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
CC
Oh that ain’t all, he had some torrid affair with some dame who “lost” her husband in 9-11 and left Patty Scialfa at that point, he is a d8ckhead
Springsteen sucks because he can’t carry a tune in a bucket and his songs are repetitive and boring.
Loose Bedsprings hasn’t made anything worth listening to since the early 80’s. I do like his first 3 or 4 albums though.
Steely Dan is....well, Steely Dan. Royal Scam and later is the best cool jazz/pop. And a who’s who of the best studio musicians.
Fagan is a mentally deranged SOB, but he writes great music, and is a hell of an arranger.
I was never that big a fan of Springsteen. He always seemed like he was ‘posturing’. And frankly I thought he was a jerk for getting married, then immediately starting (or maybe just continuing) an affair with his back-up singer, who he married after getting a divorce from his first wife.
Hipster!
I bet you burned your mouth on pizza because you ate pizza before it was cool, too!
Who is this ‘Springsteen?’ Is he a musician of some sort?
No love for the Misfits?
He sucks because he sucks.
Not familiar with a lot of their material, although I like Danzig’s version of “Mother”.
That was a good album. I’ve liked some of his music over the years.
Have you ever tried to hum or whistle a Springsteen song? It can’t be done. Try it. What does that tell you? It ain’t music.
I like the first six Springsteen albums or so, I don’t care if millennials hate him or if snobby music critics can’t get enough of him.
Freegards
You really don't know? Whether anyone likes it or not, it was his first singles to hit the top 5, let alone top 10. (Though covers of his songs by Manfred Mann and the Pointer Sisters had hit #1 and #2)
Can’t stand his politics, but I like quite a bit of his music. I guess I’m an outlier here. I agree with who said “The River” is an awesome song.
One point of interest for all you Springsteen haters though, a little schadenfruede to lighten up your day: he HATES “Born in the USA”.
It was intended as an anti-American anthem and, to his way of thinking, all these rednecks picked it up as a pro-American anthem because they’re too stupid to actually listen to the lyrics.
Springsteen despises that “Born in the USA” had just the opposite effect that he intended, but since it’s one his biggest (or at least well known) hits, he’s obligated to play it in concert. SOOOOOO, he does, but he always screws it up, plays it too slow, to fast, to sing-songy, etc.
Springsteen, “I’m going to get the last say (on how the song is interpreted).”
Wiki “Born in the USA” if you’re interested in this back story.
Springsteen had a lot of trouble getting his pop hits to chart. He sold albums, but his singles never did much. Little know story: Bruce went to his friend Bob Seger asking for some writing tips for the album “The River” cause he was just not charting singles.
I liked Bruce springsteen and the east street band before they became popular. Their earliest music is good. The rest became schlock.
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