955. Bruce Springsteen - The Rising (2002)

Track Listing

1. Lonesome Day
2. Into the Fire
3. Waitin' on a Sunny Day
4. Nothing Man
5. Countin' on a Miracle
6. Empty Sky
7. Worlds Apart
8. Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)
9. Further On (Up the Road)
10. Fuse
11. Mary's Place
12. You're Missing
13. Rising
14. Paradise
15. My City of Ruins

Review

The Boss is back... maybe not to top form but to pretty good form anyway. This is an album about 9/11 and as such it has its fair share of emotional moments, some of which work out better than others. However this is probably the best work to be directly involved with the attacks... I'd even risk saying in any art form.

If there is one thing about Bruce Springsteen that makes this work for him in a way it might not work for others is the fact that he is a very no-nonsense lyricist and one with his heart firmly in the right place. In that way this ends up being a work about understanding and hope rather than vengeance and braggadocio.

Bruce's perspective includes songs from the point of view of a suicide bomber in Paradise, which is a really touching song recognising the common humanity of all parties involved. In this way he even makes use of Qawwalli choirs in Worlds Apart, Bruce comes across as a thoroughly humane songwriter, some might call it naive but I like to think of it as one of the few examples of true humanism in song-writing. The album is only let down due to the specificity of it, many of the tracks here have a kind of up-beat "rise up from the ashes" feel that is very chronologically specific. And no it is not his best album.

Track Highlights

1. Paradise
2. The Rising
3. Lonesome Day
4. My City of Ruins

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

For the year 2002, The Rising was one of only two albums to receive Rolling Stone's highest rating – five stars – the other being Beck's Sea Change.

Paradise: