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| Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream review |
| Music | ||||||
 As Obama arrives in office, the Boss has ditched his political angst for romance. As Obama arrives in office, the Boss has ditched his political angst for romance. Produced by Brendan O'Brien, Working on a Dream couldn't be further from the dark and raw Devils & Dust of 4 years ago. This is Springsteen's pop album, his attempt to reproduce the classic 60s sounds of The Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas and The Byrds. The opener, 'Outlaw Pete', is an 8-minute spaghetti western epic about an evil bandit born in the Appalachian mountains. However, with its dramatic strings and do-do-dos it comes off as a piece of cinematic decadence, a Hollywood take on the Wild West stomp. 'This Life' opens with an explicit reference to Pet Sounds, and shifts in to the theatrical as Bruce sings the typically playful line: “This life and then the next/I finger the hem of your dress”. In fact, the real problem with Working on a Dream is its complete lack of substance; its insistence that life itself is one big fluffy bag of optimism and sentimentality. In a time of great strife and unemployment, an overriding sense of hope is a great thing, but this album is unapologetically one-dimensional from start to finish. The Boss really has been working on a wet dream. 'My Lucky Day' is a poorly mixed, throwaway piece of radio-friendly MOR, 'Kingdom of Days' sounds like a saccharine Christian Rock song, and 'Queen of the Supermarket' veers dangerously close to ABBA karaoke territory.
This album will undoubtedly divide Springsteen's fans. Some will love its exuberance, energy and overflowing romantic statements—“surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes /And let your love shine down” he sings on 'Surprise, Surprise'—but many will find it sickingly decadent, OTT and melodramatic. These are the fans who will have to put on a grizzly Tom Waits LP to compensate for the glossiness of Working on a Dream.
The true indication of this album's weaknesses are shown in the best song here, 'The Wrestler', an understated, beautiful narrative of failure and humility. Its telling position as a bonus track only serves as a reality check, highlighting the artificiality of the album's grandeur, and its blind rejection of those characteristics that made Springsteen so great in the first place: grit, balls and determination.
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Good for you. Keep up the good work.