Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Boss is back!!, 29 Sep 2007
I can only echo all the postive reviews elsewhere on Amazon - I've just listened to this for the third time since downloading it today and it's clear that this is a truly wonderful return to form for Springsteen. I'm a lifelong fan, but I have to admit I didn't care much for his folky Seeger sessions stuff. This goes back to what he does best, upbeat, melodic rock with great lyrics and that unmistakable "Boss" sound. It's more immediate than The Rising (which I rated his best since Darkness), and a highlight for me is the way they've let the Big Man (Clarence Clemons)loose with his sax on a few songs, especially "You'll be coming down" , "Living in the Future" and "Long Walk Home". Just a joy to hear that sax belting out, but I wish they'd really give him a long solo again like on Junglelands. My favourite tracks hasgot be Girls In Summer Clothes - I deny anyone not to be captivated by the opening 30 seconds - pure wall of sound with the 12 string guitars and one of Springsteens best melodies ever. I'll Work For Your Love and Your Own Worst Enemy are close seconds in the favourite stakes.
Not a duff track on this set at all, The Boss shows all the rest how to produce a well-crafted rock album. Don't listen to anyone who says its tired or boring - they ain't got a clue.
Buy it, crank up the volume, and fall in love with Springsteen all over again.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Five Star Album - but the production?, 7 Nov 2007
I am a Springsteen fan, a completist and I think that this album stands alongside any of his not inconsiderable back catalogue. A genuine all killer no filler album. Some less charitable magazine reviews bemoan the mix of the folky troubadour Bruce and the E Street band backed "Cool Rockin' Daddy" Bruce. I prefer to consider this as welcome variety. This album has loads of variety, perhaps the best and most varied musically since the River.
Some tracks are instantly recogniseable as the Boss in harness with the E Street band, but make no mistake this never descends as it so easily could into pastiche. The subject matter is as varied as the music.
The well played (on Radio 2 anyway) Radio Nowhere opens the set with a punch, a good if unspectacular rocker, the lyrics do however measure up. This is followed by a number of songs which are among his finest. My favourites being Gypsy Biker and the beautiful Girls in Their Summer Clothes, traditional pre politicised songs which nod to their creators past and his influences. The political Bruce stand out is Last to Die, a great song with as pithy a lyric as anything on Devils and Dust.
Whilst there is much to enjoy in this album there is the niggling matter of Brendan O'Brien's production, it is not as engaging as The Rising. I don't really know why it just seems very " compressed" with no space between the instruments at all. Is it worth docking a star from the album of the year so far? I guess not. Perhaps this is part of my bigger bugbear with the Springsteen back catalogue which is for the most part the poorest presented of any major artist (except perhaps the Beatles which remains stymied by Apples arrogance and greed).
The Springsteen catalogue has never undergone the major remastering it is long overdue. Considering howmeticulous Bruce is about the finished product this remains a criminal oversight. Sony/CBS sort it out.
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125 of 144 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Springsteen's spiritual successor to BORN IN THE USA; best album of 2007 , 15 Oct 2007
Bruce Springsteen - Magic October 10, 2007
Springsteen's spiritual successor to BORN IN THE USA; best album of 2007
I must confess, ever since I learned about MAGIC, Springsteen's newest, I was pretty excited. Though I haven't gotten into Springsteen the same extent I've gotten into some other rock giants (the biggest being Bob Dylan), I proudly count myself among his fans, though not, perhaps, a card carrying member of the Asbury Fan Club (or Cult perhaps would be a better term).
I also have another confession. I've been listening to this album incessantly for the past month, since early September from the version leaked on the internet. Now, if history repeats itself like Radiohead with KID A back in 2000, this prerelease leak should drive sells. I know it made me want to buy it. I can't stop listening to it.
Without a doubt, MAGIC is one of Springsteen's funnest albums in the last twenty five years, and his flat out best pop album since BORN IN THE USA. In fact, I would argue that MAGIC is closest akin to that seminal 1984 masterpiece out of all of Springsteen's previous albums.
Though I haven't heard TUNNEL OF LOVE, USA's chronological followup, for my money MAGIC sounds like the true sequel. Springsteen would not use the E Street Band on an album for a full eighteen years following USA. They finally resurfaced on the 2002 effort THE RISING. And while THE RISING is certainly a fine record, it was largely preoccupied with the post 9/11 universe we as the international community have been thrust into.
While Springsteen has been active releasing albums since then, he didn't use the band, and the albums he did release were either folk or bluegrass driven. Which is not to say they're bad albums. DEVILS & DUST is great, especially the title cut. SEEGER SESSIONS is an interesting, and very fun, history lesson about Pete Seeger, even if he did ax the sound equipment at Dylan's Newport appearance in 1965. But those looking for Springsteen's rock sound will be disappointed by them.
But not now. MAGIC is the album we've been waiting for for a long time. While there are some serious moments ("Radio Nowhere", a diatribe against the radio landscape of the new millennium, "Last to Die", the only real politically charged song on the entire album), overall MAGIC is a celebration of life, of freedom, of Springsteen just letting his hair down and doing some great pop rock and roll.
BORN IN THE USA is a strange animal. Musically, it's upbeat, it's poppy, it's just fun to listen too. Lyrically, however, the album featured the characters in the songs following the same dark, desperate fate that most of Springsteen's narrators did on DARKNESS, THE RIVER, NEBRASKA, etc. USA dressed up Springsteen's bitter stories about his down-on-their-luck characters in such brilliantly poppy music that the Reagan administration famously used the title cut in their bid for reelection. The political publicist machine can be pretty damned oblivious at times.
MAGIC, on the other hand, has USA's same pop rock sensibilities, but minus the overarching pessimism. While there are some nostalgic moments on the album, overall, MAGIC is the truest sequel to BORN IN THE USA that we have yet seen, and is in many ways unique to Springsteen's canon. Originally THE RIVER was to be a single album of lighthearted songs called THE TIES THAT BIND. Twenty Seven years later we get that album, a pop album where Springsteen's not trying to make an overarching statement. And what a great rock album it is.
This is Springsteen's purest pop album, and its sense of fun and lack of serious, grandiose statements is what THE RIVER would have been had Springsteen stuck with his original plans. It's good to make good music just for the hell of it, but don't get me wrong. None of this is disposable music (the best pop never is). All the songs sound like they belong together, with the sole exception of the hidden track "Terry's Song", a tribute to one of his friends who died. While a pleasant enough song, doesn't really do a lot for me.
Another thing that should be mentioned is the way in which Brendan O'Brien, the album's producer (also affiliated with Pearl Jam, Neil Young, and any number of major rock acts), and Springsteens chose to record it. Working around the band's busy schedule, they would record their own parts solo with O'Brien producing, and then O'Brien would assemble all the different tracks into a finished song. The sole exception to this recording process was the Big Man, Clarence Clemmons, the E Street Band's famous saxophonist. Springsteen personally oversaw all of Clemmons' sessions, due to the rich dynamic relationship they have with one another.
While this protools method of recording albums can sap modern music of their vitality, it's amazing how organic and lived in the music feels. Of course, this is Springsteen, and this is the E Street band, so they obviously know how to make great music. What a backing band they truly are.
Ultimately, MAGIC is probably the best album for 2007. This is USA minus the pessimism. For those Springsteen fans who didn't much care for DEVILS & DUST and SEEGER SESSIONS, rejoice! We have Springsteen making some phenomenal rock and roll at long last!
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~ Bruce Springsteen
~ Bruce Springsteen
~ Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
~ Eagles
![Devils & Dust [CD + DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511yWFHV0FL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
~ Bruce Springsteen
