Buy Now
| Buy on |
|
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Jan 4, 2019Such is the unrelenting flood of language and emotion from this remarkable performance that it’s difficult to take everything in on first viewing and repeated listens become essential to experiencing the fullness of it all. ... We can just be glad that this particular spell of lightning was bottled so beautifully.
-
Dec 10, 2018This album is the two-and-a-half-hour soundtrack. And it is an absolute performance masterclass.
-
UncutJan 2, 2019The album works in isolation but maybe watch the film on Netflix first. ... Tonally, we're in the territory of Nebraska, Tom Joad and Devils & Dust, but there's also the deep romantic melancholic tones of Darkness and The Rising. [Feb 2018, p.18]
-
Dec 13, 2018The result is by turns audiobook, podcast, and live album, and at its most potent when it becomes a hybrid of the three.
-
Dec 10, 2018Less a concert than a monument to a life, a jubilant-sad, bittersweet way to mark the beginning of this old man’s final act, a taking stock, an affirmation that this all mattered. Springsteen on Broadway is a show about a man who dreamed of escape who never escaped.
-
Jan 9, 2019This is the Springsteen fully owning the myth of the working class hero, wearing the uniform of his father.
-
MojoDec 17, 2018With an airy yet intimate mix from longtime engineer Bob Clearmountain, this 2-CD/4-LP package carries the requisite audio heft to compensate those who couldn't see Springsteen On Broadway in its natural habitat. [Feb 2019, p.82]
-
Dec 17, 2018Located somewhere between a TED talk, an episode of VH1’s Storytellers and a confessional, it’s a hugely nourishing listen – not least because Springsteen, the boss of righteous stadium bluster, unveils a self-deprecating sense of humour.
-
Dec 14, 2018Whatever the distance between image and actuality, Springsteen always told the truth to us about the things that mattered. In Springsteen on Broadway, that truthfulness adds up to an honest self-portrait.
-
Dec 14, 2018When you view the tracklist for Springsteen on Broadway and evaluate it from the perspective of one night’s performance, it’s an impressive list of songs. But when you look at it as representative of a body of work spanning four decades--which this production decidedly cannot escape representing--it is a more than suitable tribute to what Springsteen himself refers to as both his service and his “long and noisy prayer.”
-
Dec 14, 2018Live albums, never quite being able to replicate the atmosphere of a show or the cleanness of a record, can be hard work--but Springsteen on Broadway is an enthralling listen.
-
Dec 13, 2018Yes Patti Scialfa joins him for ‘Tougher Than The Rest’ and ‘Brilliant Disguise’, but other than that it’s just The Boss doing what he does best, “To provide an entertaining evening and to communicate something of value”. And in all honesty that’s all we could ask for.
-
Dec 11, 2018Springsteen On Broadway is best when he tackles his fractured relationship with his father, whose boozy presence he credits with forging his tenacity, and by extension that of his own children, his sisters and his mother (“with Alzheimer’s these past seven years”) to whom he’s gloriously devoted. ... Equal parts communion and catharsis--an immaculate deception. [Jan 2019, p.86]
-
Dec 10, 2018Springsteen on Broadway is a really charming album--charming enough, in fact, to convince a Boss agnostic that there’s more to the man than they might previously have thought--and its charm rests on Springsteen’s alternating conflicting desires to let light in on what he calls “the magic trick”, and suggest that it might really be magic after all.
-
Dec 14, 2018It's possible to hear the pure theatricality of Springsteen's performance, both in his oversized spoken introductions and singing. It becomes very clear that Springsteen is playing the part of Springsteen, exaggerating certain aspects of his life and persona for dramatic effect. This has a ripple effect through the songs-many of which are quite familiar, with a couple of latter-day numbers thrown in for good measure-which, in this context, feel written instead of lived.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 15 out of 19
-
Mixed: 1 out of 19
-
Negative: 3 out of 19
-
Dec 29, 2018this is an excellent project filled with amazing songs and vocals from truly one of the greatest of all time