Online Editorial: "It's Time to Fire the Boss" (Springsteen)

Nothing but a personal put down. Magic is one great album. The songs are pretty great.
Honestly, if Springsteen were a drunken womanizer, then that is what the editoral would have been about. This is just dirt.
I have listened to Springsteen since 84 and he was never the voice of the working class for me. His music has always meant so much more to me than that.
Not everything that Bruce has done has been top notch since 1990, but so what?
He will also probably never make another Born to Run but who else can make a Born to Run? It is one of the very best albums ever made.

 

The only Springsteen live show I ever saw was 1988, the Human Rights Now tour with Gabriel/Sting/Chapman etc., in Montreal.

Springsteen did the Twist and Shout/La Bamba/Raise Your Hands medley, and it was an incredibly fun and exciting bit of musical entertainment. I've never forgotten how good it felt to dance with 60,000 people to that medley of oldies.

And Tunnel of Love had just been released, and I loved (and still love) that album.

But I've never found much of interest he's done since. And I agree with the writer, he's really washed up. I doubt we'll be hearing 41 Shots during the Super Bowl...not that I care to hear it, anyway.

 

How can someone possibly be "washed up", if they -

1. Still sell craploads of new albums
2. Still have the small majority of critics saying how great those new albums are.
3. Still sell out ridiculously large venues night after night

Some of you appear to be living in denial and/or a severely altered state of reality. I suspect politics as the primary "drug" feeding this problem.


P.S. - I'm not even a hardcore (nothing post-'Nebraska' for me, thanks), but I can at least recognize ongoing achievement...

 

No, not all of us, thankfully. I am a maintenance worker (literally a blue collar uniform.)

 

41 Shots + Super Bowl = Fail
Anyway, I dig The Seeger Sessions and Magic, and so do many other people.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Driver 8
Actual working class people these days listen to Toby Keith or Kid Rock, not the Boss, I suspect.

Matt, are you sure you've been properly zoned as living in the "real America"?

 

Maybe for some people, but not for me. That said, it is pretty curious to see someone with his politics cutting a deal with Wal-Mart. That seems just a tad hypocritical to me. If the album's great and I like what I hear on the radio, it wouldn't stop me from running into Wal-Mart and buying some tube socks and Bruce's new CD, I don't have those "issues" with that retailer that others do.

Maybe "washed up" isn't the right term. To use another (over-used) analogy, how about "jump the shark"?

Still selling craploads of new albums? Okay, but that doesn't necessarily denote good or great music.

Some critics love those albums? Okay, but Jann Wenner gave Mick Jagger's last solo album 5 stars and raved that it was a monumental release.

Still sells lots of concert tix? So do the Stones, but they've been irrelevant as a musical force for a long, long time.

Personally, I don't like how Bruce sounds these days. His voice doesn't sound good to me anymore, it hasn't aged well, IMHO. His Seeger sessions material made me cringe, it sounded so painful to me. My 75 year old mother liked it and bought it, and bully for her.

FWIW...

 

EDIT: Dopey thread. Please ignore.

 

Its perspective my dear. Time does indeed; change everything, including the fire in OUR belly that we cannot summon up for new work when compared against previous peaks of unmitigated glory.

How does an artist such as Bruce top an album such as ‘Born To Run’, a career defining moment? It is the rare artist that can ever eclipse or do anything more than produce work somewhat comparable to their peak efforts.

While I’ve enjoyed his work, and know that the hype was real (although typically over the top, as is the case for virtually every artist ever, including those I lionize for how their work has enhanced my life), I have never been totally infatuated with his body of evidence for brilliance, but an Everest of brilliance is there to behold.

Fact is, Magic was indeed ‘a return to form’ as many noted, easily as good in parts as anything he ever unleashed upon a wanting fandom. But too may fans expect a “Born To Run’ again. Stop. You’re probably not the wide eyed kid who that LP defined many years ago. No matter how good the CD was (and it was) it will not help you recapture YOUR glory days.

Without comparing it to any of his other work, it indeed worked and was quality product. If he had issued something similar ‘back in the day’ (I hate that expression, but find myself inexplicably drawn to it) it would have been hailed as “genius, a brilliant album by this up and coming rocker’. Today, it’s ho-hum, entertain me! The jaded fandom desires more career defining stuff and comparing anything new to the best of the old, is naturally going to diminish it’s worth.

That said, the article was damn harsh, and more than a tad over the top in it’s ‘what have you done for me lately’ slam at a man who has produced a body of work that has surely secured his greatness.

 

Never seen either. They're probably just rumours.

Paul

 

I thought she was pretty good in November; I liked that movie anyway.

 

Thank you!

(Post of the month)