BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Devils & Dust
Columbia
· Bruce goes bumming.
I may not particularly like Bruce Springsteen but the dude’s a legend for a reason. No matter how stripped-down and trad-sounding Devils & Dust is, I just don’t think I can ever quite get over "Reno" — a tale of bum sex with a Mexican prostitute in a cheap hotel.
And it’s not that I mean that in a bad way – listening to the Boss croon, "two hundred dollars straight in, two-fifty up the ass," and then casting it all off with, "it wasn’t the best I ever had, not even close," is kind of cool in the same way that your friend’s dad marrying some hot young thing is cool. Sure, you don’t really want to think about it too much, but at least the dude’s happy and getting some.
All that said, Devils & Dust is really just more of the same. At its best when it’s at its quietest, the finest bits here are reminiscent of 1982’s Nebraska – still the only Springsteen album I’d really consider essential. But if the only thing I take away from Devils & Dust is the quel surprise admission of a taste for bumming and thoughts of my friend’s your-dad-is-hot T-shirt, what does that say?
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