Bruce Springsteen

Bruce reconvened the E Street Band for Magic, but don't let that mislead you: while it rocks harder than anything he's recorded in years, it's hardly a party album. When the drums pound and the bass rumbles, they're mirroring the ominous portents in most every lyric. Even the bouncy, horn-fueled "Livin' in the Future," with it's na-na-na-na chorus, contains a "dirty sun" in a "gunpowder sky," and the magic of the title track refers to the cheap hucksterism of untrustworthy leaders, not the transcendent power of music, or fast motorcycles, or love - though he sings about those, too, of course.

Bruce Springsteen’s first album of original songs with the E Street Band since he lost the
vote for change in 2004 starts with guitars --a wall of angry, droning treble that, for the
three minutes of “Radio Nowhere,” is blessedly louder than the oceanic static of bent
truths, partisan reporting and general bullshit that passes for life-and-death debate in the
new wired order. Springsteen isn’t just pissed about the state of rock & roll radi... More >