Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

I can't get worked up and annoyed about Bruce in the way I can about some other rockers. He has an ear for a great line (the opening of "Hungry Heart" for instance) and I can forgive him a lot for that. He doesn't resonate with me and like the Replacements I think that's a cultural thing.

I also - and this is totally subjective - never get the impression Bruce ever thinks he's particularly cool. Which is not something I can say of most other 'real rock'n'roller' types, mainstream or otherwise.

File under yet to be discovered. I was listening to an apologetic defence of his work from Sean Rowley on the radio the other day, and it got me wondering again. People of my generation's first real exposure to him was the 'Born in the USA' air-punching era and that obviously wasn't likely to engender much interest. Yes, I know it was all ironic.

What I have heard of his 70's stuff sounds like I might grow to love it. That midwest blue-collar world his songs inhabit seems harder to relate to than any other, but even in 1988, I had the feeling Paddy McAloon was missing the point with the song 'Cars & Girls'.

At the moment, I'm afraid the song of his I like best is a 90s one - 'If I Should Fall Behind', which I only know from the Grant McLellan cover version.

Badly Drawn Boy is a Springsteen obsessive, which I thought was quite cute.

N.

And yes, Tom, he's got a very good ear for a line.

I heard the version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" when I was young and that is pretty spiff, I freely agree. Circa 1984, liking El Bruce was unsurprising for me as that was a pretty damn good radio year -- Chuck Eddy specifically called it as such in _Stairway to Hell_, and he was goddamn right. Thus liking all that stuff he made was a matter of course alongside all those singles from _Purple Rain_ and _Like A Virgin_ and etc.

Time went on and I proceeded to not care. I never cared enough to buy an album anyway, and the 'classic early singles' only made sense in my classic rock phase, which lasted about nine months in senior year.

Then I ended up in LA and encountered the first of Robert Hilburn's 345,234,843 printed sermons on How Bruce Springsteen Heals the Sick, Raises the Dead and Means More to Human Existence Than the Combined Efforts of Louis Pasteur, Billie Holiday and Charles Schulz. I encountered other blowhards. The music touched me with the impact of a dying flea. A roommate was obsessed with him to the point of near mania. I cried.

The end.

Frankly, the Walkabouts any day of the goddamn week, month, year, decade, century, etc. If the relative fame levels were reversed, I would cling to this assumption with even more deep, abiding passion because then I would have The People on my side. Even alone, though, it's comfy. And Frankie Goes to Hollywood's version of "Born to Run" is my fave.

i actually liked born_in_the_u.s.a when it came out at age 7, but later, i found it to be an obstacle in getting to love bruce, and i'm sure there are a ton of artists out there whose work at that time has kept people away from them.

as sterling said, it's funny what driving a car can do, especially when it's another dark and lonely night out on an empty anonymous new jersey highway and "born to run" comes on the highway. but i've been there, so i'll move on.

you can get by on the first five or so albums on the music and production alone -- unless of course you hate phil spector and are, therefore, destined to spend eternity in hell -- and the later stuff will stick if you find something in the lyrics that rings far too true. sure, he mines the same territory in a lot of his songs, but so do belle & sebastian and so did the smiths; except the kids in bruce's songs could kick the ass of their counterparts in the aforementioned.

ned, i think you have the same problem as tom: it's a cultural thing. ;)

It's not a cultural thing; I mean for god's sake Motorcycle Emptiness might as well be Bruce Springsteen on a literacy trip in terms of subject, and I know Tom likes the song, and I believe Ned does too. Whether that particular statement was tongue in cheek or not, it's a tired excuse and reasoning, one usually used by the saddest of Bruce Springsteen fans, the ones who "identify" with his sentiments, seemingly losing track of the fact that BRUCE'S CHARACTERS NEVER ACTUALLY MAKE IT OUT. Some positive role models to rock out to.

The thing is, I think it's the voice and the earnestness, which was already said. The stylistic values of it....the basic cultural and escape sentiments, lyrically, of Motorcycle Emptiness and Born to Run might be very similar in tone, but the style and vocalisings are entirely, 100% different. Bruce has a very sarcastic bent, a very dark bent, lyrically, but his style of music softens the blow and sometimes people just don't like it.

And those people are wrong, incidentally :P

Nebraska is half good but doesn't deserve the plaudits it gets as the Springsteen album it's cool to like.

The rest is pretty much DUD.

Nevermind that Born in the USA was my first record not meant to be played on the Fisher Price record player (with the STEEL NEEDLE)

Nevermind Tracks Nevermind the fact that Born to Run is one of the best driving albums ever when your top is down and it's summer and the road between Ventura and home stretches out and empty at night with no cops...

Nevermind he has out Dylan-ed Dylan

Nevermind that he can outrage The Man as he pushes the dark side of life. (41 Shots)

Nevermind the line "The record company Rosie, JUST GAVE ME A BIG ADVANCE!"

Nevermind the Live box set, reminding us just how powerful he was

Nevermind Time and Newsweek

Nevermind Thunder-Fucking-Road

Nevermind The cover of Jersey Girl

Nevermind Tracks

Nevermind the MTV Unplugged set where he scrapped the entire notion of an acoustic show and just plugged in and tore down the house

Nevermind everyone on this list who called him a dud.

well, Bruce isn't *that* bad! ;)

La Bruce just collectively calls to my mind a stunted bastard vision of music that presumes he was the sole carrier of the 'spirit of rock and roll truth' that the Beatles and Stones 'started' in the sixties. A CLAIM I HAVE ENCOUNTERED MORE THAN ONCE, though thankfully not here, and happily never from the man's own lips either, at least to my knowledge. Without that rhetoric I would just shrug and ignore him for somebody more interesting, but with it, frankly, he becomes a very very useful target to kick against. Perhaps only a straw man, but one I wouldn't mind seeing go up in flames.

The boy has fallen off of late, but... I'm reminded of the Bangs article where he describes how he dismissed this Maoist band as sounding like Bruce, and the band replied "oh, good, the working class like that stuff" or something of the sort, and I'm reading this thinking -- no. no. no. The correct answer is "oh, good. Bruce fucking rocks!"

What I appreciate about Bruce is how he can capture the majesty of a major chord. How so many of his songs have the same progression, but you don't realize it 'till you try to play 'em yourself. How he can take gospel music and write it to a girl instead. And yes, more of them damn anthems.

I mean.. I know that anthems aren't an alien concept to the UK -- after all, The Who were full of them. But maybe British anthems are a different type a "get off of my cloud" or "sod off" type, more cynical and pissy than dreamy and wide-eyed. Maybe this is, after all, because America is The Big Country, The Great Bitch, et cet. Maybe to get America you have to get just how there's always somewhere you might go, maybe.

Along these lines, "Not Fade Away" which is a novel by Jim Dodge is a great rock road story, sort of like the lighter side of Richard Hell's "Go Now" or the more earnest(?) side of Bruce McCullough's "Doors Fan" sketch (on his album, Shame-Based Man). Yes. Get that spirit of the open highway.

I will say, though, that I do lack a car and have never had one. That might serve as a better explanation. ;-)

I wish I wasn't misinterpreting.

Inspirational in some ways. I have often felt that England needed a Springsteen, albeit not just a a copycat 'rocker'; I mean, someone who would write about all the lost and found small-town lives. But to be fair, I suppose there is already a UK tradition here: the probably Jarvis Cocker is a case in point.

1. they don't understand that he's actually not as "pro-america" as they might think he is

2. they don't have as close a connection to "old school" code (which includes "old school" rock)

3. they are mostly college kids on their way up to some office job or whatever that is removed (if not far removed) from the "underworld" (the "blue collar" or "real" world) to get the lyrical sentiments

4. well, and...sometimes people just don't like something 'cause they just don't like it

I, however, do not apply to any of those 4. For I actually do "get" some of the appeal of Bruce (albeit, it took my until my mid or late twenties to get there). Sure, his overly sentimental (downright broadway or maudlin) look at the working class can be a bit (or a bunch) too much. And sure, his music can be too simple and/or too derivitive. But, that's a part of the whole. Familiarity in both music and lyrics, is a large part of the appeal of his stuff (and those like him, ala Mellencamp, etc). He just had the concept to put nearly a whole career on the working class/blue collar life like no other has (not in such a wide reaching broad sense, at least - other than Mellencamp, but Bruce did it a bit better and first).

Classics:

Having said all that, 'Nebraska' and 'Ghost of Tom Joad' are the only two full albums that I would declare anywhere near a "classic" state of existence (with 'Nebraska' being the one clear-cut vote). Many of the rest of his 70's and 80's albums have some good solid worthy singles on them, but. I can't go so far as to get 'The River' (for example) anywhere near a "classic" nod. That one, in particular, I find to be overrated (though still having the wonderful track "Stolen Car" and the title track deserving of 'Nebraska'-like attention).

Anyways, I forgot to mention to huge (to the point of shadowing) element as to one of the why's (or why not's) of enjoy/appreciating Bruce. Which is: DRIVING. Cars and driving is such a central and/or reoccuring figure/subject in his work that...I can't believe I forgot to touch upon that (only after reading some of the others posts, darn it). But yea, I do LOVE to drive. Which also helps to explain the appeal of Springsteen (to me, at least).

*By the way, I do own that McCulloch album 'Shame Based Man' and...love it (some really funny stuff and one of the very rare comedy albums worthy of many plays - if not it's own discussion here on "I Love Music"...anyone?). Every single one of my girlfriends (one present, others past) hated it. "And if (after torching the stolen car) you can still hear the Doors playing...then you have become...a DOORS...FAN!" I'm not a Doors fan, however.

I hadn't listened to this record in a couple of years, but god, it still sounded great. Actually, I kept getting shivers down my spine when it was playing and it had me close to tears a few times (mostly on "Thunder Road" and "Backstreets.") Listening to this today finally settled an ILM debate for me: Music can never affect me quite as much now as it did when I was a teenager. No record I've heard in the last few years, including Loveless, has had as much affect on me as Born to Run did this morning, and I know it's not just because Born to Run is such a great album. This is a record that got to me when I was young and emotionally vulnerable in a way that I'm not anymore, at the age of 32. I still feel music very deeply and appreciate and enjoy a wider range of music than ever, but music doesn’t completely overpower me the way it did when I was 15. Oh well.

Springsteen is still a big classic, by the way, despite all the incredibly corny lines on Born to Run.

"candy's room" is the grebtest song ever written about being in love w. a prostitute when you sound a bit like david bowie

Is this a new genre? Cos that'd be fucking incredible.

I still love Bruce Springsteen. Put on Rosalita and you will see me go insane.

that was the only thing keeping it from a B

Saw Western Stars yesterday, against my better judgment; I think this NPR review is otm.

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/24/771390026/springsteen-concert-film-western-stars-sheds-no-new-light

i knew i'd pass on this just from the way he was singing in the trailer.

So what to make of Western Stars, the new sight-track to his first record of all-new material since that [2009] knee slide?

Someone's feeling cheated that Wrecking Ball only had 10 brand new songs? Passing on this review too, lol.

Huh, didn't notice that. The rest of it is pretty much word-for-word what I would have said about the movie (the words "portentous" and "intoning platitudes" definitely flitted through my mind as I was watching.)

It's not the singing that's the problem, it's the talking.

haha. Did you like the Broadway special? I have to finish that sometime.

I liked the Broadway special and thought the memoir was great, but those were both pretty grounded in real stories about his life. This is him saying shit like "the car is a powerful metaphor," and "these are the things that grow your garden of love," while staring off into the distant desert and wearing a cowboy hat.

omg, in.

So it's Springsteen does Malick?

I mean... he thinks he's doing a lot of things? There's a credits sequence of a guy sweeping a floor for five minutes, so I guess he must be a big fan of the Twin Peaks revival.

But basically it's just some concerts that sound exactly like the album, strung together with these creaky, ponderous voiceovers where he tells you that family is good and lying is bad and you shouldn't run away from your problems. Over slo-mo shots of horses and clouds and whisky bottles and Cowboy Bruce sitting in cars and walking through the desert and staring hauntedly out of windows.

Cowboy Bruce sitting in cars

He's sitting in METAPHORS.

Meta-Ford

SEX IN MY CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRR

Now, that would have livened up the movie.

Don't you mean SEX IN MY METAPHOOOOOOOORRRR?

sometimes the car is a metaphor for the metaphorical

He drives an El Camino, so is it Sex In A Car, Sex In A Truck, or Sex In A Way Of Life?

Sex in a Lonely Waystation on the Dusty Road to Enlightenment. But only if we expand the definition of "sex" to include "your wife laying her weathered hand gently over yours as you hold the steering wheel."

As long as the road leads to redemption, or to transcendence, or to forgiveness. Otherwise it's just driving somewhere.

when is driving somewhere *ever* just driving somewhere?

As long as the road leads to redemption, or to transcendence, or to forgiveness. Otherwise it's just driving somewhere.

Pretty sure Bruce actually says this somewhere in the movie. I think the actual wording was something like, "But are we moving forward? Or are we just -" [long, meaningful pause] "MOVING?"

“The highway is alive tonight / But it ain’t kidding nobody about where it goes”

Washington Post movie critic talked to Bruce about Western Stars movie and about Bruce's interest in movies. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/10/17/forget-rock-star-was-bruce-springsteen-born-be-filmmaker/?arc404=true

“When I wrote ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Darkness,’ I saw them as B-pictures,” Springsteen says. “If they worked really well, they were good ones, and the songs I was unhappy with were bad ones.”

He wanted both records “to have the breadth of cinema,” he says, “while at the same time remaining very, very personal for me. Those were the parameters of what I was imagining at that particular moment. I was sort of using the contours and the shape of films and movies, while at the same time trying to find myself in my work. But the film-ness of my songs was never far from my mind.”...“It was just how you processed everything,” he continues. “As a teenager, you were looking for a dramatic life. Where is my dramatic life? As if things weren’t dramatic enough. And you were writing your own script in your head as you walked down the street. It was all just part of living at that time.”

Eventually, Springsteen formed his own canon of go-to movies, each of which has had an imprint on his records — Ford’s ambivalent Western epic “The Searchers,” noir classics “The Night of the Hunter” and “Out of the Past,” Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver.”

also from that Washington Post article:

In the 1992 single “Better Days,” Springsteen sang about being “a rich man in a poor man’s shirt.” Today, in addition to the sprawling horse farm in New Jersey, he owns homes in Florida and Los Angeles, but still convincingly radiates man-of-the-people modesty, a contradiction he deflects by being the first person to call it an act. (“I made everything up!” he says at one point. “It’s a fascinating magic trick.”) Springsteen admits that he continues to find the notion of authenticity elusive, “knowing what a self-creation I was, and to some degree still am. But the strange thing of it all is that if you do it long enough, you start to become the thing that you pretended to be.”

I had no idea the movie was a movie-movie, theatrical. It just seems like such a misbegotten idea, a ruminative glimpse of his private life coming immediately on the the heels of his Broadway show (also a ruminative glimpse of his private life), which came right on the heals of his autobiography (another ruminative glimpse of his private life) tied to a modest but hardly superlative singer-songwriter record he's not supporting on the road. Having not seen said movie, it really seems like the sort of glorified EPK that should have come packaged with the deluxe edition of the album itself, sort of like those ... similarly ruminative docs including in the Born to Run, Darkness and River boxed sets.

such a misbegotten idea

the opening weekend box office agrees with you. i really liked the performances, even if bruce's voice seems a bit weathered for most of 'em. i walked out liking more songs from the album than i did walking in (and i quite like the album). the vignettes were like the broadway show without the humor. a lot of brucesplaining songs that already pretty much brucesplain themselves. i liked that patti got a lot of the spotlight. she and he sound really good together, which they did not on broadway.

record he's not supporting on the road

that's one of his stated reasons for making the movie, for what it's worth.

I did know that, but I guess it never really sank in that this is actually the first time he has not toured a record. Had he not just released the Broadway show on Netflix and flooded the up-close-with-Bruce market, I suppose something like this movie would have been a smart Netflix release instead.

so did anyone see that movie Blinded By the Light? Released too close to that Yesterday movie?

What are we going to see in Bruce's inevitable biopic?

Cars.

...and material re: sex in

a lot of brucesplaining songs that already pretty much brucesplain themselves.

Yeah, this was really my main complaint. Bruce's songs so often have a central message or argument or moral that can be summed up in words, and I've always felt that was a bit of a weakness on its own. And this entire album already seemed to me to have a really obvious moral, so that while I liked some of the songs just fine, I also felt like I was being repeatedly bludgeoned by a Victorian cautionary tale about how not to live your life. So the last thing I needed was Bruce carefully explaining the moral of each song in between performances.

The vagueness of it bothered me too. I liked the vignette that introduced Sundown, where he told a story about going out to California for the first time because he'd just been dumped, but the rest was really - not anchored by anything specific. I assume that's because the subtext of this album is his marriage, and he doesn't want to give any details about that, but all this vaguebooking just kind of misses what made the Broadway show and the book so good.

i walked out liking more songs from the album than i did walking in

So did I, actually - "Chasing Wild Horses" in particular. Yours was a much more measured and thoughtful response to the movie than mine.

“Straight Time” on Tom Joad is pretty slept-on. Pitch black. Thought if it with the time change and “darkness before dinner comes / Sometimes I can feel the itch.”

That's a good one. I think I like all of Bruce's songs about being tempted away from a happy marriage by the call of Something Else.

The Tom Joad song that really gets to me, though, is Highway 29. It makes me feel all cold inside.

A review at the time mentioned it, but the Tom Joad characters often end up dying or falling asleep or just in some floating state between the two by the song’s end.

Just listened to "Straight Time" again; I agree it's very good. Hadn't thought about the ending much, but there's something so haunting about that last line, that false sense of escape. Reminds me, in a way, of the end of Child Bride, which might be my favorite Dark Bruce song. "I imagine I put on my jacket/go down to a little roadside bar/pick a stranger and spin around the dance floor/ to a Mexican guitar."

oh and speaking of straight time, there's an article in the Nation about Springsteen as queer icon:
https://www.thenation.com/article/bruce-springsteen-queerness-essay/

highway 29 is a masterpiece

It's brilliant but I find I can't listen to it more than once every three months or so. It chills me in a way that even the darkest songs on Nebraska don't. Makes me feel like I can't move or breathe.

Didn't realize until today that Spotify has a soundtrack to the movie that's all of Western Stars live plus a cover of "Rhinestone Cowboy."

Huh.

Meanwhile, not very specific announcement of a full E Street Band Australian tour at the end of the year. (I think he said he is recording a band album this fall.) That more or less guarantees a US band tour in 2021.

oh hell yeah. I will gas up the CAAAAAAARRRRRRR

I'm sure Steely Dan will be touring, too.

Ha!

someone made a correction post, just "car" in another thread. Coming here was all I could do to keep from screaming it out of context. I know you all will understand.

In quiet moments as I go about my day I keep finding myself trying to figure out how many Bruce songs actually involve sex in a CAAAAAARRRRRR (as opposed to sex in a dark room with the door locked and a sense of existential malaise lurking just outside)

well, y'know, is there any difference?

The door's open but the ride ain't free, y'all.

you might have to wipe your fingers on a texaco road map, if you know what i mean and i think you do.

Oh Wanda...

I think you guys are conflating Springsteen lyrics with, like, AC/DC lyrics.

if only anything came cheap in this world

(except hearts)