Magic

🏷️ Rock 📅 2007 💿 CD ⭐ ****

📜 Show Artist Biography ✍️ Show Record Review

Field

Rock

Recorded

2007

Label

Sony

Pressing

Aus

Rating

****

Discs

Media

Bought

11-Oct-2008

Cost

¤9.00

📜 Artist Biography

In the decades following his emergence on the national scene in 1975, Bruce Springsteen proved to be that rarity among popular musicians: an artist who maintained his status as a frontline recording and performing star, consistently selling millions of albums and selling out arenas and stadiums around the world year after year, as well as retaining widespread critical approbation with ecstatic reviews greeting those discs and shows. Although there have been a few speed bumps along the way in Springsteen's career, the wonder of his nearly unbroken string of critical and commercial successes is that he achieved it while periodically challenging his listeners by going off in unexpected directions, following his muse even when that meant altering the sound of his music or the composition of his backup band, or making his lyrical message overtly political. Of course, it may have been these very sidesteps that kept his image and his music fresh, especially since he always had the fallback of returning to what his fans thought he did best, barnstorming the country with a marathon rock & roll show using his longtime bandmates.

Bruce Springsteen was born September 23, 1949 in Freehold, New Jersey, the son of Douglas Springsteen, a bus driver, and Adele (Zirilli) Springsteen, a secretary. He became interested in music after seeing Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and got a guitar, but he didn't start playing seriously until 1963. In 1965, he joined his first band, the Beatles-influenced Castiles. They got as far as playing in New York City, but broke up in 1967 around the time Springsteen graduated from high school and began frequenting clubs in Asbury Park, New Jersey. From there, he briefly joined Earth, a hard rock band in the style of Cream. Also in the hard rock vein was his next group, Child (soon renamed Steel Mill), which featured keyboard player Danny Federici and drummer Vini Lopez. (Later on, guitarist Steve Van Zandt joined on bass.) Steel Mill played in California in 1969, drawing a rave review in San Francisco and even a contract offer from a record label. But they broke up in 1971, and Springsteen formed a big band, the short-lived Dr. Zoom & the Cosmic Boom, quickly superseded by the Bruce Springsteen Band. Along with Federici, Lopez, and Van Zandt (who switched back to guitar), this group also included pianist David Sancious and bassist Garry Tallent, plus a horn section that didn't last long before being replaced by a single saxophonist, Clarence Clemons. Due to a lack of work, however, Springsteen broke up the band and began playing solo shows in New York City. It was as a solo performer that he acquired a manager, Mike Appel, who arranged an audition for legendary Columbia talent scout John Hammond. Hammond signed Springsteen to Columbia in 1972.

In preparing his debut LP, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen immediately rehired most of his backup band, Federici, Lopez, Sancious, Tallent, and Clemons. (Van Zandt, on tour with the Dovells, was mostly unavailable.) The album went unnoticed upon its initial release in January 1973 (although Manfred Mann's Earth Band would turn its lead-off track, "Blinded by the Light," into a number one hit four years later, and the LP itself has since gone double platinum). The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (September 1973) also failed to sell despite some rave reviews. (It too has gone double platinum.) The following year, Springsteen revised his backup group -- now dubbed the E Street Band -- as Lopez and Sancious left, and Max Weinberg (drums) and Roy Bittan (piano) joined, and in 1975, Van Zandt returned to the group. With this unit he toured extensively while working on the LP that represented his last chance with Columbia. By the time Born to Run (August 1975) was released, the critics and a significant cult audience were with him, and the title song became a Top 40 hit while the album reached the Top Ten, going on to sell six million copies.

Despite this breakthrough, Springsteen's momentum was broken by a legal dispute, as he split from Appel and brought in Jon Landau (a rock critic who had famously called him the "rock & roll future" in a 1974 concert review) as his new manager. The legal issues weren't resolved until 1977, during which time Springsteen was unable to record. (One beneficiary of this problem was Patti Smith, to whom Springsteen gave the composition "Because the Night," which, with some lyrical revisions by her, became her only Top 40 hit in the spring of 1978.) He finally returned in June 1978 with Darkness on the Edge of Town. By then, he had to rebuild his career. Record labels had recruited their own versions of the Springsteen "heartland rock" sound, in such similar artists as Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band (who actually preceded Springsteen but achieved national recognition in his wake), Johnny Cougar (aka John Mellencamp), Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Meat Loaf, Eddie Money, and even fellow Jersey Shore residents Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, to name only some of the more successful ones. At the same time, the punk/new wave trend had become the new focus of critical devotion, making Springsteen seem unfashionable. Notwithstanding these challenges, Darkness earned its share of good reviews and achieved Top Ten status, selling three million copies as the single "Prove It All Night" hit the Top 40. (In early 1979, the Pointer Sisters took Springsteen's composition "Fire" into the Top Ten.)

Springsteen fully consolidated his status with his next album, the two-LP set The River (October 1980), which hit number one, sold five million copies, and spawned the Top Ten hit "Hungry Heart" and the Top 40 hit "Fade Away." (In 1981-1982, Gary U.S. Bonds reached the Top 40 with two Springsteen compositions, "This Little Girl" and "Out of Work.") But having finally topped the charts, Springsteen experimented on his next album, preferring the demo recordings of the songs he had made for Nebraska (September 1982) to full-band studio versions, especially given the dark subject matter of his lyrics. The stark LP nevertheless hit the Top Ten and sold a million copies without benefit of a hit single or a promotional tour. (Van Zandt amicably left the E Street Band for a solo career at this point and was replaced by Nils Lofgren.)

But then came Born in the U.S.A. (June 1984) and a two-year international tour. The album hit number one, threw off seven Top Ten hits ("Dancing in the Dark," which earned Springsteen his first Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, "Cover Me," "Born in the U.S.A.," "I'm on Fire," "Glory Days," "I'm Goin' Down," and "My Hometown"), and sold 15 million copies, putting Springsteen in the pop heavens with Michael Jackson and Prince. For his next album, he finally exploited his reputation as a live performer by releasing the five-LP/three-CD box set Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live/1975-85 (November 1986), which topped the charts, was certified platinum 13 times, and spawned a Top Ten hit in a cover of Edwin Starr's "War." (In March 1987, "the Barbusters" -- actually Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, took Springsteen's composition "Light of Day," written for the movie of the same name, into the Top 40.)

Characteristically, Springsteen returned to studio work with a more introverted effort, Tunnel of Love (October 1987), which presaged his 1989 divorce from his first wife, actress Julianne Phillips. (He married a second time, to singer/songwriter/guitarist Patti Scialfa, who had joined the E Street Band as a backup vocalist in 1984.) The album was another number one hit, selling three million copies and producing two Top Ten singles, "Brilliant Disguise" and the title song, as well as the Top 40 hit "One Step Up." The album earned him a second male rock vocal Grammy. (In the spring of 1988, Natalie Cole covered the Springsteen B-side "Pink Cadillac" for a Top Ten hit.)

Springsteen retreated from public view in the late '80s, breaking up the E Street Band in November 1989. He returned to action in March 1992 with a new backup band, simultaneously releasing two albums, Human Touch and Lucky Town, which entered the charts at numbers two and three, respectively, each going platinum. A double-sided single combining "Human Touch" and "Better Days" was a Top 40 hit. Of course, this was a relative fall-off from the commercial heights of the mid-'80s, but Springsteen was undeterred. He next contributed the moody ballad "Streets of Philadelphia" to the soundtrack of Philadelphia, film director Jonathan Demme's 1993 depiction of a lawyer fighting an unjust termination for AIDS. The recording became a Top Ten hit, and the song went on to win Springsteen four Grammys (Song of the Year, Best Rock Song, best song written for a motion picture or television, and another for male rock vocal) and the Academy Award for best song.

In early 1995, Springsteen reconvened the E Street Band to record a few new tracks for his Greatest Hits (February 1995). The album topped the charts and sold four million copies, with one of the new songs, "Secret Garden," eventually reaching the Top 40. Despite this success, Springsteen resisted the temptation to reunite with the E Street Band on an ongoing basis at this point, instead recording another low-key, downcast, near-acoustic effort in the style of Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad (November 1995), and embarking on a solo tour to promote it. The LP won a Grammy for best contemporary folk album, but it missed the Top Ten and only went gold.

A much more prolific songwriter and recording artist than what was reflected in his legitimately released discography, Springsteen went into his vault of unreleased material and assembled the four-CD box set Tracks (November 1998), which went platinum. Whether inspired by the playing he heard on those recordings, bowing to constant fan pressure, or simply recognizing the musicians with whom he had made his most successful music, Springsteen finally reunited the E Street Band in 1999, beginning with a performance at his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. All the members from the 1974-1989 edition of the group returned. (Characteristically, Springsteen sidestepped the question of whether to use Van Zandt or Lofgren in the guitar position by rehiring both of them.) They embarked on a world tour that lasted until mid-2000, its final dates resulting in the album Live in New York City, which hit the Top Ten and sold a million copies.

Springsteen's writing process in coming up with a new rock album to be recorded with members of the E Street Band was given greater impetus in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the resulting disc, The Rising (July 2002), contained songs that reflected on the tragedy. The album hit number one and sold two million copies, winning the Grammy for rock album, and the title song won for rock song and male rock vocal. Following another lengthy tour with the E Street Band, Springsteen again returned to the style and mood of Nebraska on another solo recording, Devils & Dust (April 2005), taking to the road alone to promote it. The album hit number one and went gold, winning a Grammy for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance. One year later, Springsteen unveiled another new musical approach when he presented We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (April 2006), an album on which he played new arrangements of folk songs associated with Pete Seeger, played by a specially assembled Sessions Band. The album reached the Top Ten and went gold as Springsteen toured with the group. It also won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album. The tour led to a concert recording, Live in Dublin (June 2007), which reached the Top 40.

Once again, Springsteen recorded a new rock album, Magic (October 2007), as a precursor to re-forming the E Street Band and going out on another long tour. The album hit number one and went platinum, with the song "Radio Nowhere" earning Grammys for rock song and solo rock vocal. (Another track from the album, "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," won the rock song Grammy the following year.) Sadly, longtime E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici succumbed to a three-year battle with melanoma on April 17, 2008, his death causing the first irrevocable change in the group's personnel (saxophonist Clarence Clemons would die on June 18, 2011 due to complications from a stroke). Federici was replaced by Charles Giordano, who had played with Springsteen previously in the Sessions Band.

Springsteen finished the tour in 2008 and held several additional shows in support of Senator Barack Obama, whose presidential campaign had kicked into hyperdrive earlier that year. While playing an Obama rally in early November, Springsteen debuted material from his forthcoming album, Working on a Dream, whose tracks had been recorded with the E Street Band during breaks in the group's previous tour. The resulting album, which was the last to feature contributions from Federici (as well as his son, Jason), arrived on January 27, 2009, one week after Obama's historic inauguration. It immediately hit number one, Springsteen's ninth album to top the charts over a period of three decades, and it went on to go gold and win him another Grammy for solo rock vocal. In February, Springsteen and the E Street Band provided the half-time entertainment at Super Bowl XLIII. The group's tour, which featured full-length performances of some of Springsteen's classic albums at selected shows, ran through November 22, 2009. In December, the 60-year-old was ranked fourth among the top touring acts of the first decade of the 21st century, behind only the Rolling Stones, U2, and Madonna. The same month he was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

Springsteen's 2010 was devoted to a revival of Darkness on the Edge of Town, with the 1978 masterpiece receiving an expanded box set called The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town; the set contained a feature-length documentary and a double-disc set of outtakes that was also available separately. As Springsteen began work on a studio album produced by Ron Aniello, who'd previously worked with Patti Scialfa, Clarence Clemons died. Clemons' last recorded solo appeared on "Land of Hope and Dreams," one of many politically charged songs on the resulting album, Wrecking Ball. Supported by a major media blitz that included a showcase week of Springsteen covers on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and the Boss delivering a keynote address at South by Southwest, Wrecking Ball appeared the first week of March 2012. Before the end of that month, he embarked on a mammoth world tour to promote the album, on which he eventually took in 26 countries over the course of 18 months.

Late in 2013, it was announced that the E Street Band would receive a belated induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in early 2014. Prior to the induction ceremony came High Hopes, Springsteen's 18th studio album. Inspired in part by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who had temporarily replaced Van Zandt for the last six months of the Wrecking Ball tour and also played on the album, High Hopes was a collection of covers, reinterpretations of old songs, and leftovers; it appeared in mid-January 2014 and easily reached number one on the album charts. He toured with the E Street Band through the late spring, and also issued the EP American Beauty, which consisted of four unreleased songs from the High Hopes sessions.

In late 2015, Springsteen released another audio/video box set offering an in-depth look at one of his classic albums. The Ties That Bind: The River Collection offered a remastered version of Springsteen's 1980 album, along with an expansive disc of outtakes, an early single-LP version of the album Springsteen pulled prior to release, an original documentary on the making of The River, and a complete concert filmed in Tempe, Arizona, in 1980. In the fall of 2016, Springsteen released a memoir entitled Born to Run, which was accompanied by a career-spanning collection called Chapter & Verse that he compiled himself.

Shortly after publishing his memoir, Springsteen adapted the book for the stage in the guise of the Broadway production Springsteen on Broadway. Opening in October 2017, the show ran until December 2018. Upon its conclusion, the production was captured as a film and a double-disc album; the record debuted at 11 on Billboard's Top 200.

In June 2019, Springsteen returned with his first studio album of original material in five years. Titled Western Stars, the solo record was produced by Aniello and featured the lead single "Hello Sunshine."

— William Ruhlmann

✍️ Record Review

Hailed as Bruce Springsteen's return to rock upon its release in fall 2007, Magic isn't quite as straightforward as that description would have it seem. True, this does mark another reunion with the E Street Band, only his second studio album with the group since 1984's Born in the U.S.A., giving this a rock & roll heft missing from his two previous albums —the dusty, literary Devils & Dust and the raucous We Shall Overcome: The Pete Seeger Sessions —and unlike The Rising, the first E Street Band album of the new millennium, there is no overarching theme here. It's just a collection of songs, something that Bruce hasn't done since Human Touch, or maybe even The River. All the ingredients are in place for a simple, straight-ahead rock album, except for two things: Springsteen didn't write a lot of flat-out rock songs, and with his producer Brendan O'Brien, he didn't make an album that sounds much like a rock & roll album, either. Magic is bright and punchy, a digital-age production through and through, right down to how each track feels as if it were crafted according to its own needs instead of the record as a whole.
Underneath this shiny veneer, the E Street Band can still lift this music toward great heights, infusing it with a sense of majesty, but this is an E Street Band that was recorded piecemeal in the studio, pasted together track by track as the group fit sessions into their busy schedules. This approach gives the album a bit of a mannered, meticulous sound not unlike The Rising, but such careful construction was appropriate for Springsteen's cautious, caring 9/11 rumination; on Magic it tends to keep the music from reaching full flight. Then again, the songs here don't quite lend themselves to either the transcendent sweep of Born to Run or the down-n-dirty roadhouse rockers that cluttered The River. There's a quiet melancholy underpinning this album. It's evident even on the hard-driving "Radio Nowhere," whose charging guitars mask a sense of desperation, or the deceptively breezy "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," which grows more wistful with each passing chorus. "Girls" is also indicative of how Magic doesn't quite feel like classic E Street Band, even when it offers reminders of their classic sound: like "Born to Run," it trades upon Phil Spector, but here the band doesn't absorb the Wall of Sound; they evoke it, giving the song a nostalgic bent that emphasizes the soft sadness in his melody. This oddly bittersweet vibe that is shared by "Your Own Worst Enemy," whose baroque harpsichords —uncannily reminiscent of the Left Banke —are the biggest curveball here.
That is, it's the biggest specific curveball outside of the overall feel of Magic, which is far too somber to be called just another rock & roll album. The solemn, sepia-toned picture of the Boss on the cover is a pretty big tip-off that there may not be a whole lot of good times coming on Magic, but it's a surprise that this is not only not as joyous as We Shall Overcome, it doesn't have as many moments of sunny relief as The Rising, which had "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" and "Mary's Place" among its quiet, artful grief. Here, the joy and the sadness are fused, skewing such otherwise lively numbers as "Livin' in the Future" —which otherwise sounds like it could sneak onto the second side of Born in the U.S.A. —toward the sober side. Springsteen also targets war and politics throughout the album, either through metaphors (the title track, where the audience is suckered by a con man) or blunt declarations ("Last to Die"). All this toil and tension doesn't make for a very fun album, but 2007 isn't a very fun time, so it's an appropriate reflection of the time. The thing of it is, despite some fine moments of craft —both musical and lyrical, whether on "Gypsy Biker" or "Long Walk Home" —the songs aren't written with the keen literary eye that made Devils & Dust play like a collection of short stories. Like the music, the words just feel a shade too deliberate, rendering Magic just a bit too overthought —hardly enough to make for a bad record, but one that isn't quite grabbing, even if it is helped immeasurably by the E Street Band in old pro mode. And what's missing comes into sharp relief as the album draws to a close with "Terry's Song," a quickly written and recorded tribute to Terry Magovern, Springsteen's longtime friend and assistant. Compared to the rest of the album, this simple tune is a bit ragged, but it's soulful, moving, and indelible, immediate where the rest of the album is a shade distant. After hearing it, it's hard not to wish that Bruce would record this way all the time.
— Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Bruce Springsteen occupies a unique place in American popular culture. He doesn't have the cachet that Bob Dylan has, yet he's much more approachable—populist in practice, not just in theory. He has inspired pale imitators (Tom Petty, John Mellencamp), but has no peers to speak of. Unlike similar 1980s supercelebrities Prince or Madonna, he remains artistically viable and culturally relevant two decades after the height of his popularity. In the 1970s, he was never hip, but in the 2000s he has gained a considerable following among indie rock bands like the Hold Steady, the Killers, and the National, among many others. Because his music has lost none of its triumphant rock'n'roll kick—no matter how many times you hear it, "Born to Run" always kills—he has become today what Brian Wilson was 10 years ago: the indie ideal.
And yet, his popularity extends far beyond the indie realm. His mainstream audience remains fanatically loyal, making him one of the few artists that both you and your boss enjoy. Springsteen's success continues despite the constantly shifting ground that finds him on one side of certain cultural and political lines, then on another. His 2002 album The Rising was received as a post-9/11 salve, a paean to American resilience in the face of tragedy: The same people who died or lost loved ones in the attacks—cops, firefighters, corporate grunts, their wives, husbands, families—were said to be the very same people who inhabited Springsteen's earlier songs, now facing hard, cold reality. So it's forgivable if many heard the album they believed the country needed instead of the one Springsteen actually made.
Despite the nickname, the Boss has never inhabited his iconic status comfortably. Devils & Dust followed The Rising in 2005*,* trading the E Street Band's full sound for acoustic contemplation and spinning a much grimmer version of America that was full of unrealized dreams and insoluble injustices. We Shall Overcome, his album of Pete Seeger covers and his best late-career album, proved much subtler in its subversiveness, communicating an anti-establishment stance through decades-old tunes. That's nothing new for him: The E Street Band's enormous, exuberant rock'n'roll has always hidden darker currents of American realism, most famously on "Born in the U.S.A.", a song about disillusioned Vietnam vets that was hilariously co-opted by Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign as a theme song.
That's the secret power of Magic, Springsteen's 15th album in 34 years: The album hides its raw disillusionment deep within the music, mingling it with a weary optimism and a thoroughly committed lustiness that have not diminished with age. The result is a surprisingly complex album that recalls The River in its heartfelt populism, Darkness on the Edge of Town in its small-town scope, and Tunnel of Love in its mature take on love and sex. On "I'll Work for Your Love", which could be a cover of an outtake from the first half of The River, he tells a woman he's "counting the bones in your back like the stations of the cross"—a concise fusion of the sexual and the spiritual. Where he once chronicled youthful abandon in the face of life's possibility, now his subject is the wonders of middle-aged contentment, as if he can't believe his own luck. It's a surprisingly durable subject, one that fits his outsize sound perfectly.
On the other hand, Springsteen's prickly angst makes songs like "Last to Die" and "You'll Be Comin' Down" sound like challenges to, rather than platitudes for, regular Joes. On second single "Long Walk Home", he considers the small(-town) satisfaction of having distinctive local landmarks and knowing everyone you pass on the street. That such pleasures are slowly dying makes the song both a romanticizing ode to an American ideal that may never have existed as well as a clear-headed lament that we no longer yearn for those securities. "You know that flag flying over the courthouse means certain things are set in stone," he sings, "who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."
If Magic revisits the subject matter of previous career crests, it unfortunately recalls The Rising in its sound: Brendan O'Brien returns to the producer's seat, once again shuffling most of the E Street Band to the music's margins and focusing his attention squarely on the Boss. In addition to drenching slower songs like "Your Own Worst Enemy" and "Devil's Arcade" in melodramatic and totally unnecessary strings, the producer too often glosses over the creaks and wear in Springsteen's voice—like air-brushing a model's face to look younger—when it's the imperfections that give him his particular authority. Springsteen should sound more like Tom Waits, less like 3 Doors Down.
But then there are the songs that get everything exactly right, like the gorgeous "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" and "Livin' in the Future". On the latter, the E Street Band are given freer rein to revive and even update the boardwalk strut and namesake shuffle of their early days. Clarence Clemons' sax is integral to the modified doo-wop groove, drummer Max Weinberg swings easily, guitarists Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren trade out licks, and Patti Scialfa's tender vocals echo Springsteen's excited performance. While he doesn't have the youthful eye for detail and narrative he once had, Springsteen's more concise songwriting style allows for some nice observations and surprisingly playful comparisons. "Then just about sundown, you come walkin' through town," he sings on "Livin' in the Future", "your boot heels clicking like the barrel of a pistol spinning 'round." He—and the E Street Band—actually sound hungry and, yes, just a little pissed off. It's an angry song, with a rumbling undercurrent of dread ("Woke up Election Day, sky's gunpowder and shades of gray"), but damn if it doesn't sound awesome when you're speeding down a back road with the windows rolled down.
— Stephen M. Deusner, Pitchfork