The Friday Morning Listen: Bruce Springsteen, "This Depression" (2012)

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It’s the emptying of a soul on a personal level. Or is it the soul of a nation, pleading to its citizenry? In any case, “This Depression” takes desperation and distills it down to the thoughts needed to survive it (along with a soaring Tom Morello guitar solo). Those ideas are present in the mind of every Wrecking Ball character.

Baby I’ve been down/but never this down
I’ve been lost/but never this lost
This is my confession
I need your heart
In this depression
I need your heart

Part of me wanted to take a break from these daily Wrecking Ball debut discussions. I’ve found the music thrilling to be sure, but the Internet conversations that have gone along with it have been depressing in their meanness, lack of substance, and ironic misuse of language.

But didn’t I recently swear off the time-wasting aspects of Web forums? Yes, I did. And there’s no excuse for my backsliding except that curiosity got the better of me with regard to this new Springsteen album. Somehow, I’d managed to convince myself that it would be different this time around.

And what did I learn from the various waves of chatter? That Springsteen: has lost his creativity, has phoned it in (again!), is lazy, doesn’t know how to rock, and doesn’t write good lyrics anymore.

Wrecking Ball is rendered with bits of Irish folk music, rock music, soul, gospel, R&B, and even a little bit of hip-hop. But…his creative tank is empty? I guess I’ll just chalk this up to musical conservatism.

Or maybe people are more lost than I could have imagined.

Next up: Wrecking Ball

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Mark Saleski