There are two Bruce Springsteens. One, let’s call him Bombastic Bruce, went through 15 months and marathon 16-hour recording sessions to produce just eight overblown rock tracks. The other, Bare-Bones Bruce if you will, made some bitter, morose songs at home with just a guitar, harmonica and his old tape recorder before bunging them on an album as is.
Both Springsteens are hugely talented – ‘Born To Run’ and ‘Nebraska’ aren’t considered rock classics for nothing. But you only need two fingers to count the number of times they’ve actually met up to share a bottle of whisky. There was ‘The River’. And now there’s ‘Magic’.
Nils van der Linden 