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Monday January 19, 2009, 5:00 AM
"Working On a Dream," Bruce Springsteen (Columbia)
THREE AND A HALF STARS
"Working On a Dream" is Bruce Springsteen's "White Album."Like The Beatles' 1968 double album (officially titled "The Beatles"), it's full of surprises, covers an exceptionally broad range of musical styles, and is both deeply serious and, occasionally, whimsical.
Springsteen, 59, doesn't go as far out on a limb as The Beatles did: There is no equivalent to the "White Album" sound collage, "Revolution 9." But "Working On a Dream" does have a spooky, snarling blues tune ("Good Eye"), a lavish Beach Boys homage ("This Life"), a buoyant power-pop song ("Surprise Surprise") and the strange-but-wonderful "Queen of the Supermarket" -- a rapturous, almost Roy Orbisonesque love song, addressed to a checkout clerk.
"I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket/As the evening sky turns blue, a dream awaits in aisle No. 2," sings Springsteen, the music swelling majestically behind him. "With my shopping cart I move through the heart/Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware/That they're in the presence of something wonderful and rare."
"Working On a Dream" comes out Jan. 27, which is about 16 months after the release of Springsteen's last album, "Magic." Given that he toured behind "Magic" until August 2008, this is an exceptionally speedy turnaround.
In a November press statement announcing the album's release, Springsteen said the songs were written quickly and recorded with members of his E Street Band during breaks in the "Magic" tour. "We usually used one of the first takes," he said.
Occasionally, a lyric does seem in need of a little refining.
"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I do/You whispered 'Then prove it, then prove it, then prove it to me, baby blue,' " Springsteen croons in "Kingdom of Days," another lushly romantic, Orbisoneque track.
"At 25, a mustang pony he did steal, and they rode around and 'round on heaven's wheel," he sings in "Outlaw Pete," an eight-minute, quasi-mythic Western tale about Outlaw Pete and his nemesis, "bounty hunter Dan."
The title track itself seems misconceived, too, with an easy-going vibe that contradicts the idea of working to make a dream come true, and a whistling interlude. There is just no way to keep a whistling interlude from sounding corny.
A few missteps is a small price to pay, though, for an album as consistently lively as this one. With its swirling organ riffs, plus howled backing vocals by Steven Van Zandt and a Clarence Clemons sax solo, "My Lucky Day" echoes the garage-rock urgency of "Two Hearts," from Springsteen's 1980 album "The River" (his only prior release to approach the stylistic breadth of this one). Springsteen achieves an even greater sense of abandon in the blues of "Good Eye" and the pop uplift of "Surprise Surprise."
WASHINGTON - JANUARY 18: Musician Bruce Springsteen performs in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration At The Lincoln Memorial" on January 18, 2009 at the National Mall in Washington, DC. The event includes a diverse array of talent featuring both musical performances and historical readings and an appearance by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.(Getty Images)With its chiming guitars, "Surprise Surprise" is one of several tracks that suggest Springsteen has been listening to lots of Byrds CDs lately. The gently rolling, countryish sound of "Tomorrow Never Knows" is evocative of that band's "Ballad of Easy Rider," and the psychedelic guitar solo on "Life Itself" could have been lifted from "Eight Miles High."
"The Last Carnival" is a sweet, somber tribute to the late E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici, featuring Federici's son Jason on accordion. "We won't be dancing together on the high wire/Facing the lions with you at my side, anymore," sings Springsteen, early on. Later, the song dissolves into a chorus of wails.
The behind-the-scenes documentary that's on the DVD of deluxe editions of the album is far from essential. But images, there, of Federici, Springsteen and various E Streeters during "The Last Carnival" do make this song even more of a heart-tugger.
While the album-opening "Outlaw Pete" is half-baked -- Pete isn't enough of a character, and there isn't enough of a story, to justify the eight-minute length -- album-closer "The Wrestler" is flawless. This dry, dusty song, written for the new Mickey Rourke movie of the same name, is as real as "Outlaw Pete" is phony. Instead of just telling a story, Springsteen gets inside the character, who calmly, sadly sings of his own shortcomings, with minimal musical accompaniment: "Have you ever seen a one-armed man punching at nothing but the breeze?/If you've ever seen a one-armed man then you've seen me."
Like much of "Working On a Dream," it's like nothing else on the album, but the setting seems perfect.
Jay Lustig may be reached at jlustig@starledger.com or (973) 392-5850.
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