Bob Seger – I Knew You When

The point is, no one seems really pleased with Bob Seger’s I Knew You When, with his talk-singing delivery and the endless remarks about this belief in our American democracy delivered with his take on Lou Reed’s “Busload Of Faith”, or his tribute to Glenn Frey of the Eagles, which is only available on the deluxe edition.

If anything, his Silver Bullet Band sounds tight and incendiary, and is perhaps the shining point of the entire outing, causing me to walk that delicate line, balanced between whether musicians should engage in politics or not, as I’m not one who wishes to be preached to … yet on the other hand, we surely need those who will stand and remind us that we need to  rail against the walls.  I’ve lived through two generations of insanity, the first being Richard Nixon, then George W. Bush, and here I am, standing at the door of insanity once again, refusing to even mention the orange faced man’s name who sits behind the oval desk spewing out more lies in such a brief time, more than any other president in their entire career.  But I digress.

It saddened me to hear the song “I Remember You,” which sounds for all the world as if Mr. Seger is singing to himself and his past, when he stood for nothing but rock n’ roll, with songs that took concert goers by storm.  That being said, I’ve never been one to have ever heard a Bob Seger album that was totally satisfying or worth keeping as a whole, causing me over the last forty years to be continually adding to a never ending compilation.  I was equally dismayed when I got to the number “The Sea Inside,” where Seger attempts to recreate the bombastic sonic achievements of Led Zeppelin, a bold undertaking for sure, and something people who loved this man should have stopped him from doing, because friends do not let friends channel Led Zeppelin, as Zeppelin were a singular moment in time.  And if that weren’t enough, the following track “Marie” is drawn straight from the catalog of Leonard Cohen, yet coming out of the mouth of Bob Seger, yet again, the song feels out of place, out of time, and un-belonging to this artist.  

There are several tracks that inspire inspiration “Runaway Train” and Forward Into The Past”, yet part way into each of them, they too fall far short, mere shadows of the greatness that once was, reminding me that it truly is better to fade away than to turn to rust, that even releasing this album on super heavy 180 gram vinyl will never give it the weight or depth to allow it to resound when compared to numbers such as “Against The Wind,” “You Will Accompa’ny Me” or his cover of “California Stars,” where he actually owned that song and then shattered our internal beings with “Hollywood Nights” … which pretty much means that I’m gonna pretend this album never happened, immerse myself in the night moves of his past, when my skin was tight, my feet were light, and I could dance my way through “The Fire Inside”, ready to burst into tears, shouting back every lyric as if they were being sung to me alone, and the people around me making space for a wide-eyed girl to have her moment to stroll into the sun.

Review by Jenell Kesler

I Knew You When is the upcoming eighteenth studio album by American rock singer–songwriter Bob Seger. It is scheduled for release on November 17, 2017. The album was recorded in Nashville and Detroit and produced by Seger himself.