After that he became overly commercialized and really hit the "big time."
I am roughly Christie's age and grew up and live in NJ. I agree with your take on Springsteen's body of work. The first four albums were amazing and if you were an adolescent or young adult in New Jersey at the time they had added meaning and you could easily feel an special bond with Bruce. I was not a concert goer but I know he had a phenomenal, energetic live show and if I could go back in a time machine and see three late 70s acts, Springsteen would be in my top three(with Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin). When I arrived in college in upstate New York in 1981, I was amazed at how many people outside of NJ had only a slight familiarity with Springsteen and owned no Springsteen albums. That would change in a few years with "Born in the USA," which exponentially increased Springsteen's popularity and which most listeners really assumed was a pro-USA anthem. I find Christie's emotional attachment to Springsteen to be infantile, unsettling and slightly embarrassing. Cherish the music you grew up with, but grow up.
yep, and it’s not really that hard to make out the words in “Born In The USA” either (unlike some truly unintelligible stuff which is so common in modern pop and rock). it’s irony. but irony sells, ambiguity sells, vulgarity sells, dysfunction sells. there’s not so much market for clean moon, spoon, June any more.
That sums it up perfectly. LOL.
BTW, I've always believed that "New York City Serenade" was one of Springsteen's most underrated tunes. It probably just never got any airplay on the radio because it was too long.