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Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball

March 16, 2012 by · Comments Off on Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball 

Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball, Bruce Springsteen’s new album Wrecking Ball may be a solo album, but album opener “We Take Care Of Our Own” is full of pounding drums, layered riffs and a fist-pumping chorus, sounding just like an E Street Band classic. But of course there is something missing.

Wrecking Ball is Springsteen’s first studio effort without his lifelong sidekick, saxophonist Clarence Clemons. And, as you might expect, Springsteen’s music just isn’t the same without Clarence’s horn leading the way. After all, how do you replace the man who Springsteen regularly introduced to crowds as “the biggest man in the world?”

But despite the fact that album opener “We Take Care Of Our Own” sounds like vintage E Street Band rock and roll, none of the core members of the E Street Band even appear on the track. Springsteen chooses to replace Clemons by straying away from the E Street Band and their distinctive style with one of his most musically experimental and ambitious albums.

Perhaps in an attempt to distract the listener from the gaping hole where Clemons’ bursting saxophone belongs, Wrecking Ball leans closer to rootsy Americana and gospel than the grand rock and roll of the E Street Band.

The album’s second song “Easy Money” finds Springsteen’s studio experimentations begin – as the song sounds like a combination of the E Street Band and Springsteen’s bluegrass Seeger Sessions band joined by a gospel choir, and mixes moaning fiddle with an electric guitar solo. There are plenty more musical experimentations on the album – including an embrace of hip hop on “Rocky Ground” – an adventure that is just as awkwardly bizarre as you might imagine it to be.

But aside from the sudden twist in musical direction on “Rocky Ground,” Wrecking Ball still sounds like a Bruce Springsteen album, just a little more colorful than usual. From bluegrass-tinged lonesome country to Irish folksongs and mournful ballads, Wrecking Ball finds Springsteen experimenting and succeeding with new styles.

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