Human Touch

by

Bruce Springsteen

Edit

After a five year hiatus from releasing albums, Bruce Springsteen came back with two simultaneous releases, his first without the E Street Band (with the exception of Roy Bittan). The fact that he recorded these songs with hired studio musicians make them easy targets for his hardcore fans. Human Touch is the more commercial of the two and there is some high quality music on it. The title track is a strong song with some of the best guitar work Bruce has ever recorded while "Real World" has all the anthemic qualities of classic Springsteen songs. Bruce goes back to his old Asbury Park days with the soul influenced "Man's Job" & the superb "I Wish I Were Blind" which has backing vocals by one of the masters of blue-eyed soul, Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers. The problem with the album is that for the first time in his career, Bruce has some stinkers on it. "57 Channels" is a bad attempt at social commentary which is usually his forte, "All Or Nothin' At All" has no feeling to it and "Real Man" might possibly be the worst song he has ever recorded. The missteps aside, this album is still better than 90% of the music that is released and any music by Springsteen is better than no music by him.

The songs on "Human Touch" were written by Springsteen as exercises to help him cope with writer's block. It shows. If Springsteen held himself to his usual high standards, only half of these songs would've been released. Also, many of the songs sound overproduced - too many bells and whistles thrown in and not enough focus on the vocals and guitars.

That being said, lyrically, "Real World" is one of Springsteen's best songs. It follows the characters and narrative that have been in place since his earliest albums, bringing them to adulthood. Take this verse, for example,

Well tonight I just wanna shout

I feel my soul waist deep and sinkin'

Into this black river of doubt

I just wanna rise and walk along the riverside

And when the morning comes baby I don't wanna hide

I'll stand right at your side with my arms open wide

It has some of the attributes typical to a Springsteen song - the river; the shout; the narrator wanting more, but finding it not possible because of other forces. Instead of dealing with the adolescent fantasies of Springsteen's first three albums, or the disillusionment of becoming an adult in his subsequent works, the narrator in this song is mature, his outlook on life is informed and realistic (hence the song's title), and knows he can't go it alone.

"I Wish I Were Blind," "Man's Job," "Human Touch," and "With Every Wish" are also excellent songs. "Roll of the Dice" is one of those songs that doesn't work too well on the album, but is great live. The rest of the album is mediocre by Springsteen's high standards. Despite what Springsteen has said about "Human Touch" being a different album than "Lucky Town," which was released the same day, he would've been better of paring down some of the songs and releasing the best pieces as one album.

If you'd like a good mix of the two albums, check out "In Concert: MTV Plugged." Springsteen's other band does a great job on the best songs from "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town" on that album. If you need every Springsteen album, then buy this one too. It's not a bad CD (you probably own worse), but Springsteen has done a lot better.