Bruce Springsteen

“I like Bruce. He’s a good fuckin’ journeyman, you know? But he’s holding the fort till something better comes along. If there was anything better, he’d still be working the bars in New Jersey.”

- Keith Richards

Oh Keith! Harsh words! I’m not much of a Springsteen fan, but geez!

I saw Bruce Springsteen once. It was the early 70’s, Springfield Mass. At the time he had 2 LP’s out and was in popularity limbo. A few critics were singing his praises as “the new Dylan”. He was moving enough units so that his record company hadn’t dropped him. When I got the offer for a free ticket it wasn’t a Bruce who? thing, more like, what the hell, why not. The band came out, they were good, polished, and for the most part, rocking. It was an okay show. I wasn’t compelled to tell any of my friends about it. I did not buy any of his albums.

Flash forward. Bruce Springsteen! The future of Rock n’ Roll! On the cover of Time and Newsweek – the same week! Born To Run – sensational new album! I gave it a listen. It sounded like a retread of a Phil Spector production, with none of the charm of Spector mainstays The Ronettes, or The Crystals, or hell, Bobb B Soxx and the Bluejeans. There was a Duane Eddy style guitar on the title track, faux soul on the song “10th Avenue Freeze-out” A song that would have been hellacious – if Wilson Pickett sang it and rock bombast on “Thunder Road”. The “future of Rock n’ Roll” sounded pretty much like the same old thing to me.

Soon after I got a job in a record store. New Bruce product would hit the racks. The good news, I could listen to it for free. It wasn’t all bad. “Hungry Heart”, “Cover Me”… okay songs, or as Keith would say, a good fuckin’ journeyman songwriter. But I just kept thinking. It’s all been done before. There’s nothing new here. It’s so conservative. When Ronald Reagan tried to glom onto “Born In The USA” for his reelection campaign in 1984 it was hilarious how quickly the music press shot it down. No right wing conservative was going to latch onto Bruce’s inherently conservative music. Sure, Bruce’s lyrics may have occasionally been left of center. But the music? So I’m asking. Has music changed one iota because of Bruce Springsteen? You tell me.

Tags: Bruce Springsteen

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under Artists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.