Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

But saying that because one doesn't want to 'dig deeper' brings into the question of 'why have an opinion to start with?' -- that I'll object to strongly. Opinion and reaction is not quantifiable on a universal scale (yes, an obvious trope, but bear with me) -- it didn't take even a full song for me to start REALLY hating Rage Against the Machine 12 years ago, and I couldn't have been more engaged with it if I tried, I was at a show surrounded by tons of fans, including a slew of friends, and they were all going crazy with excitement. Similarly earlier this year when I saw the Mars Volta open for A Perfect Circle, I thought they were pretty good, then asked my friends about it -- one said, "I hated it from the first minute in and couldn't wait for it to get finished," and the rest agreed. Am I supposed to say, "You're not FEELING it, man!" or something? Heavens no, it was said, it was valid, we talked about it for a bit, talked about other things a lot more, saw A Perfect Circle (who were great) and I lost no sleep. The conversation didn't need to be interesting, however that's meant to be measured, for the opinions to matter.

(At his most rock nostalgiac, Springsteen's vision of the fifties and the sixties is really more a wised-up vision of the early sixties: Spector, Pitney, Del Shannon et al with 'poetic' Dylan damage.)

Mind you, I'm not saying that engaging or "getting" an artist has to result in liking or even tolerating them: I'm just saying that I think it's kinda necessary to at least *try* to see the other side's point of view and see how that effects your own judgement, otherwise I don't see the point. It's a lot to do with how you go about things, of course: "you're failing to engage with the artist" can just as easily be interpreted as "OMG YOU'RE LISTENING ALL WRONG!!", which I agree is a silly statement, as it can be interpreted as "well, why don't you look at it this way?", which I think is one of the main purposes of discussing music...trying to figure out what someone else hears in it to enrichen your own listening experience, be it positive or negative.

Looking at Bruce in the other ways described above are interesting enough, I suppose, but they just don't change the core feeling that I'm exhausted by his music, bored with his singing, unmoved by his subject matter, nonplussed with the combination in toto. The cartoon pop Tico alludes to above is about all I can or would want to stand these days, and even that well runs dry swiftly. The one observation I find quite moving in recent posts is Lauren's take on hearing "Atlantic City" in a silent but packed arena, a striking image. Then again, were I there I would be resisting the urge to shout or scream or just do something to disrupt the hush (because I wouldn't want to be then beaten up).

Now let's use the Pumpkins again as a counter-example -- everything I lurve about them is so specifically keyed in to my own particular set of expectations and ability to be thrilled that something like my 136 list essay on Mellon Collie -- like just about everything else I write, I'd wager -- reads less like a call to engage with something or a response to objections than a simple explanation of why I like something. Does something like what I wrote actually enrichen anyone's negative viewpoint on the band? How?

Ok, so none of the explanations given on this thread have managed to make you look at DA Boss in a different light, too bad. But surely you're not suggesting that NO explanation EVER will possibly be able to do that? Because that sounds kinda sad to me (sad as in sad, not sad as in pathetic.)

You might be right about the casual conversation thing; I guess it's just a bit hard to distinguish between who's in Serious Analysis Mode and who's in Casual Banter mode sometimes, which might account for a lot of the conflict on this thread. For what it's worth, I still don't see the attraction of the "hey btw guys, I really hate this" post; it strikes me as childish, flippant and smug...but then, I guess I just hate flippancy in general, especially because I tend to engage in it so much myself despite knowing better, so different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I apologize in advance for splitting hairs here -- are you talking about an explanation actually changing my mind about La Bruce's work (which I doubt severely) or simply one which results in a situation where I acknowledge that others see something different in his work? Besides I do already acknowledge that!

Possibly, but genre is one hell of a slippery subject, and personally I think there would be as much division as there is unity. If you like, consider -- who or what is more 'funky,' the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Timbaland?

(note to self: learn latin, sign contract with indie label)

i don't take meltzer's stuff as gospel--he's not a prophet, obviously. there's a certain kneejerk resentment present in a lot of his work--i think it comes from his determination to, perhaps, love rock for its simultaneous evasion of meaning and bedrock simplicity?

but i do think that his point--it's reprinted in his "whore just like the rest" collection which i can't put my hands on right now--is that bruce is a cartoon of the "rebellion" of the '50s and the "political consciousness" of the '60s. and i got nothing against either one, in fact i think they're both essential, otherwise i wouldn't take the trouble to communicate here on this board, or think about rock and roll at all. and i think it's a point worth thinking about.

for me, i simply don't need bruce springsteen for either "rebellion" or for "political consciousness." in america, and certainly down here in the southern part of the country, folks often could use a lot of more of both. and i think political consciousness often engenders rebellion, and again, i'm for it. i do believe that springsteen is sincere and not tin pan alley like billy joel, for example, but aesthetically i sometimes prefer tin pan alley in its pure form. dumb pop. which is hardly a new idea and can certainly lead one down the road to "incredibly strange music" and all that shit, but it can also lead to something else. which i am often as confused about as meltzer or anyone else who loves rock and roll...what the fuck is it?

aesthetically i just don't connect with bruce's overstatement. it just seems musclebound and obvious to me, and the poignance it's going for doesn't work for me either. does that make me shallow, that i get far more from fred wesley and the jbs than bruce, that i think their dumb party non-tunes contain more real "rebellion" and "political consciousness" than bruce, that their making a joke out of watergate on several mindless instrumental numbers with guitar and trombone solos is kind of what i need (i'll read history or the newspaper to get the rest)?

but as i say, i'm a rock fan and there are times when i think bruce has done some fairly cool stuff. overall, though, i enjoy thinking of him as the fonz far too much to worry about him much more than that. i mean part of the point of rock aesthetics as i see them is that it IS hard and maybe pointless to make distinction between "analysis mode" and "flippancy." and i'm dead serious about that!

I also think it's weird to think of him as a political-consciousness or rebellion guy; on those 5 records, anyway, he's much more about desperation and self-doubt -- even the anthems, which is what really trips people up.

Defend the Indefensible 7: Leonard Cohen

one of the more succint OTM posts on ILM, pretty much sums up my feelings about Nedly.

dave q. has made a version of this observation, and (if i decipher him correctly) so has christgau, but all the same: one thing that i think makes songs like "badlands" powerful is that they don't resort to a simple irony. the character whose voice springsteen sings in believes that his faith and love will allow him, by some magic, to transcend his present condition. rather than undercut this belief with a mournful tune/arrangement, springtseen keys the song/arrangement to the character's sense of hope and anger. thus: first we are asked to wholly empathize with this character, and the critical reflection will come (if it comes) only afterward.... or to make it less linear, there is a constant interplay between empathy and critical distance. thus lending the song something of the power of, well, say ford's fort apache where we see the cavalry march off to their certain deaths for a pointless cause AND understand and even admire their reasons for doing so.

not all springsteen songs work like this. nebraska is straightforwardly dejected, fatalistic much of the time, and when there is a hint of hope or a belief in transcendence, it's meant to seem small, pathetic. the irony is rather more pat.... not to say it's not a powerful record, it is, but i think perhaps this situation accounts for the fact that so many people who otherwise have difficulty appreciating springsteen really like that record.

but i can't think of a better metaphor to explain this. maybe someone can help?

Oh well. You can't start a fire worryin' 'bout your little world fallin' apart.

I was in a really bad relationship at the time.

I still see Born to Run as being a hopeful song but in the context of "Are you going to take this chance or are you going to sit on your ass in your stupid car on the parkway, you loser?" type of kick in the ass way.

I had no patience for Born in the USA for the longest time because I had to take a cross-country roadtrip with my entire family when I was about 12. The only tape my dad felt fit to bring with him, basically, was Born in the USA. 6 days of No Surrender stuck in a car with three screaming young children, a cat, two birds, FOUR dogs and your parents starts to really get to you. Recently I started listening to it again and kind of realized that I think Working on the Highway and Dancing in the Dark and I'm On Fire and I'm Going Down and even No Surrender are some of the greatest moments rock had to offer in the '80s.

But then also there's all those huge unbelieveable hooks, which is what made it sell a zillion copies and made everybody (including Springsteen?) misunderstand what was going on. And it's not like the hooks are bullshit, the hooks are great. There really is joy in the title track, no matter what the words say. I heard Max Weinberg once say that was his favorite song to play, and it shows. That album is really Springsteen grappling head-on with the contradictions between what he wanted to believe and what he actually knew (and what you knew he knew, coming right off Nebraska). It's a great big crisis of faith album, and it resolved nothing at all. "Dancing in the Dark" for damn sure.

Maybe we are just all getting old and losing our idealism.

It's an interesting take, at the least. That said, it slightly begs a question to my mind in that you could apply a similar argument to most anything else that is on-the-face-of-it cheery and hopeful -- if reflection and implied irony is strictly in the realm of the reader (or rather auditor), then theoretically I could apply that to every upbeat Britney song, say.

Then again, some of us might at heart just simply not like most of the music and singing...

I can understand just not liking the music and the singing, mind you, that's in the eye of the beholder. Or, uh, the ear of the auditor.

But they are normal words for me! Grad school does that to you! ;-)

half of America is apparently too stupid to actually LISTEN to the lyrics of Born in the USA

I think this sorta ties in with my argument that I don't listen for the lyrics much in the first place at all. If anything I'd argue I just spell out what most people actually feel when it comes to lyrics in the first place, though I can hardly claim to know everyone's mind on the matter in the Great Wide World. "Born in the USA" wasn't a hit because it was a reflective poetry reading on the meaning of loss and frustration, it was because people got off on the music.

Faulting him for people completely not getting it is kind of unfair.

Ah, my friend, thus we move into the perilous question of how one defines sonics in specifically verbal terms (trust me, I have no answer to that one and never will).

Faulting him for people completely not getting it is kind of unfair.

Is faulting everyone for not understanding what someone is 'really' trying to say equally unfair, though? *shrug* I have no answer to that one. I mean, there are some people who think that Morrissey only sings suicide anthems. I could spend all day arguing about everything from humor to pop references to film-star iconography instead, but I admit it's not really something that troubles me so much.

Actually, this is interesting, because thinking back to when I first heard the song, about the two things that stood out the most were the opening part about a dead man's town and the guy who died in Vietnam. I can't say I was particularly saddened or regretful about any of that, though, I wasn't moved to tears -- was it because I was only 13, was it because Vietnam was just a name and ancient history for me, or (as I'd argue is more likely, but who knows) were they just words?

For the record:

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said "Son, don't you understand"
I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.

No, I didn't say that -- I merely said I noted that there was a reference to Vietnam, I didn't know it was supposed to be sung by a vet. And I can't say anything else about those lyrics besides those two parts I mentioned stood out for me or were even heard as such -- I remember *at the time* noting those two moments clearly. The rest was just the rest.