[Mr. Mojo]

I'll go as far as to say that late 70's Springsteen and Petty were responsible for keeping rock and roll breathing after the excesses of bands like Zep (with their live songs sometimes lasting a full hour) and the invasion of disco. Their bands were tight, the lyrics were descriptive with being "ethereal" (unlike Yes, Floyd, Zep, etc), and their sound was uniquely American. From '78 to '80 they were it. But after The River Springsteen lost his edge, and hasn't yet recovered. ....His music became somewhat contrived. But from where I'm sitting, his first five albums are among the best in the genre's history.

[F16Fighter]

"After The River Springsteen lost his edge, and hasn't yet recovered. ....His music became somewhat contrived. But from where I'm sitting, his first five albums are among the best in the genre's history."

Regarding Bruce, that's exactly the way I saw it go down. And what the hell was Springsteen trying to do what that 'Tom Joad' album?? Man, talk about the Titanic...

But as to the 76-80 era, the music as a whole was more than enough a smorgasbord of style and spectrum to satisfy nearly every mood.

Sabbath and AC/DC were at one end of the hardness spectrum; Zep and Floyd that "ethereal" stoned-out sound; Springsteen/Cougar/Petty/Seger/Costello carried a flavor of a rock-jazz sound and story-telling; Allman Bros and Clapton bluesy; Pat Benatar, Blonde, and the Cars punkish (btw, Benatar's band was excellent); And then as I opined in an earlier post, I thought Foreigner, Boston and Fleetwood Mac were solid. And then there were the carry-overs from the early 70s like the Doobs, Robin Trower, ELP, Deep Purple, Eagles, etal...

And hey -- were the Bee-Gees really that bad? ;-)