Not many people know what is being shared here. Thanks for sharing it with us….

lasik cost | health insurance

Stop Dreaming Start Action

I didn't like “Devils & Dust ” either; I agree w/ your comparison of “Radio Nowhere” to “57 Channels;” and I didn't like “The Rising” either which sounded mostly forced, and in places very much rehashed (”Mary's Place”).

“Tom Joad” took me a while. Didn't like it on its release then years later came back and fell in love w/ it–I think it's chockablock w/ well crafted story songs about contemporary America in a folkie tradition so that's almost perfectly designed to ring all my bells. It ain't “Nebraska,” but it's a fine piece of work.

I liked “Magic” quite a bit–loved “Summer Clothes,” “Your Own Worst Enemy,” and especially “Gypsy Biker,” which I think is classic Springsteen (”Long Walk Home” sounded good but also seemed like the kind of quickie Springsteen song the Boss could knock out in his sleep). On this new record I particularly love “What Love Can Do,” which offers a pretty heavy sentiment about love–not sacchrine or banal pop song love but the real power of love–familial and not just romantic; “Queen of the Supermarket”–which is just the kind of crafted pop number built around a single trope that I like; “Kingdom of Days,” w/ which, as a 45 year old guy married for almost 20 years, I identify; “Surprise,” which is a light, quick song, but honest and touching, different, fresh; “Life Itself;” and “This Life.” I also dig “Outlaw Pete” which is nothing but a modern version of the kind of western gunslinger ballads Marty Robbins made famous but weird, overly grandiose, quirkie, all characteristics which make me like it more. It's certainly a better western movie than Baz Luhrmann's “Australia;” and at 8-minutes it's a lot shorter.

I'm a Springsteen fan of more than 30 years, and on a more intellectual level an admirer of his songcraft. I'll check out anything he does, but haven't loved a lot of the stuff he's done over the last 10 years. I do, however, really like this new one. It just feels good and even the slight songs like the title track are earwormy for me.

Ah, the old angst-ridden, hipper than thou types. If you don't like Springsteen's incessant recycling, you must be one of those hipsters. Sounds pretty condescending to me.
Twenty-two years ago I really took to Tunnel Of Love (it was tough, tender, funny, modulated somewhere between Nebraska and Born in the USA, and on “One Step Up” heartbreaking) but I cannot fathom what he's been doing since. Tom Joad is dullsville to me. The Rising, an admirable failure with a few worthwhile stabs at 9/11, but too much of his usual corn/nostalgia thrown in as well. Devils and Dust was slow, arid and not very compelling. Magic had “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” and “Long Walk Home” but “Radio Nowhere” was as clueless as “57 Channels.” As for the new one, I've heard it twice and it sound pretty tepid to me. “Outlaw Pete” is what, exactly? And the title cut is not slight, it's transparent, invisible, not there. (”CCR chug?” Now I know why I no longer read Jon Pareles”) Really, I don't get any of this. Even in his early days when I didn't fall exactly in line behind a record I still understood his appeal, found him funny (say “Darlington County”) or overwrought (”Jungleland”) or devastating (”Atlantic City”) the music was there. Over the past two dacades much of what I've heard sounds listless, tired, reworked. (You mention “Sinaloa Cowboys,” which is a great idea but a dreary execution.)

I think this record (which is tied to the writing period of Magic, you're right) was “freed up” by Bruce's work on the Seeger Sessions disk and tours - not that it's that kind of music, but with the boisterous, just-for-fun, tub-scrapin' music of the Seeger stuff, Springsteen shrugged off some of that “responsibility” as you call it - the self-appointed musical poet of 9/11 etc…

Though he brought it back for Obama (I think he looked awkward on the campaign trail) that bigger Bruce and wide-ranging social commentary has devolved into personal stuff again, and it's good. He's always better showing, rather than telling, on the social stuff. Plus, mortality beckons…

Supermarket is a wonderful song - goofy, the remembrance of a near 60ish songwriter of his younger days, a song about suburbia, a widely-shared experience (I stocked many a shelf in my day, occasionally distracted by the winsome glances of the graceful checkers), and a sense of irony. Those who argue that it's his “worst song ever” just don't listen. I wish I'd written it.

…