20. Bruce Springsteen, Magic

"Radio Nowhere" appears to be one of those songs in which an artist takes the diminished size of their broadcast royalty checks as a sign of the irreversible unraveling of the social fabric. Sorry man, there's still a monoculture in whatever sense there ever was, which is to say a pretty contestable one, you're just no longer at its center. On the other hand, I enjoy the sound of the track, and much of this self-consciously meat-and-potatoes album, a great deal -- the best rockers ("Livin' In The Future," "Long Walk Home") have the relative concision and thoughful band dynamics I associate more with The Heartbeakers (Tom's) than with E Street's operatic bombast. I have almost as much trouble swallowing the vocal persona of "Devil's Arcade" as I do the average Bonnie Prince Billie record, and the alleged single "Magic" seems weak on several fronts -- the songs I'd want on that non-existent "good" AM station would be the Spector-scaled "Your Own Worst Enemy" (I'm not a sucker for orchestration, but actualorchestra bells usually get me) and "Girls In Their Summer Clothes," which has some damagingly awkward scansion in the bridge but scores extra points for with me for including a bank clock.