Seger: Of Course, He’s Still the Same

Seger! Our patron saint of Classic Rock mediocrity keeps on keepin’ on! Jon Pareles writes about him in the most rockist terms imaginable. This is a fascinating, if hackneyed, piece of rock journalism!

Emphases courtesy of Rock Town Hall. Craig Frost fans take note! Thanks to Townsman BigSteve.

From The New York Times, by Jon Pareles

Bob Seger: A Rocker Who’s Come to Terms With Time

Bob Seger is 61, with gray hair and glasses. But he still goes to work in a T-shirt and bluejeans.

On Thursday night he was working at Madison Square Garden. He was headlining his first tour in a decade, following through on last year’s release of “Face the Promise” (Capitol), his first new album since 1995. Fans happily sang along with songs from his hit-making heyday, 30 years ago; a few even held up cigarette lighters, not illuminated cellphones, during ballads. They were delighted to hear that, grizzled or not, Mr. Seger has hardly changed. He didn’t sing his hit “Still the Same”; he didn’t have to.

His voice is still a robust, husky baritone with proud roots in Detroit soul music, and his songs, old and new, are heartland rock with ringing chords and a stolid beat, made for arenas. A new one declares, “Simplicity, it works for me.”

Important members of his Silver Bullet Band — Alto Reed on saxophones,
Chris Campbell on bass, Craig Frost on keyboards — have been with him
for decades. Mr. Seger was never the most athletic performer, but he still pumps his fist to the beat. Mr. Reed takes care of the showboating, trucking and duckwalking with instruments as hefty as a bass saxophone.

Even in the 1970s, Mr. Seger’s songs were about how fogies could continue to feel like rockers. “Night Moves,” “Mainstreet” and “Against the Wind” are about memories of being young. “Old Time Rock & Roll” and “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” are about being untrendy and proud of it. For Mr. Seger, oldies date to rock’s early years; he looked back to Chuck Berry songs from the 1950s, playing them (“C’est
la Vie”) and openly emulating them (“Katmandu”).

In the 21st century Mr. Seger’s kind of rock is more often heard on country stations than amid the punk-pop and post-grunge that are now classified as rock. “Wait for Me,” a ballad about restlessness and loyalty, has made the country charts. Yet while most of his new album was recorded in Nashville, Mr. Seger hasn’t gone country so much as country has pumped itself up.

Mr. Seger’s new songs are grounded in riffs that echo the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and the Who, and they have a growing streak of middle-aged disillusionment. “No Matter Who You Are,” with piano chords out of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” observes, “This is an ancient test, this is a shiny lie/Discover somethin’ pure then sit and watch it die.”

The album also has some political songs — the anti-Iraq-war song “No More” and the environmentalist “Between” — but Mr. Seger left them out of the live set. The concert was an affirmation of tenacity, of coming to terms with time; not defying it, like a Rolling Stones concert, but living with its consequences. One of the ballads Mr. Seger sang was “Beautiful Loser”: “He wants to dream like a young man, with the wisdom of an old man.” It was a song he released back in 1975.