. O'Brien created an indistinct sound which muffled some fine instrumentation and vocals. The result was a disaster and fans noticed a huge difference when the songs on these albums were played live. Now O'Brien has been replaced by Ron Aniello, who has brought back the superb production values that characterised Springsteen's early albums. Let's hope the Boss has learned his lesson.