As one of the web’s most esteemed (and self-dubbed) Bruce Springsteen scholars, I’ve been trying for weeks to figure out what it is about Working on a Dream that enraptures me so. It’s something other than the most obvious answer, which is “because it’s Springsteen, and I love Springsteen.” That particular answer doesn’t really explain away Human Touch and The Ghost of Tom Joad, after all. No, I’ve decided that there’s a very strange explanation for this affection: Working on a Dream doesn’t really sound much like Springsteen at damn old all.
Let me explain. We’re all grown-ups here; we all know that rockers stagnate as they age. Once-great artists in their twilight years are often reduced to pale imitations; oh, sure, their new albums may offer a peak or two between songs that NOBODY WILL EVER EVER REMEMBER lesser compositions, but how often do they retain their creative vigor, the youthful viscera of their most hungry recordings? It’s rare, indeed, and I could go into a treatise of once-great artists plagued by this malaise, but it’d be reductive and full of lots of bitterness towards the Stones.
So it’s with great pride for my beloved Boss that I proclaim: after floundering creatively for the better part of the 90s treading water with undercooked versions of old-school Springsteen, new-millenium Bruce has bounced back, creatively if not commercially, through several batches of lively (and just plain GOOD) tunes and a wise refusal to adhere slavishly to his signature sound. This is a Bruce competing with the litany of new kids highjacking his sound all the way to critical acclaim, not a Bruce obsessing over his glory days. (Ha!)
And Working on a Dream sounds terrific. Bruce’s domestic bliss yields his best returns since domestic dischord proved a qualitative boon for him on 1987’s Tunnel of Love. This time, he’s writing shiny retro pop tunes, for the most part planted firmly in the soil of 60s pop. There’s a lot of Brill Building songwriting, and a lot of Phil Spector moments–think back to The River, and try to imagine an album of variances on “I Wanna Marry You”. Shoulda-been single “My Lucky Day” is the sunniest thing I’ve heard from any artist in quite a while, all tight harmonies and jangly guitars. The title track sounds like an outtake from Magic, albeit a particularly optimistic one. And the only indication that checkout-girl fantasy “Queen of the Supermarket” didn’t come from the era that it so effortlessly evokes is the surprise f-bomb. (And I’d be remiss not to mention “This Life”, which fits the milieu quite nicely, but has the best hook on the album, a soaring melody that demands summer mix slots from everybody that listens.)
In fact, Springsteen rarely missteps here. Opening up with an 8-minute folk tale (“Outlaw Pete”) might not have not been the best harbinger of things to come, and it’s far from the album’s strongest song, but it’s fascinating to listen to the keyboard-spackled Springsteen-by-way-of-Killers-by-way-of-Springsteen paradox he’s created for himself as the song’s tone. And deep cut “Kingdom of Days” threatens to be really boring, but smacks you with a killer second chorus while you’re napping. (There’s all sorts of interesting stuff nestled in the album’s second half, too–the folksy “Tomorrow Never Knows” sounds kind of Seeger Session-y, and “Surprise, Surprise” sounds like someone picked a fistful of these retro pop tunes that hopefully will prove to be new-Springsteen’s signature, and found this polished beauty among their ranks.) If there’s a misstep, it’s “Good Eye”, full of ugly distorted vocals and an overabundance of harmonica–sure, it might be the worst thing Bruce has come up with since, well, Human Touch, but residing as it does in the midst of such an impressive playlist, I’m sure we can all be understanding.
(Side note: “The Last Carnival” concludes with an a cappella outro of wordless harmonies. It sounds fantastic, but it’s interesting to note that it sounds an awful lot like the end of “Slapped Actress” by the Hold Steady, perhaps the band most notorious for accusations of E Street aspirations. Homage, or simple curiosity? Either way, it’s cool.)
Pretty much universally terrific, Working on a Dream is Bruce Springsteen’s best post-heyday record. There’s an energy and a craft here that most aging artists tend to shy away from; the songs are great, the arrangements impeccable, the production gloriously glossy. Bruce has graduated from young, grungy small-town escapee to domesticated, middle-aged troubador–and manages, in the process, not to sound worse for the wear. It’s terrific work, and I can only hope it entices back those who may have bailed on the Boss.
He may take a while to find his footing, but there’s a crucial truth at play here: you never doubt The Boss.
As we look fondly in the rearviewmirror, leaving 2008 for the last time as we watch her get smaller, choked by regret as we barrel down that dusty road, gunning for the highway and the taste of sweet freedom, and the sax cuts through the cacophony—
Oh. I’ve just been informed that I confused 2008 with a Springsteen song. My bad.
Here’s the rest of my singles list.
15. “Disturbia,” Rihanna. Is it really possible that Rihanna is going to come to define the pop sound of the ’00s? Time will only tell, i suppose, but she’s improbably lasted through a breakout hit (“Pon de Replay”) that, in the hands of another artist, would have been both the beginning _and_ the end of the road—it was a featherlight concoction, yeah, but enjoyable enough that she would have remained one of the more fondly remembered one-hitters, i think. An “S.O.S.”, an “Umbrella”, and a “Shut Up and Drive” later, Rihanna finally enters the Jacko stage of her career with “Disturbia”, a song catchy and shivery enough to be really the closest thing this generation has to a “Thriller”. It represents a new pinnacle of artistry for her—she’s done catchy all day, really, but this is quite a pop song. “Umbrella” was good, but much better when hundreds of others set to covering a more definitive version; “Disturbia” feels like a Rihanna song that should stay that way. It shows AND tells, like any smash hit worth its salt, lyrics of urban decay pushed briskly along by a sweeping, Cinemascope version of film noir music. Good stuff.
14. “Low,” Flo Rida feat. T-Pain. Remember when “Get Low” came out, and there was a part of you that didn’t want to get behind a tune that features prominently “skeet skeet skeet” as part of it’s hook, but you couldn’t really resist it? “Low” is the “Get Low” of 2008 that way—sure, we’d all like to blather on about MGMT and Bon Iver, but none of them feature an eager, anthemic (and startingly non-Autotuned!) T-Pain chorus saluting your local clubrat and her propensity to drop it as though it were hot. Hey, i like substance as much as the next guy, but i could thrive just as easily on a steady diet of Apple Bottom jeans, and boots with the fur. Also it’s 2008’s greatest karaoke standard.
13. “I’m Yours,” Jason Mraz. “I’m Yours” is interesting for a Jason Mraz single—it appears to be the literal musical equivalent of a big old smile. Not that Mister AZ doesn’t always sound like he’s smiling; it’s just that, usually he sounds like he’s smiling at you and smirking at how thoroughly you must be marvelling at his wordplay and big, crisp high notes. But “I’m Yours” is something a lot purer—a declaration of love, sure, but also a perfect summer single with all its island harmonies and bouncy acoustic guitars, and the sound of Mraz’s defenses, usually constructed by elaborate, self-satisfied verbiage, crumbling. Odds are you’ve heard it too much at this point, but that doesn’t make it any less fantastic.
12. “Lost Coastlines,” Okkervil River. What a fantastic tune this is! Sure, it’s nothing to be surprised about—Will Sheff’s much-venerated indie outfit has made a career out of tunes that are across-the-board fantastic, and they’ve generated more great tunes in a few short years than most bands could hope to muster across twenty. But they rarely sound this sunny—parent album the Stand-Ins may be a bit gloomier than its partner album (last year’s Drew Album of the Year the Stage Names), but you’d never know it from its lead single. Part of it is Sheff duetting with recently departed Okkervillian Jonathan Meiburg (who, as leader of Shearwater, managed to tack another very good album onto his resume), which just feels like home, and part of it is that insistent, lumbering Motown bassline that you don’t really see coming until it happens. It steers the song, sails it into the horizon, flag flapping in the breeze.
11. “Blind,” Hercules and Love Affair. I suppose the big revelation about this song is just how good Antony (he of the Johnsons, paragon of delicate, heartbreaking, androgynous piano music) is at really selling this disco behemoth. He’s fantastic, seemingly fragile and brassy all at once—but once the novelty of that wears off, “Blind” remains breathtaking. The spage-age drums, the horn blatts, the minor-key stomp—it’s all just too beautiful for words, and i would say that it’s the best disco song since the disco era, but it’s probably better than most of its inspiration. Phenomenal. (Listen for that moment where Antony belts, “I can LOOK inside my-SELF!!!” Hoo boy.)
10. “Sex on Fire,” Kings of Leon. Right. Say what you will, but i personally think Kings of Leon are their own particular, peculiar brand of awesome—they were Strokes-meet-CCR a few years back, but nowadays they’re proving that they’re a force to be reckoned with on the modern rock charts. Not that the modern rock charts are usually where you wanna do your reckoning, mind you, but with a song as massive as “Sex on Fire”—little more than a bombastic, barn-burning rock anthem, sung with a passionate, smoky set of lungs—there’s little to argue with. It simply obliterates everything in its path; it’s rare indeed that this sort of rock juggernaut comes down the pike these days.
9. “Another Day,” Jamie Lidell. Like a second ideological cousin to “I’m Yours,” “Another Day” makes for tough competition in the most persistently optimistic love song of the year award—Jamie Lidell ultimately wins the points because i haven’t heard a soul singer with this kind of sheer ability pop up in ages, save for perhaps Anthony Hamilton. It’s the catchiest, bubbliest Stevie Wonder song Stevie hasn’t released; it’s the soundtrack to the sunniest day of the year.
8. “Oxford Comma,” Vampire Weekend. I’m fairly sure Vampire Weekend released a spankin’-new, catchy-as-all-hell single every month this year—their debut is a record full of sparkling singles, just begging to be plucked for radio—but none were as ear-burrowingly catchy as “Oxford Comma”. The metronomic click of the drums, the staccato keyboard bleats, the tossed-off profanity, and a hilarious Lil’ Jon paraphrase: these elements all fuse into the catchiest, nerdiest little number on an album full of catchy, nerdy little numbers. My catchy side likes the melodies, and how quirky and hummable it is; my nerdy side perks up at a song called “Oxford Comma”. Us English majors are strange rangers indeed.
7. “Spiralling,” Keane. Good God! I’ve heard of throwbacks, and I’m quite familiar with retro, but are we so bereft of inspiration these days that we’re going back to late-’80s/early-’90s pop and r&b? Must we really harken back to the days of Rick Astley and late Phil Collins? As it turns out, this is a better idea than it sounds like on paper. “Spiralling” is superb, all keys and pounding drums and processed synths, a track full of grandiose moments—that first “OH!”, the acrobatic vocals on the chorus, even the obligatory spoken-word interlude (“did you want to be in love? did you wanna be an icon?”)—that sounds like it would be just as home on a dancefloor as it would be piped through the Muzak in the supermarket in 1991. The best part? This left-field curveball comes from KEANE. Yup, good old piano-ballad, Coldplay-with-tinier-balls Keane. I know, it shocked me too.
6. “White Winter Hymnal,” Fleet Foxes. I feel like the Fleet Foxes wear their influences on their collective, bearded sleeve, but I’m not sure if there’s really a musical touchstone for “White Winter Hymnal”. The harmonies are pretty Beach Boys, i guess, and the hippy, country-rock sway of it all is sort of CSNY-y, but more importantly, within two-and-a-half largely a cappella, tightly harmonized minutes, the Foxes managed to come up with something that could play on the radio in 1965 as easily as it could today, and it doesn’t sound completely derivative. Impressive, and hopefully not the last time they pull it off.
5. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon. Hey, Kings of Leon fan. Next time someone compares modern-day Kings to U2, and you get offended by the notion that your beloved Followill brothers could even be mentioned in the same breath as those silly big-rock activists, do me a favor: step back, mentally insert “Use Somebody” into the tracklist of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, right before or after “City of Blinding Lights”, and tell me if you think that’s a _truly_ audacious remark. I, for one, think it’s a great artistic move—I like their brand of southern rock, sure, but Caleb Followill’s never sounded nearly as impassioned or soulful, nor has he come up with such universal, heartbreaking sentiments before. “You know that I could use somebody/ somebody like you” simply _must_ connect with the world at large a lot more than “behind the fringe of a whiskey high/ mutilating cat-like eyes”, right?
4. “Paper Planes,” M.I.A. Okay, so this one might be cheating a bit—after all, Kala‘s about a year and a half old, right?—but “Paper Planes” was just far too “of 2008” to leave off the list. Seriously, how much of a behemoth was this song this year? It seemed like mere minutes after it was used to promote “Pineapple Express,” it was on your local “urban” station (up next: an essay on Seth Rogen’s influence on hip-hop culture? maybe not). It’s all good, though—2008 marks the year the pop world took note of M.I.A. (everyone else? probably ’06), and “Paper Planes” is her grandest statement yet. That monolithic, lazy Clash sample, the gunshots, every little musical nuance; they’re all stirred into pop music’s greatest melange in quite some time.
3. “Green Light,” John Legend feat. Andre 3000. Nevermind the fact that I fully intend on getting incredibly famous under the stage name Andrew 3000; the great 3k inevitably spices up any song he’s part of (moment of the year last year? probably that scene-stealing guest verse on “Int’l Players Anthem”). Pairing a great artist with a scene-stealer can yield returns, though, and rarely is this ever as prevalent as on “Green Light”. Legend, in full-on sly loverman mode, turns in a welcome respite from his usual (albeit lovely, of course) midtempos, and Dre is all wink-nudge innuendos as the lovably dashing devil on his shoulder. Musically, it sounds like someone swiped the synths from Paul McCartney’s seasonal chore “Wonderful Christmastime”, and applied them to an appropriate source—like a Stevie Wonder jam. (But, like, “Superstition” Stevie, not “I Just Called to Say I Love You” Stevie.) Results=glorious.
2. “Love Lockdown,” Kanye West. Whatever your stance on the incredibly-polarizing 808s and Heartbreaks may be, there’s no denying “Love Lockdown”. I’m not even sure how to go about describing something like “Love Lockdown”—I mean, I suppose in this age of genre-splicing, hip-hop was bound to get its very own Damien Rice album, but cross-pollinated with Marvin Gaye and the Talking Heads? Couldn’t have predicted that one. The melody, lent a surreal, robotic quality by the AutoTune (interesting to see it applied to a broken-hearted screed as opposed to a stripper anthem), is quite appealing, but more interesting is the near-cinematic dynamics that Kanye builds his tune around. Fuzzy bassline, add piano, add pounding tribal drums? This thing has more tension than a Hitchcock.
1. “American Boy,” Estelle feat. Kanye West. Interesting that, despite ditching rhyming for his latest album, the most likeable Kanye West 2008 gave us was the overseas charmer on British siren Estelle’s “American Boy”. The returns were instantaneous, though—within minutes of seeing the video late one night, this reviewer was convinced that he’d heard the catchiest song of the year, and apparently the American people weren’t too far behind. Deep, pulsating disco, electro flourishes, and a fun verbal romp through a ‘cross-the-Atlantic romance? Count me in. And the last thing i’d wanna do is attract attention away from Estelle’s super-smooth performance, but Kanye is really a scene-stealer in this one. He’s all wordplay and slick charisma, and it shows that he hasn’t ditched it all to turn into Kurt Cobain. It’s the best single of 2008, and likely to hold me over until the first candidate for next year’s list turns up. As always, thanks for reading.
I’ve been perusing lists much like the one i’m about to write, partially to give me ideas (such lists have a handy way of reminding you of early-year stuff you forgot about), partially to see if i could jack someone’s philosophical musings on whatever explosive mega-single has managed to capture the hearts of the critical and the commercial masses alike—see, there’s always one, and has been since “Hey Ya!”. In chronological order, the most prolific ones are: “Since U Been Gone”, “Crazy”, and, yeah, “Umbrella”. And most lists seem to be bemoaning the dearth of such a single this year—unfortunate, since i’d consider a year in which most of the contenders can actually stand up next to each other a check mark firmly in the win column.
So as the critical community at large grasps at straws to crown this year’s “Hey Ya” (spoiler alert: they’ll come up empty), i struggle to find merit in some of pop music’s more ubiquitous hits. Unfortunately, i find myself disappointed: 2008 was the year Beyonce became insufferable (really, B, from “Deja Vu” and “Irreplaceable” to “If I Were a Boy” and “Single Ladies”? you just used to be SO reliable), the year AutoTune officially wore out its welcome, the year Katy Perry kissed a girl (and, for some unspeakable reason, someone gave a sh*t), and the year the best singles truly came out of leftfield.
So come, dear reader, and let’s revisit the best jams (should i have spelt that with a ‘z’?) of 2008.
honorable mentions:
– “I Will Possess Your Heart,” Death Cab For Cutie”—likeable emo-poppers follow-up their 2005 breakthrough, Plans, with a similarly agreeable album of singles; with “Possess”, lead cabber Ben Gibbard finally challenges Sting in the too-infrequently-contested subcategory Most Romantic-Sounding Pop Stalker Anthem, and wins.
– “GfC,” Albert Hammond, Jr.—these days, Albert officially sounds cooler than his parent band, out-Stroking the Strokes with another album of amicable power-pop.
– “Murder in the City,” the Avett Brothers—the Avetts are probably at their best when making raucous punk-laced Americana, but they clean up well, too; “Murder”, despite the scary-sounding title, is one of the most fragile songs of the year, a beautiful wish before dying, a wistful rumination on legacy.
– “Beat It,” Fall Out Boy feat. John Mayer—interesting that FOB sound their grittiest covering Jacko, huh? No matter: this superb cover remains faithful while kicking up the distortion a little bit. John Mayer filling the Eddie Van Halen role was a stroke of genius.
– “I’m Amazed,” My Morning Jacket—a southern-rock monolith. Seriously, did this thing totally Marty Mcfly its way here from an Allman Brothers record?
– “You Can’t Count on Me,” Counting Crows—another slab of jangly misery, squarely in the “Rain King” mold, proves that the Crows still have it.
– “Hiroshima (B-B-Benny Hit His Head),” Ben Folds—an infectious Elton John homage about tumbling off the stage? Ben Folds must be back.
And now, the list.
30. “Dream On (feat. Robyn and Ola Salo),” Christian Falk. Robyn’s great stateside reappearance may be ineligible for this list—her new self-titled album is fantastic, but it’s not really *new*, and I can’t in good conscience pay it lip service that I’ve already waxed about at length years prior—but this fantastic duet programmed by electronica artist Christian Falk should sate all. The production is slight, with minimal looping, but the vocals hammer it home—Robyn’s heartbreaking sermon offers shelter and solidarity to the dregs of society, and Salo (from the Ark, always fantastic) harmonizes beautifully on the chorus. “You won’t be backstabbed, double-crossed, face down, teeth knocked out, lying in a gutter somewhere,” indeed.
29. “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster),” Gnarls Barkley. If Gnarls Barkley in 2008 didn’t quite reach the stratosphere in the way that Gnarls Barkley in 2006 did—there can only be so many “Crazy”s, after all—vocalist/songwriter Cee-Lo still proved that, paired with producer Danger Mouse, they’re pop music’s dream team, a melding of the minds bursting with unparalleled creativity. “Run”s hyperkinetic soul is lent an edge of paranoia from Cee-Lo’s vocal performance, still playing the same crazed narrator from *that song*, caterwauling into the night with a chilling “aaaaooooooooohhhhhh-oooooohhh!”
28. “Gives You Hell,” the All-American Rejects. Meanwhile, AAR isn’t the type of band most associate with creativity—quite the opposite, they’re generally very safe. And, yet, safe doesn’t negate the fact that they consistently wreck their peers in the songwriting department; they’re full of guitar sheen and harmonies, and “Gives You Hell” is one of their most insidiously catchy yet. The kiss-off song is nothing new, but it’s fun to watch someone rub their newfound fame in an ex-lover’s face, instead of feigning manufactured, downbeat heartbreak.
27. “Highly Suspicious,” My Morning Jacket. Okay, so MMJ’s pop-music pastiche Evil Urges didn’t yield the same artistic returns that their last album Z did—nor did it boast a single with the punch of “Off the Record”—but their “Highly Suspicious” sounded like a highly intoxicated Prince duetting with a remarkably sober Led Zeppelin, and you’ve gotta appreciate the sac required for a respected indie band to go so gleefully off the rails. An off-kilter, barn-burning dance tune.
26. “5 Years Time,” Noah and the Whale. “There’ll be love, love, love/ wherever you go.” Noah and the Whale’s debut may have been a bit too precious for my tastes, but this sunny uke-laced duet is the stuff that dreams are made of. Noah and the Whale have crafted the year’s best Magnetic Fields song—even beating out the Magnetic Fields. Somewhere, Stephin Merritt is wishing he’d thought of that.
25. “Carpetbaggers,” Jenny Lewis and Elvis Costello. Quite possibly the year’s best tune for highway travel, Lewis and Costello make for delightful bedfellows on this Fleetwood Mac-by-way-of-Springsteen rocker. Elvis, in particular, sounds more energized than he has in years—his verse is the best part of the song, and listening to the way he sings “I ain’t got no place in this world anymore” will at least echo “Veronica,” if not “Watching the Detectives”.
24. “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul,” Gnarls Barkley. What a spooky song. The track sounds like it could have been sped up just a fraction and used on either of the Roots’ more recent pitch-black albums; the performance sounds like a near-death Marvin Gaye, except a little more disturbed. Cee-Lo stumbled into Damien Rice territory on album two: he’s starting to sound more and more deranged with each album. It’d be disturbing if it didn’t yield such results.
23. “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn),” Weezer. “Pork and Beans” may have been perfectly fun, but the latest incarnation of Weezer really hit their stride on this delightful Queen-esque suite. Kicking off with warbly rap-rock rhymes Fred Durst would be embarrassed to spit (“soon i’ll be playing in ya’ underwear,” anyone?), Weezer hits the heavily-harmonized acoustic section, and doesn’t look back, powering through choral renditions, jaunty Billy Joel “Italian Restaurant”-era piano-rock, and, of course, simple Weezer-esque power-pop. This tune is a six-minute long smile.
22. “Viva La Vida,” Coldplay. Pure majesty from a band only sporadically able to engage the interest, “Viva La Vida” dispenses with a lot of band elements—do you hear any guitars?—in favor of a melody flung to the stratospheres, and a vocal that sounds like it’s orbiting the planet. And it’s gorgeous in a way Coldplay haven’t been since “The Scientist”.
21. “A-Punk,” Vampire Weekend. The year’s best ska song, or perhaps the year’s best forgotten Ramones song (if the Ramones got lost in South Africa with Sting and a Mellotron player, of course); either way, it’s a delicious, punky little vamp, and one of the more infectiously energetic tunes of the year.
20. “No Air,” Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown. No one writes great songs about puppy love anymore—all the young kids are busy womanizing, or kissing girls, or whatever. This dramatic, sweeping, ultra-serious push-and-pull love affair-in-song was one of the best things to saturate the airwaves this year; these kids sound super-serious, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re both very capable vocalists. Plus, “how’m I supposed to breathe with no air?” is one of the best heartsick one-liners to come down the pop music pike in a loooong time.
19. “Sequestered in Memphis,” the Hold Steady. Given a couple years off, the Hold Steady haven’t really seen fit to tamper with the formula too much. “Sequestered in Memphis” is a frazzled, whirlwind narrative, with Black Crowes guitars and E Street keyboards—so it’s essentially “Stuck Between Stations,” two years on. (“In daylight, she looked all right/ in bar light, she looked desperate” = “she was a damn good kisser but she wasn’t all that great of a girlfriend”? You tell me.) But it’s delivered with twice the energy much of the album is (not a *bad* album, mind, just a bit more downbeat than its predecessor), and it breaks-down with bass drum and handclaps, real “Rosalita”-style, so you gotta love it.
18. “Mercy,” Duffy. I’ll show Duffy a little bit of “Mercy” here and downplay those damn Amy Winehouse comparisons; after all, which one’s more likely to survive 2009? We should be nice to Duffy. Not that we shouldn’t anyway, because “Mercy” crackles; the vocal is tops, the groove infectious, the tune so good a Motown throwback that it should immediately be adopted by Raphael Saadiq. Hopefully, Duffy’s got more retro-soul in her.
17. “Golden Age,” TV on the Radio. I suppose the big question remains: *is* “Golden Age” a political salvo? After all, in an election year like the one we just left behind, all this about a “golden age comin’ round” could be read within such a context—but, then, TV on the Radio are more complex than your average bears, and there are just as many on-record readings of it as pessimistic. But, good news: once you hear that groove (and Kyp Malone singing about ghetto blasters), who the hell cares? A horn-spackled Young Americans-era Bowie nugget rearing its head in 2008? Yes, please.
16. “Acid Tongue,” Jenny Lewis. Can we talk, for a second, about how much better Jenny Lewis sounds these days? Sure, Rabbit Fur Coat was a good album (of course, the less said about the last Rilo Kiley platter, the better), but these days her brand of dust-bowl gospel sounds less like a genre exercise (kind of like the grimy funk tunes on that Rilo Kiley disc, actually) and more like something you can listen to to *feel*. A chorus of background vox, Jenny’s crisp-as-ever leads, and the easiest song to play on the guitar of the year; it all sounds like it’d be more appropriate winding through the highways of New Mexico at twilight, but hey—any song that can transport me to that mindset on the Jersey backroads deserves a prop or two.
As one of the web’s most esteemed (and self-dubbed) Bruce Springsteen scholars, I’ve been trying for weeks to figure out what it is about Working on a Dream that enraptures me so. It’s something other than the most obvious answer, which is “because it’s Springsteen, and I love Springsteen.” That particular answer doesn’t really explain away Human Touch and The Ghost of Tom Joad, after all. No, I’ve decided that there’s a very strange explanation for this affection: Working on a Dream doesn’t really sound much like Springsteen at damn old all.