- Music
- 12 May 01
In a mediocre year, there was one album which offered a complete vindication of our continuing belief in the power of rock’n’roll. Just one – but that one is enough.
In a mediocre year, there was one album which offered a complete vindication of our continuing belief in the power of rock’n’roll. Just one – but that one is enough. That was, that is, the certified album of the year – Bruce Springsteen’s triumphant ‘Born In The USA’. The passion, the conviction, the intelligence, the death – but ultimately and most fundamentally the unique empathy which Springsteen has with the great majority of decent people – made this an inspired and inspiring 12 inches of finely-tuned and balanced magic.
I can’t slap it on the turntable without being assailed by a wide range of conflicting emotions – ghosts and spectres crowd the room, and the human spirit wrestles with the weight and pressure and sadness of these – and all – troubled times. By concentrating on the effects of unemployment, growing old and falling out of love – a lot more besides – on the individual, Springsteen all the more effectively evokes the Big Picture.
But, as ever, the spirit that burns through Springsteen’s music is strong, and true. And the ultimate feeling is of warmth and celebration. Bruce Springsteen successfully puts us back in touch with feelings and emotions and beliefs which are hammered and damaged by the bloody battle for survival in an economically inclement and politically depressing climate.
And then there’s the music! When the E-Street Band pile full-tilt into ‘Born In The USA’ you want to punch the air and jump or joy. Against the force of that exuberance, against the thrill of that surge, against the power of that attack, Ronald Reagan and Maggie thatcher and Garret Fitzgerald can do their worst – and still fail to kill the over-riding sense of joy in being alive from head to toe (they wouldn’t understand).
Now that’s what I call music – for real.
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U2 provided the other high-point of 1984 with ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ – a bold, courageous step into the unknown in the face of what must have been enormous commercial pressures to keep on working a winning formula, it yielded some marvellously rich and rewarding fruits, especially in ‘A Sort Of Homecoming’, Bono’s finest song yet.
Otherwise it was a slow year for Irish music – though Christy Moore’s emergence as a song-writer of real substance as a solo artist of even greater vision than we’d yet realised was wonderfully celebrated in his album ‘Ride On’. The single ‘Lisdoonvarna’, is nothing short of a classic. Late in the year, there was Na Casadaigh’s ‘Feed An Iolair’, a bright spark on a petrified horizon. I’ve only heard it once, at a playback, so that a full appraisal will have to wait, but the promise of something extraordinary lingers. Meanwhile, In Tua Nua shone on a fine 12” single, but there’s acres for growth in the lyric department. And, at years end, the Blades at least emerged from their hibernation, for some live action – but where’s the album?
With Frankie, Sade and Bronski Beat stamping their identities indelibly on the year, there was a breath of freshness and interest in the air – but it never became the full force gale which would have been necessary to blow away the impression of staleness created by the Whams, Duran Durans and their lego-pop ilk. I’m sure I’ll take the tunes of ‘Relax’, ‘Smooth Operator’ and especially the Bronski’s superb reworking of the Gershwin’s classic ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ with me to the grave – but somehow the discovery of Edith Piaf through a greatest hits collection seems to have left a deeper wound. Music can still be the food of love. Play on!