Nebraska - Springsteen, Bruce (CD 1990)

It's been forever since I last wrote a review, and I feel sorta strange re-emerging with a pan. Especially since everybody else who reviewed this album gave it four stars or more.

But what the hell.

Please understand that I'm essentially not a Bruce Springsteen fan to begin with. Oh sure, I like "Born To Run", "Hungry Heart", and a few of the other hits, but whenever I need a slice of American cheese, I almost always opt for Mellencamp. That probably has everything to do with my Indiana upbringing.

What drew me to this album was a claim I once heard about "Nebraska" being a very "dark" album. As we all know, "dark" is a word that lends itself to a million forms of interpretation, but I bought "Nebraska" anyway. And was highly disappointed.

Natch, I wasn't expecting Springsteen to put out anything that might rival Current 93 in the evil department, but "Nebraska"'s failure as a "dark" album isn't what made me dislike it. The problem I have is that the album is so dreadfully lacking in variation and/or hooks of any kind that I found myself looking for a crank dealer after track number two, just to stay awake.

It would seem that "Nebraska" was released in 1982, after having been recorded on a four-track recorder, and boy, does it sound it. Every track pretty much consists of the Boss trying his best to sing in key, while a harmonica assaults the eardrums like a herpes-stricken kamikaze pilot. The acoustic guitar just buzzes along in a boring bluesy way.

Pros would include the title track (a soft reflection on Charles Starkweather's 1950's killing spree) and "Atlantic City", which could've been the grandpappy of "Livin' On A Prayer". The former track blames the taking of ten lives on "a meanness in this world", while the strummy dark-chorded latter has a narrator pulling himself and sweetie out of debt by questionable (and probably Mafia-sponsored) means.

Everything else is just a boring rehash of "when good folks go bad". But since I have a history of tedious track-by-track exploration, there's only one thing left to do.

"Mansion On The Hill" makes me think of a drunken Springsteen fan trying to sing an Eagles song on karaoke night. Lyrically, we find some poor cuss obsessed with the dwelling place of the local fat cat.

If you take away the bad falsetto at the beginning, "Johnny 99" could almost pass for an unplugged outtake by The Misfits (must be a Jersey thing). Some unemployed feller gets hammered, kills a clerk, and tells the judge he'd rather get zapped than spend his life in prison. I'd have to concur, since my rear-end trembles in fear at the very mention of the pen.

Then come the cop songs. "Highway Patrolman" is a mellow 'un about a po-po with a rowdy brother, while "State Trooper" is a quiet, echoey piece that finds Bruce palm-muting the blues on his acoustic and kicking out an all-too familiar sentiment- "mister state trooper, please don't stop me".

Ze Boss goes a bit Cohenesque on "Used Cars", where he proceeds to whine about poverty some more while describing a possibly unsuccessful haggle over a used car price.

Except for the strange line about the turnpike being spooky late at night, "Open All Night" is just a silly and predictable reiteration of the "I'm on my way back to baby" theme.

On "My Father's House", Bruce wakes up from a scary dream and drives to his papa's residence, only to find it occupied by someone who's not his daddy. Not sure how that could've happened.

And then, rounding out this rather unspectacular collection of dull pickles, is "Reason To Believe", which is even less entertaining than the similarly titled Rod Stewart track. We have people prodding the bodies of dead dogs, women getting left behind by black-hearted lovers, and jilted fools waiting for their brides by a river, but there's nothing here musically that I would describe as "stimulating".

Again, "Nebraska"'s primary flaw is the fact that it sounds like the same song extended over a full forty minutes. Some might feel that the low production values give it an air of rugged charm, but I think it sounds like the janitor trying to be a rock star in a studio left empty. Bruce's voice sounds "off" to me much of the time, the harmonica just reinforces my theory that it is a creation of the serpent, and the "dark" tales I heard so much about are just sleep-inducing characterizations that will disappoint anybody who's ever heard of Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen.

Other than that, it's a great album, and worthy of your time and money.