When something grows on me over time, I usually wish I could go back and remember exactly what it was that turned me off so much the first time through. Or, conversely, try to recapture what I liked so much about something that wore thin on repeat listens. With that in mind, I decided to record my thoughts, song by song, about Bruce Springsteen's new Working on a Dream. The disc has drawn scathing reviews (most people cite Greg Kot's takedown as being among the most vicious) and a few tongue baths (Yes, that means you, Rolling Stone).

Before the music hits, a word about the cover: It's awful. This isn't an original sentiment, but it bears repeating. A high school kid with rudimentary Photoshop skills could do better.

On to the music.

1. Outlaw Pete - Wow. Has there been a more underwhelming lead-off track on a Springsteen album than this? (In case you're wondering, the answer is no.) This plodding, eight-minute ballad goes nowhere musically and the narrative seems trite. Allmusic.com calls this a revival of the E Street Band's "wild, woolly sound," adding that it's "Working on a Dream at its best, playing like nothing less than The E Street Shuffle as reflected and refracted through Arcade Fire's naked hero worship." Um, no. This is a mannered, studio-bound creation with none of the fire the classic E Street Band would have brought to the material.

2. My Lucky Day - OK, this is more like it. Or, at least more like what Springsteen was cranking out around Lucky Town, fittingly enough, which was his closest approximation of the fiery pop of The River tracks left in the vaults until the Tracks boxed set. Crunching guitars, pounding piano and an earnest vocal. It's not great -- this would have been the sixth or seventh best track on Magic -- but it's a nice blast of energy after the languorous "Pete" and would have made a better opener. Of course, it would be better if Springsteen was singing it like a guy whose gal was the bright spot in a crappy life as opposed to one for whom a significant other is just another amenity. Still, this'll be a burner live.

3. Working on a Dream - Boilerplate Boss. If someone asked a lesser artist to come up with a Springsteen song, this might be the result. It's melodically uninteresting and the lyrics feel like they were composed by an online random verse generator. Does the Boss have a secret Bruce-o-matic program to tap when he's feeling uninspired? Want proof that Bruce is just as bored with this as you are? He couldn't even be bothered to write an ending. Nice fadeout.

4. Queen of the Supermarket - This track has drawn the most heat from critics, and with good reason. Weird Al doesn't need to parody Springsteen; with this he does it to himself. "A dream awaits in aisle number two." Groan. Springsteen told interviewer Mark Hagen that "they opened up this big, beautiful supermarket near where we lived. Patti and I would go down, and I remember walking through the aisles - I hadn't been in one in a while - and I thought his place is spectacular. This place is... it's a fantasy land! And then I started to get into it. I started looking around and hmmm - the subtext in here is so heavy!" But there's no subtext in Springsteen's song. At the height of his powers, Springsteen would have spun this inspiration into a tale completely removed from the source material. Here, he doesn't even bother to look up: "With my shopping cart I move through the heart of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware."

5. What Love Can Do - Springsteen would have been all over MTV with this in the early 1990s, with its bouncy beat, hard-strummed acoustic guitar and obvious hook. It's a slight song, but catchy enough (and short enough) to overcome its shortcomings. This and "My Lucky Day" are the only tracks where Springsteen seems to have any empathy for his protagonist.

6. This Life - Ah, the Beach Boys homage. This feels like a pale retread of Magic's majestic "Girls in their Summer Clothes." Is that a saxophone? Hello, Clarence! Where've you been keeping yourself?

7. Good Eye - Brendan O'Brien's production has been criticized by those who find fault with this album, and I can see the validity of that argument here. This fairly pedestrian rocker feels like something run through the "swamp rock" function in ProTools, and it's never good when the production draws so much attention to itself. This is another song that will probably sound pretty great live, stripped of its studio gadgetry. Lyrically, it's a blues, so it doesn't say much. Bruce probably means to be profound when he sings "I had my good eye to the dark and my blind eye to the sun," but to me that just seems like common sense.

8. Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles created a swirl of psychedelia under this title, but Springsteen offers the quietest, prettiest track of the set here. Some muted pedal steel (Nils Lofgren, I assume) offers some nice color. This is the first track, at 2:13, that had me reaching for the rewind button.

9. Life Itself - There's something interesting going on here, I think, but it eludes me on this first listen. Springsteen's vocal sounds like a demo take, the singer more worried about making sure all the words fit than conveying any passion or nuance. Again, the E Street Band seems elsewhere; this could be any group of studio musicians. A bit of bombast would help here. Alas, another fadeout.

10. Kingdom of Days - Another track that feels like a Magic leftover, a lesser "Girls in Their Summer Clothes." The strings soften an already laid-back arrangement, while also giving the track some much-needed emotional heft. Like much of the rest of this, Bruce seems torn here. Is he trying to make grand statements (like, "this is our Kingdom of Days") or capture the minutiae of everyday life (like suddenly realizing that a supermarket is a shrine to consumerism)?

11. Surprise, Surprise - Springsteen goes all Brill Building here, crafting a straight up pop song that, in its complete lack of rough edges, sounds unlike anything else he has done. The string section must have knocked out "Kingdom of Days" quick enough to be willing to stick around for this, adding some syrup to Bruce's sweet concoction. If this was a '60s nugget covered by the 1980s Boss, it would be fantastic. Here, it's simply pleasant enough.

12. The Last Carnival - Even the harshest critics of this album have praised this tribute to late E Streeter Danny Federici, and rightly so. It feels more like the Springsteen of Devils and Dust, and its the first vocal sung as if he means it. The mixture of pain and celebration is palpable, and that's sorely missing on the tracks that precede this. The production has a lighter touch as well, allowing the song to breathe.

13. The Wrestler - This song from the soundtrack to the film of the same name is listed as a bonus track. It does have a feel different from the rest of the album (save for "The Last Carnival"), more cinematic, of course, than the other dozen tunes. In the past, Springsteen would take these last two tracks and write an entire album around them. Here, he offers them as a coda of sorts to an album whose reach exceeds its grasp, redeeming the set to a degree. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know how well it contributes there, but "The Wrestler" -- along with "The Last Carnival" -- shows that Springsteen has the ability to do more than he does on the other 11 tracks that make up his Dream.

In sum, I really wanted to like this album. I wanted the naysayers to be wrong. But Kot's charge of "underwhelming" is on the money. I haven't spent much time with Human Touch, the album to which this is compared, because it has too much baggage (and "57 Channels") and I'd rather listen to good Springsteen if I have the time. This could grow on me -- and if so, this document will be an interesting benchmark -- but I fear it'll be the first Springsteen album I own to be filed to gather dust. And that's a shame.

Labels: Bruce Springsteen, music