Pitchfork

The Boss gets his Warren Zev on for the first single from Magic, his upcoming album with the E Street Band. It's a short, sharp rock song that doesn't have much use for verses, plays about twice as fast as expected, and ends just after the three-minute mark. Brendan O'Brien's production is, as usual, fussy and distracting, pushing the E Street Band to the song's margins instead of ratcheting up the "thousand guitars" and "pounding drums" Springsteen sings about. Fortunately, he makes sure the angst comes through clearly. The song is to corporate radio what "57 Channels (And Nothing On)" was to cable television, but "Radio Nowhere" is by far the better song, equating unimaginative playlists with existential crisis and making "I just wanna hear some rhythm!" sound like a crie de ceour. The song is available free for one week from iTunes.

Download:> Bruce Springsteen: "Radio Nowhere"
[from Magic; due 10/02/07 from Columbia]