Gologle posted:

Bruce Springsteen is actually really good, but you have to separate his stuff into different eras in order to get it. Modern Springsteen is hit or miss, 90's Springsteen is kind of bland unless you're already a fan, 80's Springsteen has to be separated into 3 segments, the Nebraska period where he was arguably at his peak, the Born in the USA part where he really blew up when it's possibly the weakest his music ever was in the old days because it appealed more to pop culture at the time, and the post Born in the USA part which is really just Tunnel of Love where he stepped back from the spotlight because he understood he would never again hit the height of Born in the USA.

70's Springsteen was his actual golden age IMO, I don't think any of his songs from that period are less than a 7/10 except maybe Night...OK, and The Angel. So none of his songs from then are less than 5/10. Once again this period has to be separated into segments, pre Born to Run and post Born to Run, or rather, pre and post the lawsuit he filed against his manager at the time, Mike Appel, who tried to screw him with a bullshit contract where Springsteen would receive, if I remember correctly, less than 10% of the revenue from his own work.

LIke, if all you heard of Springsteen was Born in the USA, Dancing in the Dark (I had a long period where I disliked Dancing the Dark just because it was always on the radio, but a few years of not listening to it made it sound better to me), Waiting on a Sunny Day (still don't like that one though), maybe some other songs from The Rising or Working on a Dream, I would get it. You listened to pop Springsteen, and it's his weakest aspect. I think he has literally admitted this in one interview or another from years ago.

But man, the whole Nebraska album kicks rear end, the whole Darkness on the Edge of Town album kicks rear end, Born to Run is probably one of the best albums of all time, then you have individual greats like The Ghost of Tom Joad, My City of Ruins, The River, Independence Day, Incident on 57th Street, Wrecking Ball, Youngstown, If I Was the Priest, The Wall, American Skin (41 Shots), Ghosts, Real World, man, I can keep going for hours.

I think a major understated part of Bruce Springsteen's music is the influence black music had on it. Let's be perfectly clear here, all of rock and roll, period, owes black musicians a huge debt, because before rock 'n roll was rock 'n roll, it was rhythm and blues, it was made by and pioneered by black artists, then a bunch of white people stole it and repackaged it to appeal to a wider crowd of white people who were down with the music but not the skin color. Some of those artists are more forthright about this than others. To me, it feels like the North East Coast rock artists, from the Tri State area in particular, were the best at both incorporating the "black" sound into their music and also giving credit where credit was rightfully due.

I think his most recent album as of now, Only the Strong Survive, which is literally just straight up covers of classic R&B songs is the most modern and clear example of how much black music made Bruce Springsteen, but he was never shy about it nor tried to hide it. It's present in his work from the very beginning, when most people were saying it more resembled Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen loves black music and black people, and he always strove to elevate and credit them whenever he could.

I also think a big reason why people might bounce off of him and his music is, quite frankly, dude's old now. The days when he could make a guitar talk and could headline 4 hour shows with electrifying energy all the way through, for months on end, are over. He's in his 70's, a lot of his friends and loved ones have passed on, and he himself is staring down the barrel. He knows there's a very good chance he won't be alive in the next decade or two. So a bunch (not all, but a significant chunk) of his music for the past several years has been introspective and retrospective, dealing with and singing about the aging experience and the feeling of faded glory and all that. To be fair, a lot of old rock artists are grappling with the same thing. The road goes on forever, but you don't. Rock 'n roll may never die, but that doesn't mean its conduits share that immortality.

This went on way longer than I thought I would write, and I still didn't actually go into the specifics I wanted to, but basically, I think Bruce Springsteen is in that category of artists who became so overrated that they are now underrated, and it's not really his fault. I'm not going to blame anyone in the north east, especially Jersey or New York, who hears perhaps too much Springsteen and is sick of it, that's fair, no music no matter how good or bad should be forced down someone's throat, but that doesn't make the music or the artist terrible. He also has an unfair reputation as a "heartland rocker who sings for The Working Class" when to me Bruce Springsteen was always just for the people who just wanted to break out of the lovely situation they were in, he was for the desperate and downtrodden who maybe sat too long in a four walled room desperate to make something happen or get somewhere but felt trapped by their lives and circumstances. Also, he's old and I can definitely see people bouncing off of the music he makes nowadays, a lot of which is more about the state of being an old person and inevitably having to deal with the very real presence of death.

Holy poo poo even my closer meant to wrap this post up went on too long, I'm just going to shut the gently caress up now. I'll end by saying someone in this forum compared Bruce Springsteen to Billy Joel a few years back and said that while Bruce Springsteen is the cheerleader who is rooting for you and wants you to succeed, Billy Joel is the guy who will laugh at you when you fail because we've all been there, and I'd say yeah that's a fair comparison, for good or ill.