Magic
- Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
- Band Name: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
- Record Label: Sony
- Release Date: Oct 2, 2007
- Critic Score
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100The immediately obvious aspect of Magic is there hasn't been such a musically dramatic Springsteen album since "Born In The USA;" and like that album, this is a State of the Union address disguised as a pop record. [Nov 2007, p.88]
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100Magic is, in one way, the most openly nostalgic record Springsteen has ever made.
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Magic, his best record since "The River" in 1980. [5 Oct 2007, p.68]
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It's the way Springsteen injects his American bible stories with the air of disbelief that makes Magic a truly mature and memorable album.
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90It stands well alongside any classic Springsteen record you can mention.
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Magic succeeds magnificently because it is the perfect balance of what we’ve come to love about an artist while venturing out to try new things.
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80This may be his best rock record since "Born In The USA" (I think I prefer "Lucky Town"), but that’s not saying much. Frankly I suspect his heart is in the quiet acoustic stuff, but it’s still great to hear him pick up the old Esquire once in a while.
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Magic is a strong record, riddled with sad emotion yet a noble intent to carry on.
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80It trades in giddying, irresistible, full-steam-ahead-and-damn-the-torpedoes rock'n'roll. But at its heart, it's essentially a thoughtful wander in search of personal and national innocence.
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80His rage is mostly disguised within the most anthemic music he's made since the '80s. [Nov 2007, p.143]
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Magic doesn’t break any new sonic ground for Springsteen, but no one was calling for a reinvention. Magic offers what Bruce Springsteen does best: a handful of honest, hard-working tracks about life and how we live it.
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I'll grant you that Magic is uneven, but I cannot admit that it is anything other than constantly captivating.
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Magic is a record aimed squarely at radio, stadiums, open car windows and the solar plexus of guys who don't notice passing musical fashion. Magic sounds big. And it sounds great.
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80A sleek machine that's practically pleading to be taken out on the highway.
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80Credit producer Brendan O'Brien for the wall of sound that backs 'Girls in Their Summer Clothes,' which sets the atmosphere for one of the great vocal performances by Springsteen.
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Magic is, musically, one of the most upbeat, accessible records he has made, even as its themes and stories make it one of his most political.
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80As on much of Magic, Springsteen leaves the interpretive driving up to the fan, offering his most straightforward rock music in years.
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Springsteen's latest is very good, and a handful of tunes approach the level of urgency and raw desperation that made his earlier music so compelling.
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80An album that resumes the glorious "Born in the USA" daze, of lighthearted girls on summer bicycles, and that hard guitar-and-sax sound.
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Magic's songs tend to be as small in ambition as they are big in sound.
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70More classic-sounding raveups like 'Last to Die'and 'Livin' in the Future'--a perfect hybrid of 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-out' and 'Cover Me'--work on their own merits, but we already know what these merits are. [Nov 2007, p.122]
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Magic is a sturdy, sure-footed Bruce Springsteen album.
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68If Magic revisits the subject matter of previous career crests, it unfortunately recalls "The Rising" in its sound: Brendan O'Brien returns to the producer's seat, once again shuffling most of the E Street Band to the music's margins and focusing his attention squarely on the Boss.
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Truly, the heavy strings and pasteurization O'Brien has effected on the last few Springsteen albums--"The Rising," "Devil's & Dust," and now Magic, the Boss's reported return to form with the amorphous E-Street Band--has robbed Springsteen of his still-youthful energy and blue-collar credentials, something that has always been key to the believability of his sometimes overly corny manner.
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Six years on he sounds like a man not getting nearly enough cuddles.
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60Sometimes it's almost too much "classic Springsteen"; too many songs seem like retreads.
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Magic is bright and punchy, a digital-age production through and through, right down to how each track feels as if it were crafted according to its own needs instead of the record as a whole.
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60Magic's problem is that the two Bruces don't sit together comfortably. [Nov 2007, p.132]
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60Producer Brendan O'Brien expands the band's basic sound, applying a contemporary gloss that may not always be to the music's advantage, since it permits only occasional unobstructed glimpses of the individual musicians.
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60Setting a song called 'Livin' In The Future' to the tune of 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out' indicates that Springsteen's sense of humour may be returning, but the fact that Miami Steve didn't tell him 'Girls In Their Summer Clothes' sounds a little too much like 'The Kids Are Alright' suggests it's not quite back to the good old days yet.
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Though his voice is strong and sincere throughout the album, most of the material has a certain karaoke-like vibe.
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Chalk up at least some of this disconnect to Brendan O’Brien’s production, which is often so slicked down and smooshed together that it doesn’t just airbrush the band’s jagged edges, it sandblasts them.
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Magic manages to creep into a flat din, and tact is lost to nostalgia.
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Little on Magic outright falters, which is why it's hard at first to explain how unappealing it is.
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Magic, a maddeningly uneven record that often sounds like legends coasting, most apparently on 'Living in the Future' and 'Last to Die.'
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Magic still, mundane, too.
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30All of these lyrics have already been said before and said more creatively, but what’s even worse is that they’ve all been said by him more creatively.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 71 out of 77
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Mixed: 3 out of 77
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Negative: 3 out of 77
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