why isn't anybody talking about this, it fucking rocks



great great album!!!

finally some great albums coming in 2007. i had almost given up hope but with

windmill - puddle city racing lights
pj harvey - white chalk
bruce springsteen - magic

Even though I hate PJ Harvey, I have her album in high rotation...I'm loving it

I posted something about it on another thread.

It's basically my favorite Springsteen album ever, and tied with Arcade Fire for my favorite album of the year.

Really wish he'd called it Radio Nowhere. Much better title as it reflects all the influences he's been absorbing more blatantly. I swear I hear Magnetic Fields more than Beach Boys on Your Own Worst Enemy.

i cant wait to get this album.

IstenSzek said:

I'm a huge fan, and have been for many years. But I think Magic sucks - dull, dull, dull. It's easily the dullest, least inventive, least interesting album he's ever released - and that includes Human Touch/Lucky Town. They may have been dreadful, bland and blurred, but they had their moments.

Magic has no moments. It's dull from start to whimpering stop. There's nothing on it I'd really want to hear again. I don't get it: Bruce was on a roll - The Rising (good), Devils & Dust (near masterpiece), Seeger Sesions (great)- and how does he bring the curtain down on the E Street Band? With an album of songs so flat and boring they're like jokes where you've heard the punchline AND the groan that follows a million times over.

In fact, it's ironic that he called this album "Magic", because there isn't any on here. You wait and wait and wait and WAIT for the proverbial rabbit to pop out of the hat and it doesn't. The hat's empty.

Or maybe he called it "Magic" because it's the sound of his muse magically disappearing.

I'd say that calling a 10th Avenue Freeze-Out rewrite "Livin in the Future" was ironic, but it isn't. It's plain lazy, like much of the album. Even the Big Man's sax solos sound strangely passionless.
[Edited 9/14/07 22:50pm]

Wow, I just completely, utterly disagree. Radio Nowhere is one of the most smokin' guitar song he's ever done. "You'll Be Coming Down" is like every great Phil Spector song rolled into one gorgeous melody. "Living in the Future" intentionally invokes "Glory Days" as sort of a polar reflection on anxiety about the future. I do think the album peters out a little toward the end--nothing matches that first half of excellent songs. Although I loved Devils and Dust, this just blows the roof off the Rising, which was weighed down by its attempts to be anthemic, and just didn't really cohere musically.

IstenSzek said:

IstenSzek said:

Did you just start a Bruce Springsteen thread? My secret love!

I'd say that The Rising is a MUCH better record than this one...