tell me about...'the boss'

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The Dr
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tell me about...'the boss'

Post by The Dr »

still struggling with pink floyd so now i'm turning to another holy cow- bruce springsteen. i like the song born to run but never really bothered with his other stuff. i will say no more as i know how you guys can take the ball and run (to use a playground analogy :wink: )

thanks guys!
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jack white
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by jack white »

get Nebraska asap.

heavy Suicide influence on that record, especially State Trooper which prob wears its influence a little too keenly. every song is great on there. i find it easily the most consistent & thoroughly brilliant record of his career.

for the most part i can give or take him. he has a lot of stuff, popular/populist stuff, that turns me off. but every so often he gets it right & when he gets it right he really is truly incredible - Racing in the Streets immediately springs to mind, or The River. he does a lot of anthems and they are mostly nondescript but sometimes he conjures a genuine magic.

Nebraska is really great tho, special.
and a lot of his albums have a lot of material that is fantastic. but most all are uneven w/a fair few annoying clunkers. the first 6 albums are by & large superb but, again, uneven at times it seems like for every Badlands there's a Streets on Fire to balance the good w/the annoying, but like i say the good is terrific & worth searching for.

things got a bit dodgy after Nebraska, he reacted to that record & went too far in the other direction (tho Tunnel of Love does have it's MORish merits) & a couple of the later albums (Ghost of Tom Joad, Devils & Dust) recaptured a lot of what he does best. but for me there'll always be a doubt about just how sincere he is. it all seems a bit too easy for him, y'know. it's more entertainment & a job than something he needs to do. like he's talented, no doubt, but at times he took the easy money & i think that's reflected adversely in a lot of his material.
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beaker73
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by beaker73 »

Not a huge Springsteenfan, but for the casual listener Born to Run is an obvious all time classic. And a good introduction to his work is probably the Live 1975-1985 boxset, which includes tracks form al his albums up to Born in the USA. And it's live - hence the title - which is, I think, the best way to hear The E-street band. And you can find it for cheap anywhere.
But I'm sure somebody out there can give you a more profound insight in the music of Bruce Springsteen than this :lol:
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redcloud
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by redcloud »

I'm sure I will be crucified for saying this BUT...I think Springsteen is easily among the most over rated musicians. His working class, white boy "rawk and rawl" does absolutely nothing for me.

Go on...let the frying commence (as he ducks for cover).
angelsighs
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by angelsighs »

I would point you towards the first three albums, which form a kind of trilogy (although Born To Run is certainly the beginning of something else, as well as the end of that trilogy). the songs are looser and more rambling than later stuff (Born To Run does move towards broader strokes, but also has rock opera-like songs like 'Jungleland'- boy I wish he would still write songs like that!).

a lot of the early songs romanticize this lazy boardwalk life by the sea, with the undertow of escapism and wanting something bigger. it totally puts me in that place when I listen, just like listening to the Velvets takes me to the underbelly of New York.

from then on he moved to a more linear trad-rock style, you can definitely hear this on Darkness on The Edge of Town (still a good album but the songs structures are a bit straight down the line).

after that with some exceptions (Nebraska is a great album as said above, the Seeger Sessions albums was a fun folk knees-up) only the odd song has interested me. he also seems to have a jinx of bad production. obviously the 80's stuff is pretty ghastly sounding, but also his most recent albums sound awful.
therefore I would also second the recommendation for the 'Live 1975-1985' set because a) it has a lot of his best early songs and b) is more natural sounding than the albums.

I would also agree that there is an element of artifice/performance to Bruce. I reckon with Springsteen you get 50% heart and soul and 50% showbiz schtick/hamming it up (I will say, this ratio is probably no different to say, Dylan, but he just does it more subtly and with more art). his live shows (even in the early days) have a lot of hollering, set pieces, and hamming it up that I reckon he got from the Soul and R n B shows he saw in his youth, and also his roots in the bar band scene (with a bar band, there's no time for 'art', you have to get people's attention)


I've rambled a bit here so gonna summarise thus:

albums to check out:
The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (this is his most eclectic and loose-sounding album. there's even a bit of jazz/latino/funk in there)
Born To Run (some utterly invincible anthems here)
Nebraksa (he had a lot of balls to put out an album that changed style like this. it's also a pretty bleak record)

5 of my fave songs:
Backstreets
The River
Meeting Across The River
New York City Serenade
Highway Patrolman

redcloud- is Springsteen overrated? maybe. probably. I do think that his catalogue isn't consistent enough to really merit some of the worship he gets. but he seems like one of the good guys. and his best songs are tremendous.
jadams501
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by jadams501 »

I wrote a long idiosyncratic post that got deleted but I will try to quickly reconstruct...

The essence of classic Springsteen is a raw, epic, visceral desire to capture America in rock 'n' roll and become the biggest star in the world. And he did it, but fell to earth when he became a huge celebrity without any organic link to the gritty street quality that made him great. He's become a more pretentious Bon Jovi, reiterating a hammy stage act for nostalgic true believers and releasing increasingly embarrassing studio albums every couple of years.

I don't care for the really early stuff, which is very wordy and a bit jazz fusion, and his career more or less really begins with Born To Run, which is overproduced but with flashes of genius. Darkness On The Edge of Town and to a lesser extent The River reform the Jersey workin' man romantic anthem formula with songs like Racing In The Street and Stolen Car, and then Nebraska is an impressive leap into stark solo storytelling. Probably the best place to start in his catalog.

Born In The USA gets no respect because it was such a smash, but there's a lot of great stuff on there, and it fulfills Bruce's desire to be the people's music. The follow up Tunnel of Love, kind of his Blood On The Tracks divorce album, is muted and self-consciously mature but also probably my favorite of his LPs. Brilliant stuff, and also the end of his classic years.

He then broke up the E Street Band andf released two albums on the same day, Human Touch and Lucky Town, which probably would have been more successful culled down to one disk. There's a lot of good stuff, and it's Springsteen trying to honestly represent that he'd become a wealthy celebrity living in Hollywood, but it was a commercial disaster. He had a few more good songs in the 90s, but he eventually brought the band back as a bloated nostalgia act and has become increasingly a caricature, despite a few decent songs here and there.

He's abysmal now, and the seeds of what has made him so bad were always there, but he was genuinely great during his time. Absolutely worth checking out.
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by spzretent »

I used to be really into BS after seeing the Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour. I had never seen anyone perform like that. I would also say the earlier stuff is more obscure and palatable. Singer songwriter sort of stuff. The Wild The Innocent, Greetings From Asbury Park, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and a lot of The River are all pretty good.
Fast forward to Nebraska and Tunnel Of Love which I think is quite good even thought its very polished.
Not really a Born To Run Or Born In The USA fan and haven't heard the others.
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mc
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by mc »

I would most definitely disagree that Bruce Springsteen is abysmal now. His best days are behind him, sure, but I believe his late-period output is more worthwhile and relevant than Dylan, McCartney (or any other musician of that generation)'s latter-day albums. The Rising, Devils & Dust, Magic and Wrecking Ball are all excellent; Working On A Dream is pretty poor, and The Seeger Sessions is only worth seeking out if you're into that rustic folk thing.
redcloud
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by redcloud »

angelsighs wrote: redcloud- is Springsteen overrated? maybe. probably. I do think that his catalogue isn't consistent enough to really merit some of the worship he gets. but he seems like one of the good guys. and his best songs are tremendous.
I think you nailed it further up in your reply when you mentioned "bar rock". That is exactly how I would describe him....working class (blue collar), east coast pub rock now being played out as sing along anthems for the mainstream in huge football stadiums. I honestly have no problem with his success as it ultimately comes down to the music and in the end, it does absolutely nothing for me. Even if I were playing pool, drinking ice cold Coors in a corner bar in Elizabeth, NJ it still wouldn't connect with me because I don't like the music.

Runcible once talked about lyrics vs the music and to me both are connected. For me, a great song has fantastic music, which sucks me in while the lyrics have the soul that I may be able to connect with. But, if the music is good and the lyrics are crap I can still oversee the words and enjoy the sounds. On the contrary, if the words are decent and the music crap I don't have the patience to stick around too long. IMHO, Springsteen definitely falls into the latter (although, I admit I am taking your words for it that he is a good lyricist because I have never paid attention).
The Dr
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by The Dr »

thanks guys. i've acquired born to run and nebraska as they seemt o be the most popular suggestions. thanks :D
“You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness

'Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.

'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.

'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal!”
mkb
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by mkb »

This is a fantastic video of a recent performance of New York City Serenade (played live in Rome): http://youtu.be/zcWWpGc0UMw

There are parts of Springsteen's catalogue I love, and some I just don't get on with at all - the first four albums & Nebraska are all fantastic. Born in the USA and The River were overblown but have some excellent songs across them, while Tunnel of Love, Lucky Town and Human Touch I just find dull (apart from a couple of good songs).

Of the post-reunion albums, you could make a really good album between The Rising and Magic, Working on a Dream was a low point but Wrecking Ball has some of his most revitalised songwriting in years on it. As mentioned above though, these do suffer from poor production at times.

I've seen them live a few times, and have never failed to have been impressed by how tight & hard-working the band are, and especially by their sheer commitment to making every show a unique event, often taking requests for absurdly rare songs from the back catalogue and playing them with basically no preparation beforehand. The above video is a perfect example - a few weeks prior to the Rome show they played in Milan, where the back of the stadium had prepared an enormous banner saying "Our Love Is Real - NYCS" - the band weren't able to play that song that night (needs a string section and stuff), but as soon as they returned to Italy they prepared it with the Roma Sinfonietta and played it for the Italian audience, which I read was its first ever performance outside of North America.
jadams501
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Re: tell me about...'the boss'

Post by jadams501 »

mc wrote:I would most definitely disagree that Bruce Springsteen is abysmal now. His best days are behind him, sure, but I believe his late-period output is more worthwhile and relevant than Dylan, McCartney (or any other musician of that generation)'s latter-day albums. The Rising, Devils & Dust, Magic and Wrecking Ball are all excellent; Working On A Dream is pretty poor, and The Seeger Sessions is only worth seeking out if you're into that rustic folk thing.
I like a fair amount of Bruce's late 90s stuff, and there are some good tracks in his recent albums, but it's diminishing returns over time, from what was already diminished.

Part of the problem is the production. Springsteen has worked with Brendan O'Brian, best known for producing Pearl Jam and Train, who has an awful heavy-handed touch when it comes to arrangements and especially mixing. But Bruce himself has become an increasingly clumsy writer and overwrought/contrived singer even performing the old favorites.

Which isn't to say there aren't some gems scattered throughout -- Waiting On A Sunny Day, All I'm Thinking About Is You, Girls In Their Summer Clothes, etc. -- but the lows are bad enough to overshadow everything else. Working On A Dream is one of the worst albums I own, and working with Tom Morello is unforgivable.
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