Springsteen's MAGIC

Ugh, what I went through just to fetch a first-day copy of the new album by one of my FEW all-time faves. With a hernia. On a bike. Up and down hills. Dirt paths. A treacherous 1&9. Wouldn't have been so fucking taxing if nearby motherfucking Circuit City, located in Latino headquarters Union City EVER had a first day album available by a goddamn white artist. OK, so I DID see Matchbox Twenty and John Fogerty. Maybe it's nothing to do with Latinos and everything to do with poor stocking of surefire #1 albums? All I know is i'm fucking aggravated over what I had to endure. Of course, Best Buy -- where I got the album -- also was selling it for $9.99...so if Circuit City was ANY more expensive, I would've gone to Best Buy anyway. If you're late to my CD pricing rant...you're a fucking moron if you pay any more than $13 TOPS for any regular album. And i'm being generous there. Usually ALL new albums are $9.99 at Best Buy or Walmart and a few other places. Oh, wait, some reading this are too fucking hip to actually buy albums anymore...they'll just download a single or three. God, what i'd do to become as cool as you are. Oh, wait, i've gotten off track...back to the album. Um, well, i'm only into my 2nd listening right now...and it's...OK. Nope, i'm not ready to call this A MASTERPIECE and his best work since BORN TO RUN...both of which Entertainment Weekly said. There ARE a few songs that instantly grabbed me. With me, it's all very simple...gimme hooks, hooks, and more hooks. Rock me hard or make me misty-eyed with melancholy. Both of which you can do with HOOKS. I've loved first single RADIO NOWHERE since I first heard it on the radio...wish more of the album was as hard rocking as this one. I also like YOU'LL BE COMIN' DOWN, LONG WALK HOME, and the perfectly dreamy GIRLS IN THEIR SUMMER CLOTHES off the top of my head. And it's great to hear much more of Clarence's sax than you have in years. Don't get me wrong...I'm really liking the album and it'll be THE album constantly in my player for months on end...until new Madonna. Poor Foo Fighters only had a week of permanent residence. Just wish I was screaming from the mount how much you MUST get this album NOW! I think my expectations are always so damn high. But, listen, there's not a dud on the thing. And it's comforting. Comforting that an artist who I listened to religiously when I was 12 is still commercially and critically relevant 2 decades later. When so much (often depressing) change is going on around me, old reliable musicians make me smile and think SOME things are still right with the world. My two-listen grade (liable to change): B+