Who's The Boss? It's still Bruce

Bruce Springsteen

Working On A Dream

Columbia

Jan. 27, 2009

A

For 36 years and counting, Bruce Springsteen's passion and love for rock 'n' roll music has transcended the airwaves, infusing itself into the minds and hearts of all who desire to listen.

With an appearance at the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial event, yet another Golden Globe under his belt and a performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, Springsteen is enjoying a wildly successful 2009. He also just released his third album with the E Street Band since the start of the new millennium.

Working on a Dream is a record bordering, if not crossing into, perfection.

Like its brothers The Rising and Magic, it features tight-written pop songs with harmonious melodies and powerful lyrics.

The album is considerably less dark than its predecessors, and the strong, beautiful music that envelops each song seems to force the lyrics into the backseat at times, allowing the listener to fully enjoy the intricacies of the instruments at work.

Opening the album is "Outlaw Pete," an eight-minute saga of a lost soul searching for himself while trying to move on from the past.

Repetition of the phrase "Can you hear me?" is echoed throughout, and the desperation with which Springsteen sings makes the song all the more chilling.

In the title track "Working on a Dream," Springsteen returns to the sentiments he wrote about on Born in the U.S.A., of hard working people searching for their version of the American Dream.

"I'm working on a dream/Though sometimes it feels so far away/I'm working on a dream/And how it will be mine someday," he sings.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is a catchy song and sounds as if it could belong on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. "Good Eye" is perhaps the most "un-Springsteen-like" song on the album, resembling Eric Clapton's "Motherless Child" with some Southern twang.

Among the rest of the wonderfully well-orchestrated and written songs is "The Wrestler," for which he won a Golden Globe.

Working on a Dream proves over and over again why Springsteen has been an immense force in the music industry for decades, and why fans will have many more years of his great music to look forward to.