Post a controversial music opinion

Do not put Johnny Cash in the same category as Springsteen!

Agreed; Springsteen needs to record about 100 more novelty songs like "One Piece at a Time" and "The One on the Right is on the Left" to approach Cash territory.

I'm from the West of Scotland, everybody loves Johnny Cash there, so I'm not the best judge.

Ice Cube and Carly Simon and John Philip Sousa and Glenn Miller and Lyle Lovett are as American as Springsteen

Just as Gary Glitter and Edward Elgar and Posh Spice are equally British

Anyway the thread for hating America is

American things

I doubt that there's an American equivalent to anglophilia or francophilia or whatever ppl who are really into manga and shit are, for the reasons YMP said above re hegemony. US pop culture is too dominant to build a cult around, even with artists that I hear more in the US than anywhere else, like idk Styx or 38 Special or Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I love America btw.

Not enough to still live there, admittedly.

Yeah, I was just wondering if here was a weirdo UK contingent that listens to ZZ Top and Skynyrd and stuff.

lily's post is a revelation imo, it's like the thesis for the best book about bruce springsteen that hasn't been written yet.

I'd def read that book, yes.

Always kind of amazed me that Elvis never toured outside North America (except for the Hawaiian concerts).

(xxxp) Skynyrd maybe, ZZ Top had hit singles, they're famous. Springsteen is far too famous to be a cult artist.

i've limited my bruce exposure to nebraska because i found the world of it useful at a weird time in my life. haven't explored much beyond that.

You guys know about this, I assume: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinded_by_the_Light_(2019_film)

i enjoyed that movie

Always kind of amazed me that Elvis never toured outside North America (except for the Hawaiian concerts).

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 10:04 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think colonel tom parker wasn't a naturalized U.S. citizen and wouldn't have been able to get back, so he engineered elvis's career around that

it's pretty fucking incredible mismanagement, and that as huge as he was, he probably could have been 2X or 3X more popular if he would have toured

also I wish there was a UK subculture built around loving .38 Special and only .38 Special

I've a good friend who's big into Southern Rock; I note that the last time Skynrd played the UK they played the Wembley Arena, which has a capacity of 12,500, so there are plenty of weirdos who like them (don't think they are or were as legit big in the UK as BS or ZZTop though).

I think there are a lot of deep veins of americophilia in the UK, but I'm not sure whether people would think of the charm as "american" rather than "country" / "deep soul" / ""southern rock" / "NYC hip hop" / whatever.

(In my case it was the other way round - I've loved visiting America in large part because it is the natural habitat of the big lumps of US culture that I enjoy.)

Yeah, I was just wondering if here was a weirdo UK contingent that listens to ZZ Top and Skynyrd and stuff.

Pronouncing the "z"s like "zee" is like a secret handshake for admission to the cult.

that's funny - I never considered whether it may be pronounced "Zed Zed Top"

Same, and I say 'zed' (Sund4r too, I assume).

Wouldn't it be "double-Zed Top"?

Two Zeds and a Top

yeh, we say Jay-Zed too

LOLing at the idea of Glaswegian record shop assistants being asked if the have any Jye Jye Cale records.

Interestingly, the only person in the UK who does not pronounce it "zed" is named Frank Zed.

Zed Leppelin

it was fun to watch dragon ball zed when i lived in canada

Haha, I think I did say "zed zed top" the first time I read the band name as a child before I heard anyone say it.

Hey have you heard of this band called the 13th Floor Lifts?

Or Pavement... uh, never mind

love a girl with some junk in the boot

Living Color

Lol

She got dumps like a lorry

every bird crazy bout a sharp dressed lad

I'm trying to imagine being repulsed by someone who (for example) britishes so britishly that I just can't stand it

Richard Dawson (raucous experimental UK folk racket w/ intense picaresque realness vox)

every bird crazy bout a sharp dressed lad

― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, February 2, 2021 6:15 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao

that was great

lily's post is a revelation imo, it's like the thesis for the best book about bruce springsteen that hasn't been written yet.

Thank you, map! That just made my day.

lol Paul

Great post on bruce for sure

Im ok with bruce,the e st band can do one tho

Even though I'm from NJ, the NJ Springsteen is from (and about) is unrecognizable to me. Where I grew up, it was rich kids listening to the Grateful Dead and poor kids listening to rap, metal and punk

totally feeling this as another native garden-stater

don't want to derail this with another "authenticity" debate, but I recall a few years ago (in the NY'er?) reading a really long profile that his perfectionism/discipline extended to choreography of every onstage gesture—exactly when a fist gets pumped and how many times, etc.—and I remember thinking oh yeah, that makes perfect sense, because the whole thing has always struck me as a kind of contrivance.

Again though I know I'm bringing some NJ anti-Bruce bias into this having had to endure his weird devotees growing up

Hard to work too hard to display authenticity as the hardworking archetype imo

Its a funny angle at which to come at anyone tho

Massively popular superstar cultivates image, yeah but like so do i

In the Broadway special he says straight up that his whole steez is a performance, and that he's never had a normal job; it's a trick but it more or less works so why change it at this point?

(paraphrasing)

there's image cultivating and then there's image cultivating

his hero is incapable of doing the same thing twice

it's less an aesthetic objection for me, more that it jibes w/ something overly deliberate in his music

Even though I'm from NJ, the NJ Springsteen is from (and about) is unrecognizable to me.

Everyone I’ve ever known/met from New Jersey has said the same thing. None of them grew up in New Jersey in the 1950s-1970s.

tbf there are also two New Jersey's geographically, I always assumed he has a bigger audience in the southerly part

tbf there are also two New Jersey's geographically
and many more "New Jersey's", metaphorically