Posted on 08/27/2015 1:36:34 PM PDT by the scotsman
Yeah Springsteen’s an a**hole I can’t stand the guy now and am embarrassed that he is a New Jerseyan but he touched a lot and I mean a lot of people in a way few other artists have. If you didn’t experience hanging with your friends at the Jersey shore singing along to Thunder Road and Born to Run...you’ll just never get it.
Springsteen’s early music is iconic. I crack up meeting old geezers my age who still listen to his stuff religiously but you know what...I fully understand. Many of his tunes were anthems for my generation.
Unlike many other bands of the time, listening to Bruce and the E Street band didn’t infer you were a druggie or head case. It was like average Joe’s music and as a clean kid growing up in Jersey, you could easily identify with the music and recognize many of the places mentioned in the songs.
I rarely if ever listen to the tunes now but when I do, it transports me back to some of the best days of my life and memories of old friends, far too many of whom are no longer with us.
So yes, it's a celebration, but the background is pretty bleak. In "Born to Run" you can see hints of where the later, gloomy Springsteen comes from and what the leftists who wanted him to be the new Woody Guthrie latched on to.
But rock music is a young person's -- pretty much a young man's -- game. You sing about sex and drugs, dating, dancing, and drinking, cars, bars, and guitars (or maybe that's country).
Maybe Springsteen's later evolution was a result of the limited options he had later on. It was either sing sour songs about people who didn't get that big record contract, or write some gruesome rock opera, or try his luck on reality TV.
What you call, "iconic," I call formulaic. In college some 25 years ago, we had a comedian come to campus who did a gig with an acoustic guitar. He did a Springsteen impersonation and he asked the audience for:
1. A girl's name
2. The name of a blue collar city
3. The name of an American made car
He went from there to put together several minutes of a very believable Springsteen hit about him and Shelly riding out of Pittsburgh in his Javelin, past the smokestacks and the steel mills, etc, etc.
“What you call, “iconic,” I call formulaic. In college some 25 years ago, we had a comedian come to campus who did a gig with an acoustic guitar. He did a Springsteen impersonation and he asked the audience for:
1. A girl’s name
2. The name of a blue collar city
3. The name of an American made car
He went from there to put together several minutes of a very believable Springsteen hit about him and Shelly riding out of Pittsburgh in his Javelin, past the smokestacks and the steel mills, etc, etc. “
If it was so easy, why didn’t the comic do it first ???
I don’t want to be a defender of Springsteen but the reason he got to where he was is because he was a pioneer of a genre’ that became quite popular and his band was tight and complemented each others talents. The guy is an a** but he didn’t get to where he is by being “formulaic” and totally sucking.
He's a pioneer because New Jersey people bought his songs about New Jersey?
Marty Robbins became popular with Southwesterners because he wrote songs about the Southwest.
The Chieftains became popular with the Irish because they wrote songs about Ireland.
I could go on ad nauseum but a folk singer writing songs to/for/about a certain segment of folk is hardly a pioneering enterprise. That those, "folk" eat up those songs is really no big surprise.
Sorry but I love “Born in the USA”
“He’s a pioneer because New Jersey people bought his songs about New Jersey?”
First off I never said that. Springsteen’s genre is not songs about New Jersey. His genre is “heartland rock” and he was one of the first artists of that genre to break out to large scale commercial success. New Jerseyans may identify with “some” of his songs because they reference NJ landmarks, locales and personalities but those songs are relatively few in his musical catalogue.
Springsteen regularly sold out concerts in Europe and across the United States back in the early 80’s. Last time I checked that encompasses a far greater area than New Jersey.
I get that you do not like him or his music...that is fine...I am certainly not a huge Springsteen fan either but to suggest that NJ record buyers are the reason he made it big, ignores his popularity across the globe which was firmly entrenched after the Born to Run album. He performs songs about average people and their struggles. Often the message is corny and contrived but those songs do resonate with many people worldwide.
He's a one trick pony. The fact that he's been able to flog that pony for 40 years says as much about his fans as it does Springsteen himself.
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