Discussion of new Bruce in NY Times...

Johnnykmusic:  Disappointed by Bruce's Grammys performance, which consisted of a plodding, overbearing, oversimplified anthem railing against those rich and right, I don't hold out hope of loving Springsteen's Wrecking Ball.  The Jons Pareles/Caramanica review it below:

The New York Times’s pop critics Jon Pareles and Jon Caramanica discuss Bruce Springsteen’s album “Wrecking Ball,” to be released Tuesday by Columbia. 

JON PARELES Jon, if good intentions were all that mattered, Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” would be a shoo-in for album of the year — which is, not coincidentally, an election year. “Wrecking Ball” is Springsteen’s latest manifesto in support of the workingman, and his direct blast at fat cats and banksters who derailed the economy. It’s sincere, ambitious and angry, which can lead to mixed outcomes. It also — which may be a surprise on an album billed as a broadside — holds some of Springsteen’s most elaborate studio concoctions since “Born to Run.” 

JON CARAMANICA But, Jon, I too was born in the U.S.A., a country with a Constitution that guarantees the freedom of interpretation! We can talk about the intention of the author all day long — and certainly Bruce’s boomer army will do just that — but the text is far more ambiguous, and in plenty of places on this album, just outright flat.  I agree, it’s energizing to hear the type of ambitious arrangements that he’d largely abandoned when he retreated into rural bard mode. And the chill of hearing the booming sax solo on “Land of Hope and Dreams” drove me to the liner notes to confirm that, yes, it was Clarence Clemons. And “We Take Care of Our Own,” my lyrical bête noire, has the hardest-working music on the album.  Read More