LOL!!!
Posted on 09/01/2013 4:19:27 PM PDT by nickcarraway
An entire generation has dismissed The Boss' music as lame "dad rock." Here's why they're all wrong
Every few weeks or so, I’ll be talking to someone at a bar or club or house party, and the conversation will inevitably turn toward Bruce Springsteen. The exchange is usually as follows:
BAR PATRON/PARTY GUEST: So, what kind of music do you listen to?
ME: Oh, a little bit of everything … blues, jazz, funk, Bruce Springsteen (brief pause) … you know, my tastes are super eclectic.
BAR PATRON/PARTY GUEST: Um, why do you like Springsteen?
ME: So, you don’t like Bruce Springsteen?
BAR PATRON/PARTY GUEST: Ugh. No.
(Long pause)
ME: (Shuffling away while muttering angrily, like an elderly woman being chastised for feeding pigeons) Well, you should.
This person will then enumerate the list of reasons why he dislikes Bruce Springsteen, usually employing four out of six of the following arguments:
He’s old. He sucks. He sucks because he’s old. He’s old because he sucks. He sings about being a member of the working class even though he’s made millions and millions of dollars over the past 30 years “Born in the USA” sucks. In my 24 years as a die-hard Bruce fan, I have had this conversation approximately eight or nine hundred thousand times. While the people on the other end tend to skew toward a specific demographic — white, male, in a creative profession, dating someone with bangs and an Egon Schiele tattoo — they come from a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, from Bushwick installation artists to a bouncer I met in Ireland, who used his loathing for “Born in the USA”
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
LOL!!!
.
I never liked Springsteen’s music, even before I found out he was a leftist idiot. People kept talking about how great he was, but I never saw it. Sort of like the current occupant of the White House, I guess - all press clippings, no accomplishment.
How about he is bitter, negative and hateful and it comes through in every song he does.. The guy is a hate America first liberal and every song is mocking at least some element of American society or culture. Even if the young kids can’t verbalized what bothers them in his music, they can still recognize that his baby boomer era anti-America rhetoric doesn’t speak for them.
Make it four. Their greatest hits album is one of the best collections of note - perfect pop rock ever...imo
Have you ever heard their version of “Lust for Life”, blows Iggy’s version away.
Sounds like the author needs to spend a little time outside of New Jersey. Very few care one way or the other, from Boomers on down the line. Springsteen is only anthemic to Jerseyites of a certain vintage.
“I just never “got it” with his fake working-class persona while doing everything to appeal to the high end celebrity crowd.
“
Same here. He professed way too much.
Seriously? Readers are expected to believe this?
Anyway, I enjoyed Springsteen's music when he broke out. He used to play at the Jersey shore, and when he came out with 'Greetings from Asbury Park', I picked up the album and loved it. I was at Penn State at the time and I talked my roommate into going to see Bruce at the Eisenhower Auditorium, where the show was nearly sold out. (My roommate had never heard of Springsteen before I started playing the record. Only people from the Philly end of Pennsylvania were familiar with Springsteen at that time, and my roomate was from coal country.)
Anyway, the show was fantastic - - it was the first time most of us had ever seen a disco ball. Bruce played most of the songs from 'Greetings' and 'E Street Shuffle' and then a bunch of covers. (He didn't have as much original material back then.) All around it was a terrific show - - Bruce at his very best. That was in 1974.
Hello? That was nearly 40 years ago.
Springsteen followed with excellent albums like 'Born to Run', 'Nebraska', and 'Born in the USA'. All of that was a long time ago. I don't know what he's done for the past 25 years but Bruce has a very nice, high-quality body of work. However, The Beatles he ain't. My son went to see him about 5 years ago because he thought he simply had to see the legend, Bruce Springsteen. He was glad he went, but wasn't exactly blown away by the concert itself. I asked him how the concert was and he basically shrugged.
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say “he sucks”, but Springsteen was never my cup of tea. Basically I feel like he cut two good tracks — Born to Run and Blinded by the Light (yes I know lots of folks are holding out for Manfred Mann’s cover being an improvement) — but even his good tracks are only things I’d want to listen to when in a peculiar mood, and not something I’d bother putting in an iTunes playlist.
Still, “He sucks ‘cause he’s old” can’t be the “millenials’” reason for disliking him, there are plenty of old rockers who still get respect from the young crowd, at least in recordings from their heyday (Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd spring readily to mind. . . heck even Metallica is getting on in years).
Did you know that Ted Nugent is sometimes referred to as, “The Motor City Madman”?
'Born to Run' came out in 1975, way before Reagan.
Springsteen’s a ridiculous party-line hack, and all his songs sound the same. What’s weird is, millennials don’t listen to actual music, they listen to total garbage. OTOH, Springsteen got famous (remember how he was on the covers of Time and Newsweek — speaking of shills — when “Born to Run” came out?) nearly 40 years ago; 40 years before that was the 1930s.
I saw Uriah Heep at the Sunshine Inn in Asbury Park in 1972.
Is that place still there?
To the "millennials" Springsteen is about as relevant as Al Jolson.
I’m probably going to get massively flamed for this, but I have always liked Bruce. “Growin Up”, “Thunder Road” “Badlands” and “Rosalita” are some of my favorite songs. Too bad he is such a liberal douchrocket..
Yeah, I’m not sure what there is to dislike about the early albums for a rock fan. Seems like good rock n roll to me. Must be a reaction to the completely ridiculous butt kissing from the music critics combined with his garbage political views and activism.
FReegards
Completely agree. I even like some of the slow ballads like ‘racing in the street.’ Completely captures a certain vibe.
I think probably Springsteen suffers from his fans and the critics that heralded him more so than his actual music, at least his first six albums or so.
As far as his vocals go, I reckon I am inured to that criticism from so many folks not digging Dylan for the supposed same reason.
FReegards
Agreed. Manfred Mann’s “For You” is awesome..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.