Bruce Springsteen: Lucky Town - 1992
There is some considerably better stuff, overall, on this one than on Human Touch.
Let's start with the catchy, singalong rock of Better Days, the tough message of Souls Of The Departed, the wry humour of Local Hero, the fun bluesy rock of Lucky Town, the swampy, depressing blues of The Big Muddy, the poppy Living Proof and the upbeat rock of Leap Of Faith are all more than acceptable offerings. They all sound more like what you would expect from Springsteen, particularly the more serious numbers like Souls Of The Departed and The Big Muddy.
If I Should Fall Behind, My Beautiful Reward and Book Of Dreams are both romantically beautiful, particularly the former, a song I really love and personally find very romantic. I would say, though, that it is now that one can look back and say, pretty categorically, that Springsteen’s best days as a studio, album-releasing artist were behind him. Nothing has ever bettered the run of albums between 1973 and 1987. Anything subsequently just doesn’t match up, whatever people may say about “returns to form” and so on.
I should have written more about these two albums, but they just don't seem to inspire reams of prose. They are both reasonably god rock albums from an established artists, but they are nowhere near his best work. However, whenever I listen to them occasionally, I always get something out of it. They ain't no Born To Run, though, are they? Not what I got on board the Bruce train for, back in 1978. My own personal amalgamation of the two albums into one gives us this album, which is pretty good -
