Now Playing: Bruce Springsteen, "Western Stars" (Columbia Records, 2019)
There's an inevitability to "Western Stars" in that you know Bruce Springsteen is going to deliver a musical statement that's a break from what we've come to expect from him. The question remains, what took him so long to deliver this statement, a gentle elegy to the American West and the characters that litter that particular American Dream. "Western Stars" eschews both the sonic bombast of his efforts with the E. Street Band, and the stripped-down starkness of his acoustic albums; the business-as-usual is replaced with lush orchestrations, full of strings and pedal steel guitars. With his empathetic ear keenly tuned on the down-and-out characters that haunt his narratives, Springsteen recasts these characters into the sepia-toned expanse of the American West, with one foot in the past, another foot in the present. He's never afraid to dive into sentimentality and bleak narratives, the obvious strength in his song craft, the songs of "Western Stars" a rueful examination of complicated people and the legacies they leave behind.
The left turn Springsteen takes throughout "Western Stars" whisks him far away from his rock n' roll roots; "Western Stars" also re-imagines Springsteen's brief early-70s "California" period, before stardom, when singer-songwriters like Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, and Harry Nilsson captured his imagination. The musical landscape throughout "Western Stars" marries country with early-70s west coast pop, and it fits Springsteen and his croon well, like one of the barn jackets he's been spotted wearing lately. Springsteen wrestled with his instincts and nearly shelved this album, but thought the better of it; he may never do another album that welds the beautiful and the bleak as miraculously as he did throughout "Western Stars," and that's a shame, because for an artist that has consistently delivered as Bruce Springsteen, you often want him to take more musical detours. "Western Stars" is one of the best albums Springsteen's done in years, and just like the critically-adored "Nebraska," a wonderful, startling anomaly in his impressive catalog.
Some people don’t get lost in translation. They get lost in their own egos. Politicians and celebrities are the worst culprits.
Yep, many are ‘just lost’.