Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
October 7th, 2008
Most Springsteen albums are generally musical, positive, epic, and possess lyrics that are so detailed that the listener becomes immersed in Springsteen’s nostalgic but romantic tales of growing up in blue collar America. Nebraska, is different. Nebraska, is a set of songs Springsteen recorded as demos and, as legend has it, carried them around in a back pocket of a worn pair of jeans until he was convinced that the tracks sounded better without the E-Street band. The result is an album that tells tragic stories of blue collar characters in a United States that is about to enter the Reagan era.
To match the lyrics, is a low-fi production recorded by Springsteen alone, in a room, with a four-track machine. Not only is this unplugged recording style an important platform for lo-fi indie albums of the 90′s, but the medium echos Spingsteen’s themes of despair and hopelessness and makes the perfect backdrop for his story telling.
This is an album for the dark.