Bruce Springsteen tries to lose himself under the cinematic scope of Western Stars
Music Reviews music review
Bruce Springsteen has spoken repeatedly about the influence of cinema on his music. Throughout the years, in numerous interviews (and his recent autobiography), he conjures impressions and memories of films that imprinted on his mind at a young age, and how the bold narratives and striking imagery of classics from the ’60s and ’70s helped him shape his own lyrical characters and musical journeys. And now, 18 albums and nearly 50 years into his career, his new album sounds for all the world like a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist—and in the very style of those long-ago pictures that so moved him.
The press materials for Western Stars, the Boss’ new solo release without his trusty E Street Band, have said the album is a tribute to the Southern California pop of his youth. But its influences seem much more midcentury cinematic Americana. The sweeping, bombastic scores of Alfred Newman or the populist orchestral sounds of Aaron Copland are more immediate reference points than a stylish Laurel Canyon aesthetic. Nearly every song slowly builds in like manner to a swelling eruption of strings, horns, and more, with a front-loaded mix that sees this instrumentation drown out the guitars and rhythm sections that function as the skeletal frame. It conjures up the vision of some forgotten Altman-esque road trip movie of the mid-’70s, but it also tends to swallow up the Springsteen-ness of it all, like Springsteen is fading into the background of his own music, the cinematic world in which he’s always envisioned his characters now taking over wholesale. Remembrance of that bygone era is no longer one influence among many, but all there is.
This is most evident in tracks like “Chasin’ Wild Horses,” with its violin melody prefacing his mournful lyrics about the pains of living a life without the hope for something more. What begins with a simple accompaniment of guitar plucks and a loping, brushes-on-snare rhythm, delicate and evocative, slowly builds until the strings take over, the too-loud arrangements weakening instead of elevating the material. It’s a variant of the problem he had on Lucky Town: Where that record tried too hard to recreate the rock ’n’ roll revivalist-tent salvation vibe—a hallmark of his live performances—by adding ingredients until the songs became weighted down by pomposity, this one traffics too much and too directly in the ’70s Americana that affected him. He’s chasing a sound defined largely by nostalgia, and if anyone should know the dangers of trying to recapture the past, it’s Springsteen.
That’s not to say the record is misconceived. Some of the songs are indeed best captured by the sweeping scope of orchestral grandeur that the musician (aided by producer Ron Aniello, who’s been working with the Boss since 2012’s Wrecking Ball) has crafted alongside a small army of collaborators, mostly string and horn players, though longtime musical friends like former E Streeter David Sancious pop up in small amounts as well. The best example of this method succeeding is “Stones,” the album centerpiece. With a languid and potent rhythm, his repeated refrain of “Those are only the lies you’ve told me” takes on a cathartic beauty, the blend of strings and guitars working in perfect tandem, showing there can be a fusion of these tools that works. It’s terrifically moving, lush and expertly layered in ways that exceed the simple and predictable bombast of the other arrangements.
But among successes like the bracing “Tucson Train” or steel guitar swing of the title track, there’s clunkers like “Sundown” or “There Goes My Miracle,” full of the kinds of blunt-force mixing effects that have bogged down Springsteen’s studio tracks throughout his career—a sure sign of the musician trying too hard and playing around in the studio for too long. Despite the latter’s memorable refrain melody, it features some of the most treacly writing of his career: “Heartache, heartbreak… the book of love holds its rules / disobeyed by fools.”
There’s an overwhelming consistency to Western Stars, a welcome quality after the scattershot kitchen-sink approach of 2014’s High Hopes. (The most welcome development, though, is that Tom Morello and his caterwauling guitar solos are nowhere to be found.) And the leftover influence of Springsteens’s Seeger Sessions work that recurred throughout his last couple releases has been fully purged. Still, the larger-than-life arrangements that feel perfectly calibrated to the cheap seats when executed by a world-class rock ’n’ roll band end up sounding reductive (and at times, dangerously close to Muzak) when translated into the sounds of a mini-orchestra. It’s a delight to hear the man summon the musical spirits of his past, but it’s all a bit overly tasteful and mannered to have the force as his usual work. The rough-around-the-edges element of his music has always been a highly calculated aspect of Springsteen’s perfectionist tendencies, but in crafting this record of genteel retro Americana, his smooth sound is missing some bite.
84 Comments
Baby boomer music can just fuck right off. I’m tired of them constantly pushing their high school years down our collective throats. Just grow up, already. The shit you loved when you were 17 just ain’t that great.
Then don’t listen to it.
That’s like telling me not to breathe polluted air. Walk into any public space in the US and you’ll be drenched in some awful “classic rock” or “golden oldie” song, or some recent cover of a tune one of these geezers listened to when they were in those all-important teen years.
Just wear your noise cancelling headphones all the time like all the other millenials.Isn’t generation bashing fun?
Griping about shitty Muzak is one of the unsung joys of life. Yet another thing millennials have ruined with their “noise canceling” gizmos! *adjusts onions on belt*
You know who I hate? Those diphtheric assholes from 1900 and their wax cylinder phonographs.
making such a racket on their goddamn penny-farthings
HEY! THAT STUFF IS VINTAGE!!!!!
I’m not a millennial.
All this generation-bashing is distracting from the fact that Bruce Springsteen is now a cigar and a Hitler-mustache away from being J. Jonah Jameson.
Yes, telling you to not listen to Springsteen is exactly the same as telling you to not breathe polluted air.
Please breathe polluted air.
That’s like telling me not to breathe polluted air. Walk into any public space in the US and you’ll be drenched in some awful “classic rock” or “golden oldie” song, or some recent cover of a tune one of these geezers listened to when they were in those all-important teen years….Said every generation ever. When they were growing up it was their parents’ shitty music, and in 20 years it’ll be your shitty music.Every generation thinks they invented being over their parents’ music, and thinks they won’t be lame adult like those old geezers.
It’s been well on 20 years, and my generation has not infiltrated every single space like the boomers have. Everyone of their “generation defining songs” has either been cliched to death in movies, constantly piped in over loudspeakers in public, or used in commercials to sell everything from cars to hair growth formulas to boner pills.
Don’t worry, in a few years all the Boomers will be dead, and boner-pill manufacturers will be choosing musical cues that resonate with your increasingly flaccid demographic.
I’ll rail on my generation if/when that happens. So far it hasn’t… It might not, if the way the boomers operated is any indication. By the time they were my age, everything was about them, and their precious experiences.
I’ll rail on my generation if/when that happens.
No, you won’t. You’ll be an older version of the clueless asshole you are today, still thinking you really have it figured out.
Give it time. I’m an X-er. My teens were the late 80s/early 90s, and I hear that crap all over the place in stores, commercials, etc. Heard both Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana in the grocery store the other day, and paused to reflect on how odd that is. In another 5-10 years we will move noticeably into the 2000s. And when you’re 50 your kids will be saying the same things about hearing your music everywhere.When I was a teen, “oldies” were Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, Aretha Franklin, The Monkees, … That stuff used to be everywhere, and now I hear hardly any of it in public any more. Some Beatles and Stones, maybe, but exceptions are exceptions.
I suppose you’re right…
Really? I hear shitty 90s music CONSTANTLY. Like No Rain is played everywhere.
Look at the bright side – by the time you’re old all the public spaces will just be playing an EDM beat with a middle C droning over it.
I don’t think EDM was my generation. But lord on high, I hope I’m 100% deaf by then.
“Young man yells at cloud”
“RAIN OFF, YOU CUMULUS!”
Where did Springsteen touch you?
Right on his thunder road, if you know what I mean.
There are a lot of shitty Baby Boomer musicians you could have implicated here, but Springsteen is not one of them.
Fuck you.Hungry Heart is the best working class socialist song ever made.Bruce Springsteen is still a symbol of pro-union Americana.
I really hope you’re joking, as Hungry Heart has zero to do with socialism. Bruce originally wrote it for The Ramones.
The lyrics are very working class-y in comparison to most music from 1980.And I guess that’s why The Ramones didn’t want because Johnny Ramone hates the poor.
Even from beyond the grave?
Bruce Springsteen, The Great Socialist… Here he is with his daughter. Just a regular working class hero, like you and me.
Yeah and the communist chief minister of Kerala, India has a son who’s an IT executive.What’s your point?
My point is that Springsteen is as socialist/working class as Mark Zuckerberg. At least an IT executive is just a highly paid position. Being a professional horse rider is a highly paid hobby only for the already wealthy.
Has Zuckerberg wrote a cheque for Striking Mine Workers associated with The Industrial Workers of The World?
1985?Looks like he’s long retired from the cause.
There’s something ironic about the contrast between Springsteen’s public image and his daughter’s horseback riding, but he also doesn’t really try to pass himself off as working class. He’s a professional musician who writes songs about working-class people, and many of his songs are very good. He also doesn’t do tacky rich-guy shit like pay to have San Francisco General Hospital renamed in his honor. Overall, he’s a weird target for this level of vitriol, although I guess Mick Jagger and Steven Fucking Tyler don’t really release music anymore. Also, isn’t his son a firefighter? I think firefighter and horseback rider average out to, like, upper-middle class.
I don’t think Bruce ever claimed to be a socialist. He’s campaigned for Democrats in the past.
He may not be working class now, but it certainly seems he grew up that way.
Yeah, if he keeps writing songs about struggling working class people deserving some dignity, he needs to start eating beans out of a can every day! Good point!
He’s a pro-union symbol who bought his kid a million-dollar pet.
Ugh. One of his worst songs ever. There are 11 songs better than that on “The River” alone.
Yes! Arbitrary generalizations are so hot, right now!
I know! I fucking hate when I’m forced to listen to music by artists I don’t like! But what are you gonna do? It’s a federal law that you have to listen to the new Springsteen album, and that’s that.
Who’s them? The Boomers or the people that program radio or…Good music is good music no matter what era it came from.You sound pretty petulant to tell people to grow up. Why did you post this – it doesn’t make much sense.
Most of the shit my generation loved at 17-and-younger is getting re-evaluated as actually, maybe it fucks? Like, maybe Fall Out Boy was good and unworthy of half the scorn we all heaped on them at their peak—actually?Anyway, I give Springsteen a pass. It’s not his fault, really, that people refuse to actually read the lyrics to “Born in the U.S.A.”
Dear god, I hope the music I listened to during my teens isn’t going to be played on loop like baby boomer music. Most all of it is terrible. My generation, for all its flaws, at least isn’t making everyone listen to grunge at every turn. In fact, I was out with my wife a few weekends ago, and Pearl Jam came on. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard them – played publicly and on purpose, at least. Maybe it’ll happen at some point as they continue to age, but my generation isn’t reliving high school ad nauseum.
If you’re this bitter in your youth, holy shit do you have a rough road ahead. You could unironically use some Springsteen.
I’m 43. Youth is gone.
… What
The shit that was popular when I was 17 sucked, but the shit I liked was awesome.
Energy well-spent here.
The cover art is incredibly tacky.
He hasn’t had good cover art since the 80’s.
This would be a great cover for an artist or band known for its irony, but that ain’t Bruce.
I’d refine it a little more and say that he had good cover art from 1975-1982. Though I’m not 100% sold on The River.
The cover art for Working On A Dream is amazingly awful…
It isn’t the greatest, but it does beat the snapchat filter Springsteen selfies he was using as covers for awhile (Magic, Working on a Dream, High Hopes).
“Heartache, heartbreak… the book of love holds its rules / disobeyed by fools.”I sorta like that lyric 🙂
El Camino, etc.
Dont November etc.
I am curious(?), I suppose, to hear the whole record. The two singles are a mixed bag, for sure. “Hello Sunshine” is great 70s Americana. “There Goes My Miracle,” though? WHAT is that?! It’s just bad.
It’s telling how much this review focuses on the production – this has been an issue his entire career, and it’s really gotten striking in the 2000s. I like some songs on The Rising, but I have trouble actually listening to that album because it’s so busy. Even going back 30 years, he could write a genuinely moving song like “Independence Day” and then add whispery keyboards and tinkling guitars until it sounds almost schmaltzy.
Pay no attention to this reviewer regarding Springsteen and production. LUCKY TOWN wasn’t overwhelmed by “pomposity.” It’s raw and stripped down, recorded in a hurry. (HUMAN TOUCH, which was released at the same time, was guilty of being overly produced). If you’re wondering, “Hello Sunshine” and “Stones” would be two of the best songs on this album. They’d also be two of the best on his classic, TUNNEL OF LOVE. Only “Brilliant Disguise” might beat them. But that’s how great they are.“Western Stars” and “Moonlight Motel” are excellent, too.
The NPR music station by me has been playing “Tucson Train”
That one is pretty good. I don’t like the way he says “trrrr-rain”
For artists who have been around as long as Springsteen, if they can deliver one or two amazing songs per album, my low expectations are met. So if there’s one more as good as “Hello Sunshine” I’ll be impressed (as yes, “There Goes My Miracle” was definitely not for me either.)
I really want him to collab with today’s Indie rockers.Imagine a Springsteen collab with Michelle Zauner, Sharon van Etten or Mitski. Or maybe a songwriting collab with Fleet Foxes or Father John Misty. I’d die in indie rock heaven.Hell, Van Etten has covered a few Springsteen hits and Seventeen’s a very E Street influenced. Why not an official collab by now?
Yes to Sharon Van Etten. I’d imagine Phoebe Bridgers, Iron & Wine, and Julien Baker would work, too. Obviously, I’m leaning toward the acoustic-leaning side of indierock.
Julien Baker has a great cover of Badlands that I love.
Exactly!
John Lennon was enthusiastically talking about Springsteen and the Clash in one of his final interviews, and I always wonder if he would have been climbing on stage with them had he lived. Can you imagine??!
After the way he swallowed up Jakob Dylan on “One Headlight” I want him to stay faaaaaar away from today’s stars.
Wow. My mind is blown imagining Springsteen/Mitski or Springsteen/Japanese Breakfast. Or what about Springsteen/St Vincent?
Bruce has never been much of a collaborator outside of his trusted circle of employees. He’s very much the auteurist in this sense. In the early oughts his influence was wide-ranging, from The Killers to The National to Arcade Fire to The Hold Steady. But did he collaborate on albums with any of them? No. A concert guest appearance from Van Etten I could see. The others just wouldn’t gel with Bruce.
For those who didn’t catch it at the time, here’s a nice cover of Glory Days from the AVClub’s glory days…
I miss Undercover. This was one of my favorites – there was a commenter here who used to make mp3s of the Undercover songs, so it comes up on my phone occasionally.
I used to have the Kate Nash version of “Happy X-Mas Everyone” in my holiday playlist. Tangentially, I spent both seasons of GLOW wondering way Kate Nash looked so familiar.
I think it’s more of a Jimmy Webb thing than a cinematic turn.
Gawd, I love me some Springsteen. I just want to know where his “No Men” went. Those guys who said, “All these songs (like the ones on “Tracks” or the ones that didn’t make the cut on “The River”) suck.” Those guys don’t appear to be around anymore, and Bruce’s latest records after The Rising have suffered for being released without one person saying, “No.”A collaborative band session recording will be a lot better than his merely conducting his band via e-mail.
Speaking of Springsteen and the movies, that upcoming film about the Indian guy who worships Springsteen looks fucking DIRE.
It’s rocking a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes coming out of Sundance, so I’m willing to chalk that up to a bad trailer.
Aw, I saw it at Sundance and liked it! It gets long in parts but it’s pretty enjoyable.
Hello Sunshine is a really good track