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Bruce Springsteen
Working on a Dream
(Columbia)
John Metzger's #8 album for 2009
First Appeared in The Music Box, February 2009, Volume 16, #2
Written by John Metzger
Tue February 24, 2009, 06:30 AM CST
Lately, whenever he has felt it was time to begin working on a new album with
the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen has opted to take producer Brendan O’Brien
into the studio with him. On paper, their pairing has always made sense. Yet,
the fruits of their labor often have clouded the issue because both
The Rising and Magic failed to capitalize fully upon the strength of
their union. Instead, Springsteen and O’Brien appeared to be uncertain about how
to proceed together, and their hesitancy led to the overall feeling of
disconnection that floated through the arrangements and melodies of
Springsteen’s songs. Although these endeavors had their moments — and Magic
undeniably built upon its predecessor — they also left listeners with the
impression that Springsteen and O’Brien were searching for something as they
worked toward a goal that remained just outside their reach. Working on a
Dream, Springsteen’s latest effort, however, finds the duo turning the
corner. While it isn’t a perfect endeavor, it does go a long way, at least,
toward putting their collaborations into perspective.
O’Brien’s career has followed a typical path. After Stone Temple Pilot’s
Core — which he helped guide to fruition — became utterly inescapable, he
became firmly established as a producer, rather than simply an engineer. Through
his work with arena-rock bands such as Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine,
he developed and perfected an approach that has leant itself quite well to a
generation of rock stars and music fans who have embraced low-fidelity playback
devices. The iPod, in particular, has wiped clean all of the advances in aural
technology that Alan Parsons had set in motion when he mixed
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, let alone the groundbreaking textures that George
Martin applied to The Beatles’ compositions. As a result, the industry has slid
backward to that awkward moment in the 1960s when AM radio ruled the land and
monophonic and stereophonic recordings were competing for attention.
Springsteen frequently has taken solace from the music that was made during
this era. The countless singles that sprang from Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound,
Roy Orbison’s songs for the brokenhearted, and even The Beach Boys’ masterpiece
Pet Sounds were all designed to be heard not on expensive, surround sound
systems but rather through the tinny, static-filled speakers of a car or kitchen
radio. It’s safe to say that everything Springsteen ever has done with the E
Street Band has been built around the idea of recapturing the magic of these
glory-filled moments from pop’s illustrious heyday. After all, his albums
customarily have been filled with sounds that have been stacked on top of one
another — in addition to the guitars, saxophones, drums, and keyboards of the E
Street Band, horns, strings, and glockenspiel also have been featured time and
again within his arrangements. Likewise, in concert, his touring outfit has
grown considerably over the years, culminating most recently with the colossal
confederation of musicians that he assembled to support him during his halftime
set at the Super Bowl.
Aside from the fun that he obviously appears to be having — he also drafted a
gospel choir to join him during his appearance at the We Are One concert
that preceded the inauguration of Barack Obama — there is a reason why
Springsteen has been turning the E Street Band’s high-profile gigs into complete
spectacles, and it has less to do with marketing Working on a Dream than
many might suspect. In fact, the oversized staging of his shows dovetails with
the grandiose textures that he and O’Brien conjured for the endeavor. From the
arrangement they applied to the epic tale of Outlaw Pete to Kingdom of
Days’ symphonic majesty, Working on a Dream is bursting at the seams
with ideas. It unquestionably is the culmination of Springsteen and O’Brien’s
collective vision. In effect, they have recreated Spector’s Wall of Sound to
suit their own purpose, and they want to celebrate their victory in a big way.
Without a doubt, Working on a Dream is the best effort Springsteen has
made with the E Street Band in decades, yet it also is a slightly bigger triumph
for the producer than it is for the artist. To put it simply, the effort — good
as it is — just can’t compete with Springsteen’s classics — The Wild, the
Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, Born to Run, and Darkness on the
Edge of Town — nor do its songs conjure moods or paint scenes as vividly as
Thunder Road, Jungleland, and Sandy (4th of July,
Asbury Park).
Even so, it immediately is apparent that O’Brien finally has reignited
Springsteen’s creative hunger. Working on a Dream not only is the most
eclectic outing in Springsteen’s canon, but, for the first time since
Nebraska, Springsteen also sounds as if he is trying to break a mold — or at
least broaden it — rather than continue to be trapped inside one. As a result,
the haze of uncertainty that had kept Springsteen and O’Brien from achieving
their musical goals on The Rising (and, to a lesser degree, on Magic)
has dissipated, and this, in turn, has brought the grand experiment of their
collaborative pursuits into focus.
There is no doubt that Springsteen’s superstar status has its advantages.
Employing a bigger budget than he had at his disposal in the 1970s, Springsteen,
with O’Brien’s assistance, used Working on a Dream to pay tribute to his
influences like never before. More than a hint of Orbison’s output drifts
through the title track and My Lucky Day. Meanwhile, Beatle-esque touches
creep into Queen of the Supermarket, and Byrds-ian flavors dominate the
landscape of Life Itself. Elsewhere, the country-rock groove of
Tomorrow Never Knows bears traces of Bob Dylan’s style, while Surprise,
Surprise is pure, undiluted ’60s pop. Moving from a cut like This Life,
which clearly was modeled after Brian Wilson’s work on Pet Sounds, into
the driving blues-rock fury of Good Eye ought to be jarring, but
strangely enough, the transition is remarkably smooth. The reason, first and
foremost, is that everything on Working on a Dream is fed through a
replica of Spector’s Wall of Sound, and the resulting presentation is larger
than life. The other factor is the endeavor’s overarching narrative, for which
no other arrangements would have served the same purpose nearly as well.
It is impossible for a songwriter to separate his personal life from his
output. Every facet of his personality as well as all of his experiences
inevitably filter, in one way or another, into his lyrics. This is especially
true of someone like Springsteen, simply because his immensely high profile
places most of what he does beneath the white-hot glare of a spotlight. His
recent marital troubles and the premature death of the E Street Band’s longtime
keyboard player Danny Federici are, perhaps, the two biggest issues that have
been weighing upon him of late. Not surprisingly, these themes seep into every
nook and cranny of Working on a Dream.
Most of Working on a Dream was completed prior to Federici’s death,
and The Last Carnival is the only song that deals directly with his
passing. In retrospect, however, the track informs and illuminates other aspects
of the endeavor. It was Federici, for example, who played the glockenspiel on
Springsteen’s classic albums, and the instrument’s prominent return — at the
hands of Springsteen, rather than Federici — provides a fitting tribute to the E
Street Band’s departed organist. The Last Carnival also twists the
meaning behind tunes like Outlaw Pete — which details a man’s attempts to
outrun his fate — and Good Eye — a cut that is, at least in part, about
not taking life for granted. Within the turbulence of the latter selection,
Springsteen also seems to offer an apology of sorts to his wife Patti Scialfa,
while the rest of the effort boasts material that highlights the redemptive
power of love, thereby allowing the effort to stand as a full-fledged pledge of
devotion to their reconciliation. In other words, Working on a Dream
provides the happy ending to the anguish, anger, and feelings of betrayal that
Scialfa poured into her 2007 effort Play It as It Lays.
With the exception of The Wrestler — the song of perseverance in the
face of hardship that Springsteen penned for the Mickey Rourke film that shares
its title — Working on a Dream is an album that has been meticulously
produced. Nevertheless, because it came together quickly, in a spontaneous burst
of creativity, the set also packs the energetic punch of Springsteen’s early
endeavors. Beneath the glistening layers of instrumentation, tracks like My
Lucky Day and What Love Can Do harken back to the exuberant rock ’n‘
roll of Born to Run and The River. Like many artists, Springsteen
has had a tendency to want to revisit his old ideas and look for ways in which
to improve them. When he reunited the E Street Band to make The Rising,
however, he seemed to be stuck in the past. With Working on a Dream, he
once again appears to be moving forward. 
52nd Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance
Working on a Dream
52nd Annual Grammy Award Winner:
Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
Brendan O'Brien
Of Further Interest...
John Lennon - Rock 'n' Roll
Roy Orbison - Crying
The Traveling Wilburys - The Traveling Wilburys Collection
Working on a Dream is available from
Amazon. To order, Click Here!
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Working on a Dream [Deluxe Edition] is available from
Amazon. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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For UK orders, please
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2009 The Music Box
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