Bruce Spreengsteen

The Tunnel of Love tour again? That’s surely a sentiment some are expressing with this month’s release of New York 5/16/88, the outstanding opening night performance from the final, five-show stand on the US leg of the 1988 tour.

“This record being the third in a trilogy of song collections mostly based on film music I wrote for Spike Lee over the past few years, I wanted to move to some new stylistic places and maybe make a more upbeat record overall. We don’t get a ballad until #7, the pandemic shut-down era piece “Days Ahead” ( a duet with Danielle Haim). Lyrically the record is dotted with three Covid-related songs; the aforementioned, “Tag” and the album opener “Sidelines” (a duet with Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend), and otherwise ranges far afield with the world of science again a recurring influence (“Lidar” and “Point Omega”). The record also includes the first cover song I’ve ever put on a studio release, a total re-
imagining of Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business.” The album title 'Flicted relates to this strange time in which we live, when the world is basically, well, ‘flicted!”

The type of warm, sophisticated jazz-inflected pop/rock proffered by Bruce Hornsby & the Range was probably the last thing anyone expected to find at the top of the charts in the late '80s. Yet Hornsby, with his virtuosic piano playing and mature song craftsmanship, placed six consecutive singles into the Top 40 between 1986 and 1990, among them the number one "The Way It Is" and the equally solid "Mandolin Rain" and "The Valley Road," both of which reached the Top Five. Hornsby's career has taken many turns in the two decades since his first appearance, and while his commercial fortunes have dissipated, his willingness to grow as a musician, to dodge stagnation, has only expanded. That's what Intersections 1985-2005 is all about…

If there’s any period in modern Springsteen history that continues to grow in admiration it is the 2007-2008 Magic era.