Albumkritik

Listeners who first discovered Bob Seger with Night Moves and Stranger in Town clearly find his new album an even more palatable product, since it leaped into the Top Ten with frightening rapidity. So I guess those of us who remember Seger, the all-American rock & roller, just have to take our lumps. But not necessarily in silence. At the risk of incurring the by-now-standard barrage of hate mail from his West Coast cronies and backup vocalists, I'd like to say that this is not only the worst record Bob Seger has ever made, but an absolutely cowardly one as well. Against the Wind betrays all those years that Seger worked in the Midwestern wilderness, trying to find a national audience for his odd blend of heavy rock and pop smarts. He had to fight hard to prove there was still a place in rock & roll for a guy like him, and, with "Night Moves," he won.

This is the LP that makes such a victory meaningless. Against the Wind is all retreat. And the reason that its ascension to the pop-chart stratosphere is scary is because it got there so effortlessly–there was no tension, in the music or anywhere else, to make people think twice. Seger spent the past year crafting failureproof songs that are utterly listenable and quite meaningless. His commercial tactics, I suppose, were a triumph. But as music, Against the Wind is heartless and mediocre–a lot worse than something like Billy Joel's Glass Houses, because at least Joel is trying to expand his identity, is risking something. All that Seger risks here is his credibility, and then accidentally.

Still, Bob Seger sings fantastically well, and if what you need is a carefully constructed album of gravelly crooning with a half-hearted snarl thrown in once in a while for effect, you've come to the right place. That's all you're getting from Against the Wind. At his best, Seger's been able to write songs (from "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" to "Feel like a Number") that are the very voice of the kid down the block. Now, he doesn't sound like he's ever met such people: all the street life on the current record is seen from an outsider's perspective. Even the hardest rockers–"The Horizontal Bop." "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight"–are hollow. Sure, they're vignettes of ordinary life as before, but this time the most any of Seger's characters are hoping for is a long drunk or a quick lay. I keep expecting to hear him sing. "Have a Coke and a smile."

The fault can't be laid on the Silver Bullet Band. For one thing, Seger's work with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section is as uninspired as anything the hometown boys are playing. for another, Against the Wind has almost nothing of Seger's blustering, hard-driving concert sound, so talking about the rockers here distorts the issue. Fast tunes saved Stranger in Town from its excesses, but this time the rock & roll cuts are perfunctory, simply tossed in to separate the overinflated ballad "statements" (none of which contains a line sufficiently memorable to quote) from the flat country rock, which has all the emotional depth of J.D. Souther.

There's a feeling of rootlessness to Against the Wind, but it's not the same hungry rootlessness that Seger captured so brilliantly in "Turn the Page," his classic about life on the road. Now, in some strange way, he seems removed from his own instincts. The eerie manner in which the production lifts the singer's voice above the band, so that the two never make contact, is a perfect example of the problem. And it's characteristics like this that make Against the Wind such a slap in the face. Bob Seger's roots were what once sustained him, and for him to turn his back on them in order to join the slick pop-star bandwagon is a genuine copout, a denial that his carly years meant anything. Seger's always had the voice, but if all he wanted was the opportunity to sing pretty, why did he struggle for so long?

Mostly, Against the Wind deals in stereotypes, particularly female ones. There's more than a hint of the Eagles' malicious misogyny and preppie snobbery in these numbers–not just "Fire Lake," to which the insufferable Glenn Frey. Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit contribute precise backing vocals, but in almost all the rest as well. Just as the rockers continually sell the "kids" cynically short, the love songs are all about women – devil, angel or beloved "babe"–who exist only as a commodity, to be worshiped when they're supportive ("Good for Me"), belittled when they try to assert themselves ("Her Strut") or chastised when they can't be controlled ("Against the Wind," "You'll Accomp'ny Me"). There's no feeling for people in these compositions, which is not only a sharp reversal of form for Seger (whose lyrics have always been strongest in characterization), but a complete acquiescence to the Eagles' pop philosophy: a gram of cool is worth a pound of conviction. This is a splendid plat-form for nostalgia and self-pity, well represented by the country-rocker "Fire Lake" and the lugubriously poetic "No Man's Land," but in every other way, it's worthless.

"Who wants to take that long shot gamble?" Bob Seger asks in "Fire Lake." And his answer, despite superficial nods at rebelliousness, comes back clearly: not me. You could listen to this LP forever and never hear the singer picking up any sort of challenge. It makes me sad, and it makes me angry (another emotion that's disappeared here, though it's often fueled Seger's finest work). Maybe rock & roll never forgets, but the best thing anybody who ever had any hope for Bob Seger can do is try not to remember Against the Wind and pray for something better next time. I wouldn't hold my breath. (RS 317)

DAVE MARSH

Lesen Sie mehr auf rollingstone.com