Looking Ahead #2

The box set of Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town is coming on Nov. 16, even bigger than I thought it would be. It's a 3 CD, 3 DVD (or Blu-Ray) set that includes not only the remastered version of the album but 21 unreleased songs that include alternate versions of songs we know...and songs we've never heard before! Add in a documentary on the album and tons of live footage and a big booklet and I am just beyond excited. While I love Born To Run (which just celebrated its 35th anniversary), I consider Darkness to be my favorite Springsteen album. I can't wait...

Heavy Rotation #11

My music listening was fairly scattered through the early part of the summer and included a fair amount of shuffle mode both on iTunes and my iPod. Over the last few weeks, however, a few albums have been played repeatedly and it's time to talk about them.

The Afghan Whigs/1965 - This album represents another in a long line of groups that I missed out on the first time around. I'd heard about The Afghan Whigs, of course, but I don't think I really ever heard any of their stuff. Thanks to eMusic, I took the plunge with this album late last year. It didn't sink in immediately and I forgot about it until recently...and now I can't get enough of it. It's slinky and sexy and creepy and stylish and Greg Dulli is one of a kind. Once I've had my fill of this one, I'll be delving into some more - should I go Congregation or Gentlemen next?

Band of Horses/Infinite Arms - So, for this band the backlash came with album #3 and not the sophomore release. I think people just decided it was time to turn on Ben Bridwell, maybe because the rest of the band is different from the first 2 albums or maybe it's just not as majestic-sounding as those albums were. I read a lot of mediocre reviews and I'm not sure why. Yes, I did take a few listens to for the album to fully sink in but once it did, I was hooked. This is melodic folk-pop in the finest sense. Kudos to those few critics brave enough to avoid the rock critic playbook on this one.

Pernice Brothers/Goodbye, Killer - This is the new album and it is packed full of great pop and country-inflected songs. As always, Joe Pernice writes with a wonderful melodic sense and a way with words that can be depressing and beautiful at the same time. So good.

Bruce Springsteen/Born To Run - A recent purchase and viewing of his new DVD, London Calling, had me grabbing this classic album from 1975 (the remastered version from a few years back) and playing it for the thousandth and one time. "Thunder Road" is my favorite song ever and songs like "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out," "She's The One," and the title track sound great blasting on my car stereo with the windows down on my way to and from class.

Superchunk/Indoor Living - I came late to the Superchunk party and am very excited that I get to buy one of their albums upon release, as I can in Sept. with the upcoming Majesty Shredding. I spent some time on my Blip account posting older songs of theirs that I mostly don't own and decided it was time to devote some listening time to this album. I grabbed it from eMusic a while back and mostly ignored it but I won't make that mistake anymore. Mac McCaughan is someone I have a lot of respect for as an artist and businessman (as one of the heads of Merge Records, my favorite indie label). Again, once I exhaust this album, I'm going back for more.

Heavy Rotation #6

As we start a new month, here's a look at what I couldn't stop listening to at the end of January...

The Beatles/With The Beatles

Crooked Fingers/Dignity And Shame

R.E.M./Reckoning

Spoon/Transference

Bruce Springsteen/Darkness on the Edge of Town

My Music Year #6

My Bruce Springsteen fandom goes back 25 years to when I heard the singles from Born in the U.S.A. on the radio. It wasn't until my 14th birthday in 1985 that I got the whole album (on cassette, having received a Walkman for a Christmas present in 1984) and I spent months listening to it while doing a wide variety of chores outside. The live boxed set that came out in 1986 introduced me to a lot more of his music and I became a true fan. Naturally, I bought his latest album, Working On A Dream, the day it came out.

The title track was out and about before the album came out and it's a good indicator of the album's feel as a whole. Springsteen is definitely working in a pop mode, and I love the little bass run by Gary W. Tallent that opens this song. We get melody and some background "la, la, la-la"s with an uplifting message. It's not his best song but it is solid.

The bass is a bit more upfront on the whole album than previous E Street records and I enjoy hearing it. Springsteen and the E Street Band have been working together for more than 35 years and I love all the little touches they bring. "My Lucky Day" starts out as a run-of-the-mill pop song but when Steve Van Zandt starts harmonizing on the second verse, the song seems to catch another gear and everything just seems sharper.

Some reviewers had a problem with "Queen of the Supermarket," specifically the lyrics. They were reading the song as some sort of commentary on the state of American consumerism but to me it's just a love song set in a supermarket with some nimble bass and a solid pop feel that gets a bit operatic before an odd little outro.

I'll admit to not being the biggest fan of the album opener, "Outlaw Pete." It's a tall tale that really goes on a couple minutes too long. I do enjoy the bonus track, the Oscar-nominated "The Wrestler" from the movie of the same name, although I don't think I've ever seen a one-legged dog.

The back half of the album holds some real gems. "Tomorrow Never Knows" has a lovely folk pop beat (and borrows the title from The Beatles) and "Life Itself" is filled with urgency and nice guitar texture. Finally, the acoustic-based "Last Carnival" is a tribute to the late E Streeter Dan Federici and is effective due to the brevity and tone and some beautiful gospel coos at the end.

Will this be one of the Springsteen albums I listen to over and over and over again? No, and it hasn't been. Is it yet another solid album in his long career? Absolutely.