Bruce Springsteen – Human Touch – 1992
Almost terrible. Not quite but juuuuuuuuust about.
The songs all sound kind of the same, imbued with that early 90’s AOR sound.
Some are just dumb. “57 Channels and nothing on”, for example. It should come across as some kind of indictment of pop culture and television dependence but it doesn’t. It sounds half written. Like Bruce was watching his tv and said, “Man! We’ve got, what? 57 channels? And NOTHING’S ON!” and then, he bolts up from the couch and pens this ditty, doesn’t rewrite it, puts a production sheen on it and, bam, hit record.
Except that it wasn’t.
“Loving you is a Man’s Job”!?!? Are you kidding me????
And then he pulls out some ancient trope (Etta James had a song like this, I believe) and declares that when he sees the woman he lost with someone else he wishes he was blind. Extreme much? I don’t buy it. Hey, Bruce, if you don’t wanna see that, just close your eyes. Or man up. Turn the corner. Walk away. Something. Anything.
Human Touch was released at the same time as Lucky Town, because, hell Guns n Roses did that with Use Your Illusion 1 & 2, surely that is the new way to bilk money out of fans. It’s a callous record. 50+ minutes of bad, and worse, forgettable, songs.
Grade: D
ASide:
BlindSide: Roll of the Dice
DownSide: Man’s Job
