It’s hard to resist the urge to compare any new Springsteen album with his classics. Born to Run, Darkness at the Edge of Town, Nebraska: these records left a tangible impact on rock that’s still felt to this day, and it’d be unfair to expect the Boss to be able to repeat this success. It is fair, however, to expect Springsteen to maintain his legacy, something he had managed quite ably with recent releases like Magic and The Rising. Unfortunately, his successful streak has apparently ended with Working On A Dream.
To its credit, Working On A Dream is instrumentally quite good. Springsteen is still working with the E Street Band, and the results are still sonically impressive. There’s a lot of variety here, from the blues homage “Good Eye” to the sparse “The Last Carnival.” Unfortunately for this album, there’s more to good songwriting than composition.
While most Springsteen albums tend to maintain a coherent atmosphere, if not a coherent theme, Working On A Dream lacks either of the above. The musical variety acts as a double-edged sword: while it’s the only thing that makes the album remotely interesting, it also prevents Springsteen from developing any sort of consistent tone. The album is somewhat unified by a sense of overbearing optimism, but even this is marred by the lyrics of most of the tracks. It’s extremely disappointing to see an artist as skilled as Springsteen resorting to such trite sentiments, especially when compared to the grandeur of much of the instrumentals.
Sentiments such as “Let me show you what love can do” and “Surprise, surprise, come on open your eye/ And let your love shine down” populate this surprisingly dull album. There are a few good pieces within the record, specifically “Good Eye” and “The Last Carnival,” but most of the compositions consist of uninteresting pop songs. While many of the tracks settle for being eminently forgettable, the album reaches its nadir with “Queen of the Supermarket,” an ode to ogling cashiers at the grocery store. The song, with such lyrics as “As the evening sky turns blue / A dream awaits in aisle number two,” reads as a parody, but the extravagant production is so at odds with the content that any sense of humor is lost in the performance.
Even the album’s lone true ballad, “Outlaw Pete,” suffers from this tonal inconsistency within its first 30 seconds. The song opens with a dramatic, stressful rhythm as Springsteen intones, “He was born a little baby on the Appalachian Trail / At six months old he’d done three months in jail.” It’s mild hyperbole, but it works as an introduction to a song about a Wild West villain. Springsteen continues: “He robbed a bank in his diapers and his little bare baby feet / All he said was ‘Folks, my name is Outlaw Pete.’” This could work as an intro for a song deconstructing the outlaw myth, or for a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek tall tale, but for a piece as melodramatic as “Outlaw Pete,” the atmosphere is destroyed before it could even begin to accumulate. This is exacerbated by the constantly repeating chorus of “I’m Outlaw Pete / I’m Outlaw Pete/ Can you hear me?” which leaves one with the impression of a character who can’t even remember his name.
Bruce Springsteen is an unquestionably great songwriter, and recent efforts like Magic have shown that he can still release relevant albums, even 30 years after he started his career. Working On A Dream, however, is not one of those albums. If you really love the Boss, you’ll want to get this, and you might not be terribly disappointed. Even if you don’t really love him, you might still be able to enjoy the well-crafted hooks if you can just ignore the lyrics. If you’re just looking for a good album, this isn’t the one to buy.
