Bruce Springsteen is often referred to as the hardest-working man in show business, and for decades he's been intent on proving he deserves the title. Although he's pushing sixty-three, it seems as if he releases a new album, or pens a rousing sociopolitical anthem, about as often as you have lunch. So if you want to feel like even more of a waste of oxygen the next time you're stuffing a turkey sub into your mouth, consider this: Wrecking Ball, the Boss's seventeenth (seventeenth!) studio album, is set for release March 6.
The album, which manager Jon Landau refers to as an "ambitious, big-picture piece of work," features eleven new tracks, as well as two bonus recordings that are available on a special edition of the disc. Three of the songs — "Land of Hope and Dreams," "American Land," and "Wrecking Ball" — have been prominently featured on various E Street tours, and are making their studio debuts on this album. The record is also purported to feature saxophonist Clarence Clemons's final recordings, before he passed away in June 2011.
A music video for the first single, "We Take Care Of Our Own," was released two days ago, and as you can tell from the clip it's pretty much classic Springsteen. There are shots of the Boss brooding and swinging his guitar like a pair of giant testicles; there's a standard, up-tempo rock beat that will sound much better live; and there are bitter, snarling lyrics about false patriotism, interspersed with lingering shots of a post 9/11 Manhattan skyline. Pretty standard Bruce fare, really, but you know what they say: "If it ain't broke, don't go in there and fuck shit up with your bullshit." After forty years and seventeen studio albums, the Boss can rhyme "wherever this flag's flown" with "the Super Dome" if he damn well wants to.
