I have a solution for the USA's economic woes. Let the banks go bankrupt, let the mortgages get foreclosed, let the stock market tumble, throw away a generation of people. And rebuild from there.Of course, if the Government does this, I'm dead meat and the entire world falls into a recession so there is nowhere for me to run.
But it's a solution.
Which is one more than Bruce Springsteen offers on Wrecking Ball. Not unlike The Rising, the new one's theme is the great American disaster, and unlike the Rising, at least a handful of the songs on it are very good. But it is a wooly headed album that has no grasp on its subject matter, because unlike The Rising, the heroes and villains are much less clear. Springsteen has very little feel for his subject matter, the financial devastation of the Middle Class, his words are failing him, his words are cliches, maybe clliches he invented, but cliches nevertheless and if he understands finance, he doesn't prove it.
You can't have heroes without villains, and Springsteen needs to do better than fat cat bankers versus working class men ,but it is all he wants to tell us because he has only blue collar callused handed heroes, so screw all us white collar folks who got tossed out as well.
So why do I like Wrecking Ball? At his best, the old one two near the begriming of the album, "Easy Money" and "Shackle And Drawn", losing everything is a hootenany and a singalong. At its worst, the impressively terrible "We Take Care Of Our" an E Street redux that flaps about on flying flags and an emotional cop off "The Rising", the possibly worst song he's ever written title track, the failed eulogy "Jack Of All Trades", it is worse than bad songs, it is bad songs about important things. But the worst is in the minority.
Let's stay with what's good> Tthough nothing is actually great, 8 of these 11 songs are pretty good. That's really remarkable odds, I'd give him two off Magic and none off Working On A Dream . Sure, none of it is first tier Bruce, but a couple are second tier. The music is strong, the production is outstanding and Springsteen sounds incredible. His voice is a deeply felt instrument and he doesn't just use his Southern yokel tone, but, on "My Depression" he captures the Everyman sound that is his reason for being.
There is always the fear with Springsteen that he will hit a sound and maintain it for an hour, and he doesn't here. From the blues of "You've Got It" (the only song off subject) to the thrilling Gospel of "Rocky Ground", to the Irish jig of "Shackled And Drawn", this is deeper, further and longer than anything he has done this century.
BUT HE IS STUPID.
Cmon, man.
This recession is not about people who should have known better taking ballooning mortgages from Freddie and Fannie May, banks picking up toxic paper, and Bruce's blue collar American defaulting.
IT IS ABOUT ME PICKING UP THE TAB FOR IT.
if Bruce has an opinion about my, and many of my friends, disastrous white collar slap down, he is too busy failing to scan on songs about some working class guy wanting to "shoot the bastards down". Oh, please. the line doesn't even scan. "Good times come and good times go" Springsteen sings, if that's the case, what's his beef?
In one of the most egregious pieces of nonsense about this album, Rolling Stone's David Fricke wrote: "Actually, for an election year, Wrecking Ball is a boldly apolitical record. The basic premise is that the true business of politics – responsible governing, a commerce of shared rewards — is broken, with plenty of guilt to go around." That's a politically motivated lie. Springsteen has lost the right to be apolitical. He is a Democrat apparatus and he is apolitical here because he doesn't want to attack Obama.
That's alright with me, I don't care. But it crucifies Springsteen's lyrics. Half of his venom is shielded and of course the self-righteous prig never points the finger at himself. Bruce could, write, "My business manager is investing in gold and Euro Dollars but I don't wanna know…" that would be brutally honest. It would deal with his built-in hypocrisy. Or he could take the position of one of the bankers, explain how it feels when money has no meaning. Or get to the bottom of the rift between him and his audience, how "he walks this world in wealth" and yet feels pain and empathy for people he must be wondering about. I mean, are they just a figment of his imagination, a half remembered, dimly lit part of his memory, or do they actually exist? They can't afford tickets to his shows, that's for sure, so where would he meet them? At lunch with President Clinton?
Instead, he is jumping on trains, and waving flags, and working with his hands, raising up, and falling down and looking for easy money and and and…
Grade: A-