Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

yeah, that's partly the stylizing I was talking about.

I was thinking the other day how Springsteen is notorious for his studio perfectionism, and yet literally none of his records would be held up as an exemplar of how records should sound. Meanwhile, the E Street Band is one of the most famous live acts of all time, known for its legendary concerts, and yet recording live as a band is something Springsteen rarely did, even if that approach resulted in his most successful record. So odd. I assume The Seeger Sessions was recorded live, too, and it sounds great, I wish all his records of the past few decades were that raw and raucous. Or, you know, sounded more like the new one.

btw, things you never knew had an answer:

So, yes, the question I've wanted to ask Bruce Springsteen my whole life is why does he refer to a fastball as a "speedball" in "Glory Days." pic.twitter.com/MDgTkd5M8h

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) October 22, 2019

The more I listen to "Burning Train" the more I like it. I think VG is otm about the Born in the USA vibe, but weirdly, it also reminds me of some of the unreleased outtakes from around the same time as BITUSA - stuff like "Unsatisfied Heart" and "Don't Back Down," with that drone in his voice and the even-more-repetitive-than-usual choruses and the semi-buried vocals. But more upbeat and rocking than those. I just love how many different incarnations of Bruce there are side by side in this album, including the ones you only see in outtakes. It's like one of those Doctor Who specials where all the Doctors show up at once.

So I came to Springsteen really late* and didn't even start following his new work in real time until Magic, but this is easily the best thing he's done in that timeframe. As others have noted, this is a good synthesis of "old Bruce" and "new Bruce", in really compelling ways. "If I Was the Priest" being a good example of both, obviously it has it's roots in the early '70s, but it really scans like one of those more narrative types of songs he's been trying, less successfully than he does here imo, in the past decade or so. And something like "Burnin' Train" just feels like some E Street classic that has surely already been played live for decades. The only one that doesn't work for me is "House of Thousand Guitars", otherwise I unreservedly love this entire record.

* - I was 8 when Born in the USA came out and remember really loving all those singles, but by the time Tunnel of Love had come out, I'd pegged him as distinctly uncool and ignored him for the 90s. Then, mostly incorrectly, I wrote off The Rising by lumping it in with all of the jingoistic post-9/11 stuff that was coming out and used that as confirmation bias about why he sucked. Obviously I've since come to grips with how stupid most of that was and really love most of his career (though I still haven't spent any time with his albums between Tunnel of Love and Devils & Dust)

Just listened to the podcast that came out when Letter to You was released, where he's interviewed by Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell. It's a good interview in general, but it would be worth listening to just for his impromptu performance of "Nebraska."

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bruce-springsteen/id1311004083?i=1000496210606

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

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, September 11, 2020 7:26 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

OMG! Yeah, this song is amazing. This song is the closest song in style to the Lucky Town album. Have you explored that album fully? I’m guessing you did, just throwing it out there, as I think that album has 6 or 7 brilliant songs in this vein.

His name is Timothée…
and he’s Bruce. pic.twitter.com/zIj9diwOvw

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) December 11, 2020

Garry Tallent is apparently not attending because of "Covid restrictions and concerns," which I suspect just means that Garry said, "Fuck no, I'm not risking my life performing in front of a live audience in a pandemic!"

If Garry still lives in Nashville, and since Tennessee is much more of a hot spot than NY, then I believe the NYC Covid quarantine requirements would make it difficult/impossible for him to adhere to the rehearsal and performance schedule.

Also, would this be the first E Street performance that Garry ever missed?

This morning he tweeted, "I don’t have the Vid and intend to avoid catching it. Stay safe and weigh the risk/benefit for whatever you do. I personally felt that a two song TV appearance was not worth a week long stay in NYC." So I guess it's a combination of both reasons.

Garry consistently strikes me as the E. Street Band member with the least amount of patience for Bruce's bullshit, so this seems in character. He's probably right, imo; I get that they all miss playing with an audience, but this seems like too much of a risk for a band where almost everyone is in their seventies.

And how to stay six feet apart when the stage is tiny and there are, like, 10 of you?

Does this mean Soozie is no longer in the band? That's OK with me.

No, Soozie's still in the band; she's also skipping it for COVID reasons.

So I wonder who is playing bass?

Garry consistently strikes me as the E. Street Band member with the least amount of patience for Bruce's bullshit, so this seems in character.

XP Little Steven's bass player. Gettin' Called Up To The Majors!

Re: Garry, I figured he wasn't going to risk getting sick. A relative of mine actually drove to Nashville last month to see a mutual friend. He was stunned by how much more lax everyone seemed to be and claimed a few bars he walked by (and didn't go into) were more or less packed. Our friend is an administrator at Vanderbilt and I think he told us that the ICU was near capacity, and I doubt it's gotten better.

Nashville's a trash fire downtown. People mask up at my local grocery store the hardware store on the West side. Hospitals are in trouble not just from the flareups in town but the surrounding counties. The state as a whole is completely fucked because the only mask orders are on a local level.

I thought the SNL performances were decent enough, though I would really have loved for the second song to have been a classic like "10th Avenue Freeze Out" or something.

In other Springsteen news, I'm listening to The Rising in full, for the first time ever. It's a lot better than I'd feared, I blame WXRT for ruining this album for me. Hearing them play "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" four times a day for years after this came out, back when I worked in an office that always had the station on, always gave me a skewed impression of what to expect.

That said, the COVID era had me cringing every time Bruce and Little Steven got close on the mic.

I thought the SNL performances were decent enough, though I would really have loved for the second song to have been a classic like "10th Avenue Freeze Out" or something.

I thought the second song would be "Santa Clause Is Coming To Town." I was actually surprised that it wasn't.

*Claus, even.

That would have been appropriate too, maybe a medley that went into that.

In other Springsteen news, I'm listening to The Rising in full, for the first time ever. It's a lot better than I'd feared, I blame WXRT for ruining this album for me. Hearing them play "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" four times a day for years after this came out, back when I worked in an office that always had the station on, always gave me a skewed impression of what to expect.

I actually put this on from start-to-finish a few weeks ago, the first time I've done that since maybe the beginning. "Let's Be Friends" just kills the momentum, I really wish he had left that off. But "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" wasn't as bad as I remembered it, the humor came through more this time around. Overall it still felt too long and flowed pretty awkwardly - it's just not as sequenced or crafted as well as Springsteen's better albums. Other lesser parts like "Further On (Up the Road)," "The Fuse," "Countin' on a Miracle," "Worlds Apart" and "Mary's Place" weren't bad, but some of them played like good outtakes rather than essential building blocks to a better album. That is, they could be enjoyable, they had their charms, but there were already much better songs covering the same ground and without adding anything more vital to the album, they sounded repetitive. ("Worlds Apart" is an exception. It's not one of the most memorable tracks on the album, but it's not bad, it does pull off its modest experimentation and without it, the album becomes a little too myopic.)

Overall it still felt too long and flowed pretty awkwardly - it's just not as sequenced or crafted as well as Springsteen's better albums.

In fairness, that sentence now looks awkward, but whatever.

The two songs that stood out the most were "Worlds Apart" and "Paradise", I was surprised by how well the former worked. I would definitely start by cutting "Mary's Place" and "Let's Be Friends".

That said, the COVID era had me cringing every time Bruce and Little Steven got close on the mic.

I felt the same way! Def. weird but inevitable to see him with, yeah, no original members on stage with him, but he's been pretty subtle about the way he's handled that over the years. For that matter as used to I am at seeing him with a bunch of people on stage, it's easy to forget that for most of his career it's just been him and five or six other guys, and wild to think that during his formative years it was just him on guitar.

I also played The Rising not too many months ago and found it overstuffed, but no more than it's always felt that way to me. I've never minded Sunny Day, and actually found that song a strange salve in the post 9/11 times. I also listened to the new one on headphones for the first time, and it sounds great that way. (Midway through "Janey" I kind of guiltily wished the current band and producer would re-record "Darkness," as apocryphal as that would be.)

I've been in big Bruce space because I also got around to his book, which was a lot better than I expected.

still releasing legendary shows too - https://live.brucespringsteen.net/live-music/0,25780/bruce-springsteen-the-e-street-hammersmith-odeon-london-uk-11-24-1975-mp3-flac-or-online-music-streaming.html

ohhh i love that Hammersmith show

they're mostly the same set as the first Hammersmith Odeon release (6 days earlier) but this one is so much more... triumphant?

I blame WXRT for ruining this album for me.

It always drove me nuts when the XRT DJs would talk about their legendarily huge library and still overplay the same songs over and over.

I think I'm going to take the plunge and buy myself the '75-'85 live box next. Don't think I've heard it since my parents played their original copy back when it came out. I used to be fascinated by that box.

I've generally avoided it, especially now that you can legally get great sounding version of all or most of the unedited source shows.

Fair, I'm not sure I'm ready to jump whole hog into full shows at this point and I like the idea of a compilation of those years.

The 11/24 Hammersmith Odeon show is surprisingly MUCH better than the one they released years ago. Too bad it's not the one they filmed, but who knows, the cameras may have been one reason why the earlier show was noticeably inferior (like it made them more self-conscious).

After a long break, I thew on the new one yesterday with my personal tweaks, and it really sounded great. It really felt like it lived up to the subsequent hype (Greil Marcus gushed "an ’80s or even ’70s Springsteen album with a decades-older self-questioning voice — the best of both worlds") but with the big caveat that I dropped tracks 6 & 7, which I'm reluctant to revisit.

I couldn't really get into the live box set for some reason, but I've gotten really into downloading full shows lately. I think I need to hear the live songs as part of a set to really appreciate them. I'm partway through the Hammersmith show right now, and so far it's great.

I also took a break from the new album and then listened to it again today, sort of nervously, and I agree, I think it holds up. The only tracks I skip are #5 and #7. And to my great surprise, my favorite songs from it are all new ones: "Burnin' Train," "Ghosts," "Rainmaker," "One Minute You're Here." The old songs are good, but they're not propping up the album.

The live set is of course solid, but I really do think of Bruce live recordings as entire epic sets, which have their of own energy, rhythms and surprises.

the live box was the first Bruce tape I had when I was a kid, so those versions of the songs are definitive for me

The live 75/85 box is one of my favorite things Bruce has put out.

Speak of the devil, previously released or no this is what it's all about:

8 of the finest performances from Bruce Springsteen's 1978 tour are now available in a limited, collectible box set. This 24-CD set contains all five of the legendary radio broadcasts on the Darkness tour.

Release date: February 1, 2021
Pre-order now: https://t.co/riu86xUY3h pic.twitter.com/LqnoB14RFX

— Bruce Springsteen (@springsteen) December 18, 2020

I just watched the "Letter to You" doc/film and ... eh. I enjoyed bits and pieces of it, and it looks good, but it's pretty full of itself as anything more than a gloried promo.

Hilariously, but a nice touch, if you already own the CDs you can apparently just order the empty box for $15!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5spzEx-wMo

I have finally properly heard LETTER TO YOU, and must properly read the detailed response.

My own feeling:

Bruce Springsteen could literally release an hour of himself reading the NJ telephone book, and I'd listen. So, I like it.

But - I find this LP rather predictable, four-square, solid with almost no swerves, diversions, flourishes - into different time signatures, different melodies, styles, arrangements ... It's as if he has written a bunch of songs in the same rhythm, with similar chords, similar melodies, and recorded them in a similar way.

Isn't that what you expect from him? Well - MAGIC, WORKING ON A DREAM, WESTERN STARS all had more musical surprises, I think. Maybe the solidity might be what one wants from Bruce. But I think I want a bit more.

Songs I quite like so far: the opening track 'one minute you're here'; 'last man standing'; 'if I was the priest' with its bid to be 1973 Boss again.

agree that it's not adventurous but at the same time while I appreciated the production on western stars I think the songwriting and lyrics on this so so much better, western stars felt all dressed up and no place to go

I think one maybe not revelation but still relevant aspect of the album is that even if his songs aren't always up to his past standards (I mean, high bar, right?) he still sounds really good for a 70-year old. I think from the very start he's put a lot of thought into what he wants to do, and to be honest thinking *too* much has been his crutch since the mid-'70s. That's surely why so many songs were left off his albums for others to record, or just shelved entirely, how he ended up with literally albums and albums worth of stuff, much of it as good as his best stuff. And even his best stuff, like "Born to Run" (the song), he famously sat on it for six months, not sure what to do with it. "Nebraska," he tried relentlessly to better the home recording until he gave up and released it more or less as is (one of the few real risks of his career). "Hungry Heart," his first real hit, he had to be talked out of giving away. "Born in the USA" I think was the last time they all recorded live in a room until this new one, and even that album featured marathon sessions, take after take after take, with lots of strategic stuff on his mind.

Fast forward to "Tunnel of Love," which barely used any other musicians, or the breakup of the E Street Band, which probably happened because he was struggling with what to do next. Around that time he was doing all those one-offs, like "Missing" or "Lift Me Up" or "Streets of Philadelphia," which are all incredible. Since reuniting the E Street Band he's been kind of stiff and searching for something that clicks while still somewhat playing it safe, with a couple of rare exceptions, like the "Seeger Sessions" or his solo tour, which found him reinterpreting his catalog in often really cool ways. I think to be honest it's really hard to write good songs, especially when you're not leaning on a genre crutch (like country music, say, where the style and production can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you). I wish he had better lyrics, but that's weird, too, because he's such a good writer. His essays, speeches/introductions, book, stage script, it's all really quite good, and often profound. Why he can't often port that over to his music is a mystery.

xp
I see what you mean, but like ums I find this lyrically much stronger than most (all?) of his recent albums - more vivid, more convincing, and more consistent. On Western Stars, I kept running into lines that made me cringe and took me out of the song. That's been an issue for me with a lot of his recent work - either a persistent lyrical vagueness, or lyrical weak places that let down an otherwise good song.

This album, I can listen to in the same way I listen to The River - letting all of the solid bar-band music carry me along, and each time getting a little more out of the lyrics and the singing. And I do see variety in this album, actually - not coming from the band, so much as from the sense that a lot of eras of Bruce's songwriting are jammed in here side by side. To me, that musical predictability works for the album because it provides a through-line; when you've got 22-year-old Bruce and 70-year old Bruce and elements of River and BITUSA and Magic-era Bruce all in the same album, it helps to have it all sounding like the E. Street Band at their most solid and dependable.

That said, I could use one less song about George Theiss, as "Last Man Standing," "Ghosts," and "I'll See You In My Dreams" all cover essentially the same lyrical ground.

I wish I could hear the great quality, eg lyrical, that you do here!

The lyrics have mostly disappointed me.

I find: a positive: most of the songs have some kind of recognizable, distinct piece of melody.

Less positive: they tend *only* to have this one bit of melody.

'House of a Thousand Guitars' is a clear example, but it seems pervasive.

Again, the lack of *rhythmic* variation also bothers me a little. Even a couple of waltzes could have helped with that.

Josh: he sounds good for a 70-year-old -- absolutely -- this was my claim about 200 posts ago upthread! That he was the most consistent person in pop history and a treasure just for carrying on this far, this well.