Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

Cohen managed to be consistently solid with regular hits of brilliance right up until his literal deathbed recordings

(ok maybe not literal but as close as you'd want to get)

Yeah, and I read that he was still working on three other albums when he left the building. I like that You Want It Darker is like he just stepped out for a minute--it doesn't sound in need of any more work, but he's still in the midst of his ongoing interests, concerns, takes on things---no Grand Sunset Summation---also no last leap, but he ain't Bowie, never was, despite his own taste for dramatic turns.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, John Prine and Leonard Cohen are all good examples of other artists with long careers, more or less regular recording or touring activity (they've all had dry spells), and roughly consistent quality. You can nitpick at the differences, but they're close enough. I really wouldn't question the inclusion of Neil Young at all - his late '80s to mid '90s resurgence with Freedom/El Dorado, Ragged Glory, Weld and Sleeps with Angels is simply stunning with work that rivals his very best, and Le Noise and Prairie Wind (especially Jonathan Demme's accompanying film, Heart of Gold) were both excellent - those are just the highlights, even his lesser albums continued to have gems. Robert Christgau put Americana on his decade's best list - I don't like it as much, but there's at least four of five cuts on there that are amazing. The main criticism I have against him is that his current and still-prolific output would be stronger if he became more selective about what he released. (I'm referring to his new music, not the archival releases.)

I underestimated John Prine and sadly I didn't realize that until I explored his catalog after he passed. His albums are often uneven, but he put out a LOT of albums. Like Van Morrison and a few others, he's someone who had more than enough material for a stunning box set but never had one put together. Virtually all of his albums had gems, and he even made a great duets album as well as a good follow-up - how many artists make duets albums that are more than curious anomalies in their catalog? Maybe Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, George Jones and Melba Montgomery or Tammy Wynette, but not many and not even Sinatra.

(And Marvin Gaye and his various duet partners - how can I forget them?)

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, John Prine and Leonard Cohen

I'd say one difference is that the late (or later) career bests of these guys are about as good as or at least stand up to their early peaks, but Bruce's later stuff by and large is not, even the stuff I like a lot. Just bein' real, love Bruce.

Very true. I put Love and Theft and Times Square (or Freedom and El Dorado) up there with their greatest work. Live in London is the definitive Leonard Cohen album for me - his studio albums weren't really produced that well and I'd rather hear his classics in that context with his gloriously aged voice. And The Missing Years, In Spite of Ourselves and The Tree of Forgiveness absolutely rank with Prine's best - there's maybe two or three earlier Prine albums that would compete with them in my top five favorite Prine albums.

i know i’m the person itt who goes on and on about how good magic is but i’m listening to it right now and the first six or seven tracks in a row are all top tier bruce imo. good lyrics too

for my money the best springsteen post-joad is this and some songs from devils & dust (“long time comin,” my favorite springsteen song). but maybe i should listen to wrecking ball again

Those are all good! Just not up to the standards of everything up through Tunnel of Love, imo.

I may have posted this already, but in terms of whole albums, I like and still have Lucky Town, Devils & Dust, Magic, The Promise (if that counts - an archival release, but some new recording was done to finish a substantial part of it), Wrecking Ball and Springsteen on Broadway. In the case of The Rising, I just burned an LP-length version that tosses out seven of the tracks and substitutes "My City of Ruin" for the live-in-the-studio version. In Brendan O'Brien's defense, I think he tried to pare that one down, but Springsteen pushed back and said he wanted it to be a long one.

I don't really agree with the position of Bob Dylan in all this as 'consistently great' - because most people think he went off in some way after, say, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS (or indeed JWH), and has made a comeback since, say, TIME OUT OF MIND.

In truth, most of us here probably love Dylan and we love it when we hear the Dylan in between those periods too. I even enjoy EMPIRE BURLESQUE and play it often! But I think Dylan realistically is a fair example of someone who dipped or lost his way, to a degree, then found it again, or found a new way.

I do accept that 'consistently good' isn't a very rock & roll aspiration, and might be less artistically important than 'occasional unpredictable peaks'. But I think it's what Bruce has done. And I don't find him mediocre at all; often thrilling and soaring.

Well, for sure Neil Young has had his own erratic stretches, too. But he and Dylan, for example, are still capable of consistent stretches of greatness on par with their best. Yet Bruce himself is so thrilling and soaring that he can make even his mediocre stuff great. That's his magic trick, iirc. Look up that video of him covering Bryan Adams for proof.

Out of curiosity, pinefox, which of Bruce's recent work do you find thrilling and soaring? I'm not asking this to disagree, I love Bruce and I'm glad people are still getting a lot out of his current music even if it doesn't appeal to me.

I don't really agree with the position of Bob Dylan in all this as 'consistently great' - because most people think he went off in some way after, say, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS (or indeed JWH), and has made a comeback since, say, TIME OUT OF MIND.
The more unforgiving critics behind that assessment would probably argue that Springsteen lost his way after Tunnel of Love. I don't really agree with either assessment, but I don't think I'd give more weight to one less forgiving take over the other either.

I don't want to put down Springsteen because I think he's done quite a bit of good work since 1987, but I can't say it was nearly consistent as his run of albums from The Wild, The Innocent... through Tunnel of Love. I could see an argument being made that the best moments did reach those heights, but Human Touch, Working on a Dream and High Hope are some pretty low valleys by any standard. ("Human Touch," "The Last Carnival," "The Wrestler," "The Wall" and "Hunter of Invisible Game" are all good tracks though.)

"Hopes" (typo)

I'm not putting the guy down. I think every album he has released has at least a few good songs on it, because he's a very good songwriter! He just doesn't put out particularly good albums anymore. The really good songs are often now balanced out by not just mediocre songs but the presence of a few outright bad songs, a relatively recent phenomenon that began around Human Touch (whose title track I should note absolutely kills when he does it these days.)

I don't agree that he releases 'a few outright bad songs' per LP. I don't think he even releases one.

Lily Dale: soaring or thrilling Bruce? Say in the 21st century? Let's see:

Lonesome Day. Further On. You're Missing. The Rising.
Devils & Dust. All The Way Home.
Radio Nowhere. Magic. Girls in their Summer Clothes. Last To Die.
Working on a Dream. Queen of the Supermarket. Surprise, Surprise.
Save My Love [allowing that one rerecorded song on THE PROMISE]
We Take Care Of Our Own. Jack of all Trades. Wrecking Ball. We Are Alive.
Hitch Hikin. The Wayfarer. Tucson Train. Sundown. Stones. There Goes My Miracle.

That's more than I could put together for most other artists this century.

Because he is a great songwriter!

His first outright bad song he released imo was 57 channels and Nothin' On.

"57 Channels" is kind of funny, but "The Angel" and "Mary Queen of Arkansas" are pretty bad. (I wish he re-recorded most of that first album.)

57 Channels wasn't bad the way he did it at Christic. If he'd recorded it that way and released it as a b-side, I don't think anyone would have complained.

Yeah, "The Angel" and "Mary Queen of Arkansas" are pretty terrible, and I find "For You" kind of embarrassing as well, though I know people like it. And "Drive All Night" is pretty bad as well imo. The much-maligned "Crush on You," otoh, is a goddamn delight that I will defend with my heart's blood.

Drive All Night is a thing of beauty, my fists clench upon hearing a dissenting opinion.

I think Drive All Night is kind of boring, but I don't mind it. I love For You.

In terms of Bad Bruce, "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" is kind of a useful case study. When "The Rising" came out I honestly kind of liked the song for its almost childlike simplicity, optimism and innocence, a counter to the darkness of a lot of the rest of that album, right down to its corny title. (Even though I also have to admit I at least at first thought of the title in the context of the totally clear and beautiful weather of 9/11). But then the way the song has developed as a set centerpiece, and the way that Bruce has used it to embrace his cheesiest instincts, by turning it into a singalong with little kids, I dunno ... it kind of introduced nu-Bruce to the world. Admittedly, it's so shamelessly square and uncool I do sometimes even enjoy the kiddie singalong live, but it definitely marked a new stage for him as a performer and, in retrospect, maybe as a writer, since he's written plenty of songs sort of loosely like that one since.

no Grand Sunset Summation

God, Cohen’s ”Going Home” is one of the all-time great Grand Sunset Summations.

One of the things I love about Bruce is that almost no one can agree on which are his terrible songs and which are his masterpieces.

Dude's run of teerrrrrrrrrrible album covers is legendary.

It really is absolutely remarkable.

WESTERN STARS has a good cover.

So does THE PROMISE.

Following the challenge of naming some thrilling later Bruce songs, I realise that the reverse also applies for me: there are quite a lot of earlier Bruce records I don't find that exciting.

ASBURY PARK I'm afraid doesn't do much for me.
(I don't really know E STREET SHUFFLE.)
THE RIVER amazes me by how much of it is average bar-room rock, with a few outstanding songs doing something different.
BORN IN THE USA also doesn't really live up to its reputation - it's remarkably cheesy with songs like 'darlington county' (praised above) and 'glory days' - I can enjoy these but I don't think they're more profound than much of Bruce since say 2005.
And then we can probably agree that HUMAN TOUCH and LUCKY TOWN are patchy.

Which leaves, for me, BORN TO RUN, NEBRASKA and TUNNEL OF LOVE as the really consistently marvellous earlier records.

And leads me to the conclusion that while, like most of you, I love Bruce, unlike you I'm not sure I love his earlier records more than his later ones. I think he's always done good things, always been loveable (more than almost anyone else in pop), but he's only rarely been purely excellent across a whole LP - that's not a recent phenomenon.

re: Josh's post re 'sunny day' - it is an oddity that he keeps releasing things like 'Mary's Place' and recently 'Sleepy Joe's Café'. But this goes back to the corny bar room feeling of THE RIVER in a way?

I don't even think '57 Channels' is bad.

Even though I can tell HUMAN TOUCH isn't really Bruce at his best, it can still thrill me - the guitar break on 'Man's Job'!

I recall liking "Man's Job" just fine, maybe from the "Unplugged" set? I'm not sure I consider "Lucky Town" patchy, and it does make me wonder what Bruce might have sounded like going even *more* MOR. There seemed to be a lot like this one floating around in the margins in the '90s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jssnRkHODE0

He did play "Mary's Place" a lot as a big rave up touring "The Rising," but I'm not sure it's made many appearances since then (as with most of the "Rising" material, "Sunny Day" and title track aside).

What I love about "Born in the USA" is that (for songs like "Glory Days" or "Darlington") it adds to the party rock vibe of "The River" a mirthful sense of humor that only comes from middle age, which tempers (or expands on) the otherwise pervasive theme of ... curdled nostalgia? "The River" (the album) I love for its unbalanced diversity, for lack of a better term. It's all over the place but never less than totally confident, even when it's being frivolous.

But Pinefox, you should definitely dive into "E Street Shuffle," it's the real apex of his early, funky sort of pan-genre sound, before he goes widescreen cinema with "Born to Run."

'Sad Eyes' - another little masterpiece!

Yeah, stuff like that, "Lift Me Up" ... he made a bunch of synth gems. Lotta them seemed to end up on soundtracks or, in the case of "Sad Eyes," with Enrique Iglesias. Half the comments are en espanol!

Extraordinary!

https://youtu.be/iJUm1hzTaTg

Sounds to me like Iglesias, like many covers, changes the chords and makes them less effective, for no evident reason.

side 2 of the E Street Shuffle FTW

never listened to Tracks, should fix that

Some good stuff on that.

"For You" is a bad song on paper, but I loved it when he performed it solo on "The Saint, The Incident, and the Main Point Shuffle" (my very first Springsteen bootleg) - it's from a February 1975 show that was broadcast in Philly, and he puts the song across and then some. (At least to me!)

"Drive All Night" was awesome when it was a one-minute interlude on those epic live performances of "Backstreets" from 1978. Expanding it on its own into a turgid 8-and-a-half minutes was a huge mistake. I get why he sequenced it on The River, conceptually where he placed it is kind of brilliant, but it ends up sinking the experience as it plods up to "I swear I'll drive all night just to buy you some SHOES."

"Waitin' on a Sunny Day" is great LIVE. He plays up the humor, it's always fun, and you can see how one of those performances would have made a great little B-side. But on the album, sandwiched between the solemn "Into the Fire" and "Nothing Man," delivered with an equally straight-faced vocal, it can be awful. When I first heard "I'm like a drummer without a beat," "(like) an ice cream truck on a deserted street" sung without a wink or a smile, I just thought, "man, I'm sure this is supposed to be funny, because he doesn't sound like it is."

FWIW, "Into the Fire" and "Worlds Apart" are also much better live - they belong on the album for conceptual reasons, but I wish they had arranged and performed them like they do live (see the 2002 Barcelona DVD for a good example).

Yeah, "Sad Eyes" is a gem, much better than nearly everything on Human Touch. I kind of like the quiet, mood pieces that wound up as outtakes, but I can see why he shelved most of them, it's not something that would sustain a whole album.

Lucky Town has one outright dud for me: "Leap of Faith." I think I resequenced the album by removing it, then adding "Human Touch" at the start and sequencing it so that "Better Days" kicks off what would be 'Side B.' That's the album I wish he put out in 1992.

I like "Darlington County" and "Glory Days," they're done all shiny and poppy and the latter has been overplayed and overused in a terrible way, but lyrically "Glory Days" is pretty great. (Again, part of Springsteen's appeal to me is how he's successfully adapted an art form that at its best was long associated with youth.) "Darlington County" is catchy enough that I have no ill will towards it, I enjoy it.

I like those party rock tunes on The River too (and that includes "Crush on You"). I thought that was a great concept of making all of those songs work together. It's not just a manic-depressive split, it really is cinematic in building this whole community where you picture those different songs capturing all sides of life for the characters inhabiting that world. I think the darker songs work differently and in this case more effectively when they're not presented in this vacuum where their lives are devoid of the euphoria or hedonistic abandon the party songs capture. (Even Nebraska has a bit of that in the Chuck Berry numbers like "Open All Night," except he takes it a step further, making the sound organic to the more harrowing numbers and most notably arranging those songs so that they seemed to be played in complete isolation.)

I like Springsteen's album covers up to and including Tunnel of Love. Some rightfully iconic ones, and they all fit their albums well. It's not until the local-magazine-advertisement flavor of Human Touch and Lucky Town that it really gets bad. Why are they so terrible anyway? It's the same with Dylan. They're still on Sony/Columbia, don't they have good art departments? (On a related noted, here's Jeff Gold's blog entry on working with Prince. Gives you an idea of how things should work when someone submits a bad album cover.)

My theory on big stars with bad album covers is that once they reach a certain level they get more artistic control and then either they have no idea about design themselves or they delegate it to some friend or family member who fancies themselves a designer.

Makes sense.

Okay, this is awesome.

At one point, he asked with incredulity ‘What do you want me to do, wear overalls like R.E.M.?’ A bit later he said ‘Maybe I should have some clothes made for you’. I was wearing jeans and a button up shirt; he was wearing lime green skin-tight pants, high-heel boots, and a day-glo green, pin-striped, see-through shirt.

My favorite part that I so wish we could have seen is this:

After one pause, he said ‘show me some album covers you’ve done.’ I ran upstairs to my office and collected about 20 cd’s I’d worked on, most from my previous job at A&M Records. He looked at each one, saying something dismissive about it...

I would feel bad for Gold but you know Prince would be saying some mean yet hilarious shit.

Yet another excellent interview for the books:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bruce-springsteen-interview-new-album-touring-e-street-band-1059109/

Tons of great personal stuff, of course, in this case re: old friends, Clarence and race in particular, but also news (old news?) that he has been working on a second Tracks set, may have a couple of shelved albums ready to release (he's always saying that), that Max says he has redone some drums on at least 40 songs from the archives, that they were planning to tour in spring 2021 but probably won't tour until 2022. I'm still always shocked how thoughtful and smart and honest he is about so much.

For example:

For Springsteen, the Black Lives Matter movement has unearthed truths he hadn’t quite grasped, even when he became the rare white rock star to take on police violence against black Americans with “American Skin (41 Shots),” back in 2000. “White supremacy and white privilege have gone much deeper than I thought they did,” he says. “I think my feeling previously to the past three or four years was that racism and white supremacy and white privilege were veins in our extremities, rather than an aorta that cuts through the very heart of the nation, which I feel it is now. So that was eye-opening, whether I was previously stupidly innocent to that or not.”

He’s proud that his 30-year-old son, Evan, has been marching in New York City. “There’s not going to be any post-racial society,” Springsteen says. “That’s never gonna happen. But I think that a society where people really see one another as full men and women, as Americans, is possible. It’s a movement of tremendous hope, and it’s a tremendously diverse group of young people that are out on the street. And it’s a movement that history is demanding right now.”

I love him more as I grow older. Only recently got into "Tougher Than the Rest" which is kind of the archetypal Bruce song

Super-surprised more country people don't cover Bruce. Check out this loveliness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfeh5rTv2rM

Yeah, that's a good interview. I'm feeling a little more hopeful about the album based on some of the song descriptions, though I'm trying not to get my hopes too high. Love Steve van Zandt saying of Bruce (re: the very gradual shift in his approach to recording), "He's a little slow."

yeah new album sounds like it could be good

The first Bruce single I bought was the cassingle of 57 Channels, then the first album I listened to closely was The Rising (which I got off Kazaa) which, I think, doesn’t have a single bad track on it. It’s a great intro-to-Bruce record. That said, Magic is the last thing of his I’ve had patience for (Living In the Future is THE BEST, i will brook no disagreement).