As many of my friends know, I’m a huge Bruce fan. I’ve been listening to his new albulm, Magic, almost nonstop this week. There’s not much to say other than it’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see him next month when he brings the E Street Band to the Xcel Center in St. Paul. Here’s what A.O. Scott of the New York Times had to say about the album.
“There is a brightness of sound and a lightness of touch that are not quite like anything else Mr. Springsteen has done recently….The paradox of “Magic†may be that some of its stories are among the toughest he has told. The album is sometimes a tease but rarely a joke. The title track, for instance, comes across as a seductive bit of carnival patter, something you might have heard on the Asbury Park boardwalk in the old days. A magician, his voice whispery and insinuating in a minor key, lures you in with descriptions of his tricks that grow more sinister with each verse. (“I’ve got a shiny saw blade/All I need’s a volunteer.â€) “Trust none of what you hear/And less of what you see,†he warns. And the song’s refrain — “This is what will be†— grows more chilling as you absorb the rest of the album’s nuances and shadows….And while the songs on “Magic†characteristically avoid explicit topical references, there is no mistaking that the source of the unease is, to a great extent, political.”
