Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

Video ends with scores of dejected fans shut out from buying Bruce tix: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577187410568254898.html

Hmm, lots of the new songs (I guess the album has leaked, too) have looped drums and gospel singing. But the lyrics are pretty specific about contemporary class warfare. Interesting Trojan horse approach, slick music, direct lyrics.

wait if the music is accessible and the lyrics are unambigous, what is the Trojan horse aspect?

The music is sort of big and slick, but the lyrics sneakily not strident. Ergo, the catchy stuff gets played on the radio/embraced by the masses, despite being subversively pro-99%.

but the masses ARE part of the 99%.

But the masses don't give a shit about the political aspect of that reality. Which is why we have Republicans.

I hope I'm not picking on you, but how are "slick" music and "direct" lyrics an example of subversion or a Trojan horse approach? I can understand how the booming beat lent a jingoistic fervor to the chorus of "Born in the USA," but otherwise slick music and direct lyrics have been staples of pop music since, I dunno, forever.

yeah, in one post the lyrics are "pretty specific" and "direct," in another they're "sneak[y]" and "subversive"....i haven't heard the record so i don't know which is more correct but your inconsistent choice of words just made me scratch my head

The new stuff I've listened to is outight poppy, not just generically "pop," which is where I hear the subversion. And I'm up for some examples of directly, explicitly *political* lyrics in pop music. I don't think it happens that often, but maybe I'm too tired to think of examples.

Haven't heard it but I guess what Josh is saying is that the lyrics are not only direct but anti-establishment. It's not a staple of pop music to have anti-establishment lyrics set to radio-friendly tunes.

Yeah, this. Sorry for being unclear.

The country-folk stomper "Shackled and Drawn" has lyrics that could have almost come from the Woody Guthrie songbook: "Gambling man rolls the dice, workingman pays the bill/ It’s still fat and easy up on banker’s hill/ Up on banker’s hill, the party’s going strong/ Down here below we’re shackled and drawn."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-stream-bruce-springsteens-new-song-shackled-and-drawn-20120221

You'll find examples in lots of country music (e.g. Brad Paisley's "Welcome to the Future"). Springsteen's done it himself: "My Hometown," "Radio Nowhere," "Badlands."

Radio Nowhere and Badlands are pretty oblique, I think. My Hometown is explicit, yeah, but it's also totally downbeat and hardly what I'd consider "poppy." Paisley is a good example, I guess, but even he is kind of cagey about what he's singing about, equating the wonder of playing video games on his phone with having a black president.

"My Hometown" is a pop ballad. I mean, it hit #6.

Popular is not pop. And by then Bruce could have recorded the Pledge of Allegiance and charted.

Popular is not pop

oh ok

Is this "country-folk stomper" song poppy? I don't have access to it right now.

Eh, I think it's poppy. At least, it sounds sort of upbeat.

And Alfred, I don't know if you were teasing or not, but do you mean that charting alone automatically conveys popness? Like, if it charts, it's definitively pop? I mean, I'm not saying that's wrong, but I guess I don't really believe that.

who produced this? it sounds like shit modern rock

Some shit modern rock guy! Seriously, like the worst dude ever.

Dude who produced Lifehouse, Jars of Clay and some other red-flag shit.

dude if you're gonna say that anything Bruce can do now will ever straddle a subversive/meaningful pop divide more than Born In The U.S.A. did then you're just wrong

Dude who produced Lifehouse, Jars of Clay and some other red-flag shit.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, February 21, 2012 10:57 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha that sounds just about right!

xpost I never said this MOR 2012 stuff was more subversive than anything else, let alone BitUSA.

he looks like he is going to guitar himself a hernia in that video

WHEN I'M OUT IN THE STREET
OH-OH-OH-OH
I WALK THE WAY I WANNA WALK

otm

My Hometown is explicit, yeah, but it's also totally downbeat and hardly what I'd consider "poppy."

another big difference between the "shackled and drawn" lyrics quoted above and those of "my hometown" is that the latter is an elegy that doesn't identify anyone in particular as having been responsible for the death in question. it's about the loss of smalltown america, and as such, played into the combination of nostalgia and anxiety that pushed so many democrats into reagan's column during the 80s. if you read it a certain way, it might even seem to blame the loss on "fights between the black and white" and how these led to "troubled times"...

"shackled and drawn" seems much more explicitly leftist in its 99%er willingness to directly blame "bankers".

i get josh in chicago's point about the "trojan horse" strategy of "we take care of our own": pretty tunes, patriotic appeals and slick pop production get your woody guthrie style quasi-socialist anthem played on radio and stuck in people's heads. hopefully.

have to say that i don't like either of these songs. WTCOOO is the better of the two (S&D's combo of strident vocals, syrupy sweetening and froom-style production trickery grates).

so is this new album just fucking horrible? i kind of imagine it is.

the single makes me cringe so bad. Bruce, why do you do this to me.

OK, heard the new album. Not horrible, mostly because the sentiment and songs are strong, but the production is a problem. Lots of dated 90s faux-hip hop loops, which are sort of jarring against the other songs which are, like, rootsy Irish rock. Lyrics are all pretty much on point. I can imagine much of this great live. Studio "Land of Hope and Dreams" is pretty massive, crap intrusive drum loop aside.

Why doesn't this dude just produce his own records, live band in a room? Seeger Sessions was awesome.

Which is to say: five stars in Rolling Stone!

Production's been a particular problem of his for twenty years.

Here's the place to ask (I almost created a separate thread): anyone willing to defend Human Touch and Lucky Town these days? They've almost been written out of the Springsteen canon.

he should record with albini (serious)

i get josh in chicago's point about the "trojan horse" strategy of "we take care of our own": pretty tunes, patriotic appeals and slick pop production get your woody guthrie style quasi-socialist anthem played on radio and stuck in people's heads. hopefully.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but like -- he hasn't been on top 40 radio in ages, outside of maybe the occasional conservative in his boomer fanbase isn't this pretty much preaching to the choir defined?

and his boomer fanbase doesn't listen to Nicki Minaj.

yeah, i just meant on the offchance that the song does happen happen to cross a few more conservatively-inclined ears. trojan-horsey in the same sense that "born in the USA" was, though less likely to succeed on pop radio/playlists.

a springsteen album w albini production would be great! or, well, might be. and there's always the rick rubin cred rehab route.

yeah he needs to just get old already

i say this with love

i'm just looking forward to the bootlegs of demos coming out

Yeah, that hasn't happened since "BitUSA," alas. Dude's stuff is on lockdown.

xposting, I think "Lucky Town" is OK, but "Human Touch" is easily his worst record. Even he made fun of it on tour, joking that it was a bestseller in Norway or something.

Anyway, I don't think those two albums have been any more written out of the canon than "Ghost of Tom Joad," "Devils & Dust," "Working on a Dream." "Magic," it's hard to say. "The Rising" has stuck around, though. "Seeger Sessions," the best thing he's done in 25 years, exists in a weird parallel universe.

I mean, "Lucky Town" has "If I Should Fall Behind," which is great.

yeah, i just meant on the offchance that the song does happen happen to cross a few more conservatively-inclined ears. trojan-horsey in the same sense that "born in the USA" was, though less likely to succeed on pop radio/playlists.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:27 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you actually think a springsteen song has the power to changes minds about something important? you are more optimistic than i am.

I'll say this: I still think Springsteen has the potential to do that, yes. As much as any musician of his stature.