Kat: Mr. and Mrs. Springsteen, it's a dud.
The Boss is back because . . .
Apparently he needs more money.
Tuesday, Bruce returns with High Hopes and nothing to say.
It's not just that the album includes two bad covers (the title track which cribs a great deal from U2's "Desire" and the last track "Dream Baby Dream"), it's that it has no purpose for being.
The only statement of interest for this project is Bruce's bank statement as he hopes re-recording "The Ghost of Tom Joad," "American Skin (41 Shots)" and others will result in a best selling album.
It shouldn't result in a critical success.
Bruce has a cock and that's enough for the rock critics to rave, but this album is not an album and time will not be kind to it. It's ironic that the cock is what will put this over momentarily since Bruce has never been limp dicked as this before.
That's actually the problem with the album.
He rages like the 64-year-old male on Viagra that he is. But it's all for naught.
Old songs, tired songs, done wrongs.
Bruce's vocal talent has always been incredibly limited and his attempts to sound sexy have been highly embarrassing with the exception of "Drive All Night." What he has been his hallmark, whether when he had the gap in his front teeth or after he went Hollywood with a celebrity wife and body and face makeover, was his ability to capture the world around him as it was.
That's true of Born To Run, The River, Born In The USA, Tunnel of Love and The Rising -- his five classic albums.
And it's untrue of all the misfires like Lucky Town, Human Touch, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Wrecking Ball.
In fact, High Hopes most resembles Wrecking Ball.
Bruce and company try to make a bunch of noise while saying nothing. "We Take Care Of Our Own" was the height of stupidity as it openly flirted with xenophobia while pretending that the US takes care of its people as year-after-year of high unemployment set in.
Two years before he took his own life, Vincent van Gogh cut off his own ear.
I have no idea when Bruce will pass away but he's already silenced his own voice.
It's not that he can't write a new song, it's that he won't release them.
You can't be the chronicler that Springsteen's been without noticing how rotten things are. And he's showed off, to friends, a song about Barack's illegal spying that name checks NSA whistle-blower Ed Snowden. But for the American public?
He serves up twelve tracks of re-recorded oldies.
The title may even be a tip-off. Frank Sinatra re-recorded a version of Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn's "High Hopes" to help elect JFK while Bruce re-records Tim Scott McConnell's "High Hopes" in part to avoid offering an honest critique of the country.
To state that Springsteen is no longer pertinent is to state the obvious. To note that he's made himself that way is to grasp the damage politicians do to the world of art and how willing so many artists are to be damaged.
bruce springsteen
kats korner
the common ills
