- 1973: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. C
- 1973: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle B
- 1975: Born to Run A-
- 1978: Darkness on the Edge of Town B
- 1980: The River B+
- 1982: Nebraska A
- 1984: Born in the U.S.A. A-
- 1987: Tunnel of Love A-
- 1992: Human Touch C
- 1992: Lucky Town D
- 1995: The Ghost of Tom Joad C
- 2002: The Rising B-
- 2005: Devils & Dust F
- 2006: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions F
- 2007: Magic F
- 2009: Working on a Dream E
- 2012: Wrecking Ball A-
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Springsteen Rated
The new Bruce Springsteen album, Wrecking Ball came out yesterday. In my opinion its his best since the underrated Tunnel Of Love. You can hear the title track (and all the other tracks and an outtake) here. I am not a huge Boss fanboy so I feel I can be pretty objective about his canon. Here's the complete list of albums (thank you Wikipedia) with my grade in bold. A = classic, B = very good, C = good, D = average, E = poor, F = fail/must miss.
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26 comments:
Good ratings. I agree Tunnel of Love is usually underrated. I'd give The River a higher rating but that has more to do with me getting a union card and a wedding coat when I was nineteen when the record came out.
I might even give Nebraska a slightly lower rating.
But I was listening to the Seeger sessions just the other day and I agree with you there. Of course, I then listened to some Pete Seeger and was mostly underwhelmed so that might just be me as well.
John
Well that's a song that everyOne should know by heart I think
On a aide note, Artie Lange is publishing his next book, Crash and Burn, this November...
Matt
I wonder if Artie will be going to bouchercon it might finally be worth a trip
Gee, I've missed Artie Lange since the Stern Show switched to satellite and I'll bet he's a good writer.
I thought In Country was a pretty good Bobbie Ann Mason novel and not a bad movie that made nice use of the Born in the USA album.
Kate
He's been of the Stern show for about a year and a half because of his suicide attempt. He's now got a sports talk radio show called Nick and Artie which is syndicated. Artie is still quick and funny, but Nick DiPaolo has a very 1950's sense of humour and isn't nimble so the show sometimes can be a bit of trial.
Adrian,
Gosh, I didn't know Artie tried to do that. He seems like a good guy, too, like Owen Wilson. I should read Too Fat to Fish - great title.
I haven't listened to much Bruce but my mom worshipped him and Dylan. Jungleland's a great song, I think.
Come to Philly, and I can take you to the house where they blew up the Chicken Man late last night.
================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I was living in a house of serious Springsteen fans when Born in the USA came out, so I got to know that one quite well. My friends, though, had seen him when he was playing little clubs in Germany so I could never really catch up to them. I don't really have the personality of a true music fanatic--I seem to be happy enough to go along for the ride for awhile, but it never really crosses over to becoming truly my own thing.
This was right when Springsteen made that transition to be called The Boss and packing stadiums instead of concert halls, and that made me uncomfortable about the phenomenon.
I was always under the impression that Springsteen had been called The Boss even before he was famous, because he was the bloke who used to book the gigs, divvy up the money and pay the band back when he was doing pub gigs as a teenager. I might have tumbled into an urban myth with that one, though.
I'm glad you gave the new record a good rating. I've been thinking about buying it, and I meant to listen to him do the title track on Jimmy Fallon the other night, but I forgot about it and went to bed.
I agree with John Mc. The River is the business.
Macca, you are probably right. It was just the coincidence of his having a stadium filling capacity and the fans willing to call him by a title like that that bothered me. I think he has actuall done a lot to try and keep it all from going to his head, which can't have been easy, and I have nothing against the guy. I just came in on the story at the wrong historical moment.
Yes, Born in the USA sure put Springsteen in a new category, but Born to Run got him on the covers of Time and Newsweek ten years earlier so it was building. In fact, if Springsteen had been driven that way he likely wouldn't have released an album like Nebraska.
I liked the album Born in the USA for the same reason I like the album The River, they both have a great mix of thoughtful stories and fun party songs. Can't take yourself too seriously all the time, right? "Working on the Highway," is a favourite of mine.
The nickname The Boss, especially in the early seventies is interesting. In those days I'd go to work on Saturday mornings with my dad and help install telephones in office buildings. If there happened to be a guy working in one of the offices my dad always called him, "boss" and it was only later I realized it was ironic. Or sarcastic. Or something, but it wasn't a compliment and not many of the suits ever figured that out. I've always thought when the guys in the E Street Band called Bruce The Boss it was the way my dad, lugging a roll of cable, called those suits boss.
But maybe that's just me ;).
Came into Bruce in the Born in the USA era. took a while to get into but I now think its one of the great driving albums. Always loved the army trying to use the title song as their recruitment advert until someone pointed out the lyrics....unless thats an urban myth as well. My theory about Tunnel of Love is just it followed 'USA' & that album had opened him up to a whole new fanbase who wanted more of the same stadium rock type thing whereas he was ready to move on. Wasnt 'Tunnel' the 1st non- E-Street band album?
When youve been around as long as him you're going to change & move on wherewas the 3 or 4 year acts stay the same in the mind forever. 'tunnel' would have been much more appreciated a decade later I feel. Touch & Town i always thought he was trying to please everyone & sounded too mainstream/bland. Tom Joad i thought was a bit mid life crisisey (is that a word?) The Rising I played in the truck non stop for about 3 weeks so that must have been okay & I'd have given Devils a higher than an F, but thats opinions for you, certainly nowhere near his best though.
Overcome, Magic & Dream I have to agree with, as I quickly put the older stuff back on. more down the toilet than back down the River lol.
New ones a bit folksy but I like it, but its funny how time flies. i still regard AC/DC's Razors Edge as their new stuff......1992!
& dont even get me started on Alien being 34 years old.
Personally I think Bruce has always come across as pretty level headed, but I always feel that he sees himself as just the bloke out front rather than a superstar, but hey, what do I know?
I think the Born in the USA tour was when the title "The Boss" became unironic for the fan base, but I don't mean that the band ever felt that way--I wouldn't know.
The most popular songs always do seem to be co-opted in some way, don't they? Bobby McFerrin used to hang out in Santa Cruz at the time that the first George Bush lifted Don't Worry, Be Happy as a campaign song and McFerring stopped using it in his own show in protest.
I grew up in a town in country NSW that was over 1/4 Italian, population-wise. In that joint, it was customary to call the elderly Italian fellows "boss" in your dealings with them. Some of them were connected, but it was nothing to do with that. Nor was it ironic or patronising. Affectionate, if anything. I still do it these days, on the fairly rare occasions that I deal with elderly Meditteranean men.
My own boss at my place of work, on the other hand, calls people "boss" in a deeply ironic way. He is the only child of a solid Western Districts family who went to Geelong College. In other words, he ain't got no boss, and never has had. He says "Righto, Boss" whenever wants to wrap up a phone conversation.
He sounds like a bit of a pill, Macca.
I've not called many people 'boss', but I've not called many people a 'pill' either lol
....& I certainly didnt know Bush's campaign song was 'dont worry....'
Why have I got visions of Duvall in a helicopter in my head ?
Sometimes I channel my mom, Swooperman.
I think the song has been used in many other contexts since, but this was when it had more or less just come out.
mighty fine and i can add very little here except my two cents, as such...
for me nebraska was the defining one with it's unique depictions of lesser characters and of course the connections between the title track and the cinematic gem 'badlands'...
waiting for tunnel to arrive in the mail!
Dan
I think my 3 personal favourites are Nebraska, Tunnel of Love and The River. I'd rate The River higher if it wasn't a double album was better edited. There are a few clunkers in there. Its like Abbey Road, almost a perfect album except for that awful Paul McCartney song Maxwells Silver Hammer or whatever it was called that John Lennon referred to as "granny music".
I got Tunnel of Love as a Columbia Records club offering when I didn't mail back their damn slip (there's a fond memory for 40 somethings.)
Hated it on principle as I stupidly thought as a teenager that he'd sold out with Born in The U.S.A., having apparently at the time not really listened ot the lyrics. Six years later, it was my favorite CD.
John, you should catch the Peter Seeger documentary that was recently done for PBS' American Experience series. Like Guthrie, his music has much more resonance as a form of protest, in social context, than as any form of entertainment.
Oh, and he was called the Boss from his early days, as someone here mentioned, for being totally in charge of his band. He fired half the band members halfway through his first album for CBS (The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle), if I recall, because they weren't serious or tight enough, which is where Clarence Clemons came in.
That first album was very popular. People forget that he was "discovered" by John Hammond and was already heavily touted in industry circles in, like, 1970. So he was already playing stadium shows when Born to Run hit. He found out in went Gold on stage during a gig.
I haven't heard the entire recording yet, but I understand that it does not feature the E Street Band. Of course, the E Steet Band will be backing on the tour because that's a proven necessity for selling out the big venues. It's kind of ironic that the champion of the working man left his band behind on the recording. A cynic might think it's no coincidence. No royalties to his brothers in the band
And then there's this...not a huge Boss Fanboy myself, but you listen to Bruce talk here (it's worth the hour) you see the worlds of writer and singer collide.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/aggregate/bruce-springsteen-sxsw-keynote-address-52hj
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