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93 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Several Seger gems, both rockers and ballads, September 16, 2006
A song-by-song review. I also added some comments from the man himself I read in a Detroit Free Press interview with Seger the day before the album was released. My perspective on Seger is that he's one of my favorite artists, his music has been incredibly inspirational to me, and I'm of the age that I go back to the Beautiful Loser album where we couldn't wait to go to "Katmandu" or be a "Travelin Man" ourselves.
As an album, this has the best collection of hard rock, mid-tempo numbers, and ballads since Stranger in Town, though nothing at the level of "We've Got Tonite" and "Hollywood Nights". Starting with Against the Wind I was wondering if Seger should stop with the rockers and focus on the country charts, however this album destroys that idea starting with Wreck This Heart and three other really solid rock songs.
1- "Wreck this Heart" A very Stones-like rocker, loose and vigorous. A great leadoff song!!! Seger's lyrics often are a point of view narrowly drawn to a specific age group and this shows that while he's 61, the pressures are those of a man with young children, which Seger has. Bob's always had a very special relationship with those 10 - 15 years younger than him, like me, as he provides insight to their experiences from a position of having just lived it with the perspective and wisdom that comes from experience yet still near to the experience. Great song.
2- "Wait for Me" - This song is really growing on me. Very inspirational, a very Bob-like ballad. Seger's voice soars into the bridge like it did with "Like A Rock". Another great song that requires some time to appreciate. Bob is as good a singer as ever in terms of putting a ton of soul into each song, his voice is even better in the mid and low notes with a little more gravel adding more levity, as if he needed more, however, he does concede the higher notes but that only hurts him on one song in this collection (the Loveless duet).
Seger's comments - I don't think anybody got it. In my mind you've got to have the discipline to allow your kids to make their mistakes. . . Sometimes I've got to get away, but I'll always come back.
3- "Face the Promise" - Hard guitar track like "Makin Thunderbirds". Good filler. Makes you think he's hangin' with the post-college crowd now though, working-class people are moving to North Dakota and Arizona, not away from there.
Seger's comments on "Face the Promise" - This is about small town kids looking at the big American dream. "I'm gonna to out and face the promise of the promised land. . .".
4- "No Matter Who You Are" - Great song. Mid-tempo rocker like "Still the Same", while the lyrics are reminiscent of "Against the Wind" in terms of providing strength by realization that we all have challenges.
Seger's Comments on "No Matter. . ." - You have to guard your special, pure thing and cherish it.
5- "Are You" - Drum driven song, rocker with a great groove line and classic Seger lyrics. Memorable line, "This is a whole new faith almost like a new religion". He also does a great "Ow" backed by the soul singers, this one will get cranked!!!
6 - "Simplicity" - Music sounds like it came from a band named "The Time", an old band associated with Prince. Lyrics are obvious and contrived. Filler.
7 - "No More" - Bob singing against a background of classic strings. The lyrics are a negative indictment of how Bush got us into Iraq. While I agree with his political position, I would have preferred he chose different lyrics for this song, they sound mismatched, with uplifting music coupled with a negative indictment.
"Real Mean Bottle" with Kid Rock - a Vince Gill song written by Gill as a homage to Merle Haggard (Kid's a big fan of Haggard). Lots of long notes that take advantage of Gill's great voice which cause Kid and Seger to strain in places. Seger and Kid turn this into a 50's style boogie-woogie rocker, including rock piano. I am a little underwhelmed with this song, Bob's covers are usually excellent choices like Rodney Crowell's "Shame on the Moon". This song doesn't do Kid justice either. Because the lyrics are fun, and everyone loves boogie-woogie, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a minor hit on the Country charts.
Seger's producer on "Real Mean Bottle" - He (Kid) came in and said, "Man we've got to rock this thing." He started singing it at double speed with all this attitude."
9- "Won't Stop" - A very sparse song, acoustic guitar, Bob, and a little drum. A counter to "Real Mean Bottle" preaching the dark reality of obsessive behavior. Bob sings great in this song, however because there is very little accompaniment, you can hear how his voice has weakened from the pinnacle of his singing on "Live Bullet" and "Stranger in Town". Still, Bob was always much, much more than the range and power of his voice. His talent has always been writing music and lyrics, making the personal universal and the universal personal, making music that is either a joy to listen or sustenance for trying times.
Seger on "Won't Stop" - We were kind of making fun of drinking (Real Mean Bottle). . . but then I wanted a serious song about addiction - like, I don't condone this.
10 - "Between" - Contains the best lead guitar on the album by Kenny Greenburg. A beat similar to Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry".
Seger's comments - I think my favorite song on the record is Between. I just love the groove. I love the way I sang it, I love the way I played it, I love the way the girls sang it. And it says exactly what I wanted to say.
11 - "The Answer's in the Question" w/Patty Loveless - I loved the lyrics and the melody and the basic structure of the song. However there are some incredibly poor choices in which notes to hit that had me physically cringing three times, all three times because I think Bob can no longer hit the high notes. I think this could be a huge country hit, but they need to release a single version that eradicates the cringe factor.
Seger's Comments - "I thought what a cool idea for a song: The answer is in the question. "Will you be home late again?" OK, if you ask someone that, there's something wrong.
12 - "The Long Goodbye" - Should have been placed between two rockers because as the last song, it causes the album to end with a whimper, I would have preferred seeing the album end with "No Matter Who You Are". Some interesting musical sounds and verses that linger after the song ends, "The long goodbye continues on, through fog and rain and far beyond, you stay awhile and then your gone again" is haunting and some of his best work.
Seger's Comments - It's about Alzheimer's disease. I dealt with that with my aunt after my mother died. And now, my wife is dealing with it her father. So it became fresh again.
Summary - this album is not perfect, where it's pretty easy to make the case Live Bullet and Stranger in Town were. Because Seger is not prolific, his fans have much higher expectations than those of say, Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen who publish a lot more music. This album is definitely one every Seger fan will want, enjoy and savor for years to come. For those that are too young to have grown up with Seger, I recommend buying the following songs which you can find at Apple's Music Store: Wreck This Heart, Wait for Me, and No Matter Who You Are.
Is the DVD worth the extra bucks? I'd say yes for two reasons, the DVD includes the video for "Like A Rock". I don't know of any song where the singing and lead guitar melded so perfectly, only Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart doing "People Get Ready" comes close. It also has some great concert footage from '78 of Seger doing two songs in San Diego, which really displays how great a performer he is, though his band was really lacking on those two songs. I was very disappointed there were no videos from this album on the DVD, Wait for Me is released as a single, why not at least that song's video? I did appreciate the short interviews they did with Seger showing him working on the album but really disappointed only two old videos were included besides the two song concert footage.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW... what a surprise!!, September 25, 2006
I grew up listening to Bob Seger's classic seventies music, so it is in my blood. But I must admit that I had very low expectations before I heard this record. Bob's last album, released almost 11 years ago, was uninspired and boring, and so I had basically written him off as a once-great artist who had lost his muse.
This album sets the record straight. Bob Seger was, and still is, one of America's great rock-and-roll treasures. He just apparently needed to take a loooooong break from the recording studio. Starting with the smoking first track "wreck this heart", this album rocks like there's no tomorrow. The songwriting is truly inspired (the only weak track, I think, is the maudlin "wait for me"), the production is outstanding, and Bob's voice is in very good shape. Of particular note is his breathtaking ballad with Patty Loveless.
Welcome back, Bob. We missed you.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the Wait!, November 25, 2006
It's been over a decade since Seger graced us with a studio album with all new material. And many of us were on tenderhooks, waiting to hear exactly what the sound would be of such a CD coming from a rocker who admittedly had to wait for his doctor's OK before he decided he could tour in good health this fall. Thankfully, the results in both the studio and the doctor's office were positive, so not only do we have a brand new Seger CD (and a good one), but many will be able to hear him sing some of its material live along with Live Bullet over the next several weeks.
Bob's voice is in full form, carrying ballads like "Wait for Me", bona fide rockers like "Wreck this Heart" as well as the boogie-fied "Real Mean Bottle" (the only non-Seger composition, written by Vince Gill and with backing vocals by Seger pal Kid Rock, who I have to admit does a good job here although I think Seger's talents far surpass his). Nearly all the songs are in the voice of an older, wiser man talking to someone who wants to take chances or do things the narrator stops usually stops short of preaching about. I caught a bit of an interview on a Detroit station, where Seger was stating he'd written the song that had just been played for his kids. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out which song that could be, but given that his son and daughter are in their early teens, it could be one of several of these songs: "Are You", "The Long Goodbye" (as a father realizes someday they'll walk away forever), "No Matter Who You Are" or "Wait for Me."
I have to say a few words about "No More", which could have been Seger's shovelful on the bandwagon of What Everyone Else In Rock Said about Iraq...but it's not. First of all, it's a great song, produced a la Spector "Wall of Sound" so that we (at least those of us who can remember back that far) get the sense of a Barry McGuire "Eve of Destruction" or Melanie "Candles in the Rain". Which is exactly what Seger wants to do. The second stanza reads:
It was forty years ago when I was young/
And the jungle, not the desert, heard the guns/
Someone said they had a secret plan/
And the rest of us would have to understand.
So, before you can accuse him of doing what everyone else is doing (accusing those in power of "getting us into another Vietnam"), BAM! in the same verse he slams the opposition, who say they have a way to get us out (Seger's brother was a Marine in Vietnam. The first song he wrote was called "Yellow Berets," about those too cowardly to join up. He hasn't forgotten how it felt to find out that the newly elected administration in 1969 really had no...secret...plan...at....all.)
Not that Seger leaves the Republicans (Bush's, not Nixon's), off the hook. But he does so in a way that doesn't demonize them:
Are you sorry ...for the burden of the ones who had to fall/
When you didn't read the writing on the wall?
In other words, he's not getting into the argument of whether Iraq had weapons, what kind and when, he's just saying, "You were wrong to start this war. Even if you didn't lie, you didn't take the consequenses into consideration."
"No More" and the rest of "Face the Promise" are an enjoyable way to catch up with Bob during this phase of his life. He's still one of the Midwest's finest rock and roll musicians, and he's still going strong.
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by Bob Seger 
