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When you make a list of great albums of the rock era, Bob Seger’s first studio album with The Silver Bullet Band, Night Moves, inevitably will get a mention. As Capital Records is releasing Night Moves in 180-gram vinyl today, it seems like a good time to evaluate that contention.

In Night Moves opening track, Rock and Roll Never Forgets Seger sings, “all of Chuck’s children are out there, playing his licks.” Seger is foreshadowing, Night Moves being, if nothing else, a Chuck Berry influenced album. The Fire Down Below, Sunspot Baby, Come to Papa, Mary Lou and Rock and Roll Never Forgets itself, all are, to one degree or another, excellent examples of “Chuck’s children playing his licks.”

But while Night Moves is a great rock and roll album, it is marked by it’s acoustic/slower songs, especially two: Night Moves and Mainstreet. Both are coming of age songs, the first about teen romance in the back of a car, the latter a few years later, a young adult crush on a lady no mother would approve of. Night Moves is Seger’s signature song, the one that gets compared, fairly, to Hotel California or Jungleland, It is the biggest hit of a career of memorable hits, while Mainstreet may be the most romantic song ever written about a stripper.

Soundwise, the 180-gram version of Night Moves is excellent. I’m not sure if it has been remastered, or they are using the famous late-90’s Punch Andrews remaster. However, the sound is excellent, with instrument separation being clear. If you’ve never really heard the organ on top of Night Moves, the funky James Brown rhythm guitar in Come to Papa, the acoustic guitar in Mainstreet, it is a treat.

If you’re re-buying all those old albums you got rid of when you bought a CD player, Night Moves in 180-gram vinyl is an album you want. If your Dad is re-buying all his old albums, kids, I guarantee you he will like this one for Father’s Day. And if your a hipster that has cleaned out the Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd section of your local record store and are wondering what you should get next, Night Moves should be next.

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Bob Seger, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Bob Seger, Capital Records, Mainstreet, Night Moves, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Sunspot Baby, UMe

A guy knows what he’s going to get when he buys a Bob Seger record: rock and roll played on a straight four beat. Add in a dash of new country guitar pickin’ and you have a Bob Seger album for the new millennium. It used to be such an album was something to look forward to with eager anticipation, as I fondly recall doing for Like a Rock in the mid-80’s. But Seger’s songwriting has diminished over the years, his ability to find a new, unique, interesting way to play an E-chord exhausted, and what’s left is a collection of familiar sounding songs.

There’s nothing wrong with Ride Out, Seger’s latest album, released this week. If you liked his last number of albums, you’ll like this one well enough. The collection of decent songs, in fact, improve on multiple listens, and the early released songs, Detroit Made, Hey Gypsy and The Devil’s Right Hand after a few weeks of listening are my favorites on the album. The same can’t be said, however, of You Take Me In, the early release balled which was boring on first listen, and boring now that’s it’s heard in the context of a full album.

Seger has a go at politics with It’s Your World, a song in which he decries the state of the world without offering solutions (it is a bit rich, the multi-millionaire singer complaining about cash is king), and if the depth of Your World amounts to the depth of Seger’s politics, it’s a good thing there’s 50-years between here to The Ballad of the Yellow Beret. His attempt at Americana, Adam and Eve, also fails pretty miserably.

Hey Gypsy, on the other hand, Seger’s tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, is an album highlight. You’ve never heard a Texas shuffle played so squarely, so tightly on the beat, as this, but it works magnificently and will likely be a strong addition to Seger’s live set in his upcoming tour. The acoustic song, Listen, one of the bonus songs on the Deluxe Edition of Ride Out, is another highlight of the album.

There’s a number of good enough songs on Ride Out, but let’s also be clear, there’s no Hollywood Nights or Rock and Roll Never Forgets, no ballads as good as Mainstreet, no acoustic numbers of the calibre of Night Moves or Against the Wind. If your looking for Seger to find that magic touch he had from the mid-70’s to the mid-80’s you’ll be disappointed. But if your looking for Seger to meet or exceed what he has done the last couple of albums, he has.

Tracklist

Detroit Made
Hey Gypsy
The Devils Right Hand
Ride Out
Adam and Eve
California Stars
It’s Your World
All of the Roads
You Take Me In
Gates of Eden

Listen (Deluxe Edition only)*
The Fireman’s Talkin’ (Deluxe Edition only)*
Let the Rivers Run (Deluxe Edition only)*

*(Note: There is a Target only CD version with 2 extra songs)

Album release, Bob Seger, Record Release, Review Bob Seger, Detroit Made, Hey Gypsy, Hollywood Nights, Like a Rock, Mainstreet, Night Moves, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Stevie Ray, Stevie Ray Vaughan