Well said. As a fan from the mid/late 70s, who saw him live on stage at Penn State's Rec Hall, that guy disappeared sometime around Nebraska. He is far away from his roots now.
I started to watch Springsteen on Broadway, on Netflix, because I was in my early twenties and in the Navy when Born in the USA came out. When he is sitting at the piano, near the beginning of the film, he said, " I made it all up." For some reason, the statement hit me hard and I couldn't watch the rest of the show.
Part of me admires that he "came clean" to some extent, a lot of Bruce's more ardent fans could use some reminder that the man is in the mythmaking business. But in a way he reminds me of Jon Stewart in that when it's convenient Bruce is all too happy to be an American prophet hurling fiery jeremiads and then at other times just to say "what's the big deal, I'm just an entertainer." So much of his appeal over the years has been his supposed authenticity, it can be disorienting for the switch to be turned on and off.
I still have Nebraska on vinyl. I read that Howard Zinn inspired the album which was released on the cusp of economic renewal. Certainly THAT had something to with Boss's more optimistic turn. Victimnomics didn't sell well after 1984.
There was a very defensive Bruce superfan who tried to "debunk" me on Twitter and preposterously argued that Springsteen only became political in the early 2000s. The shift to a more "topical" subject matter is palpable on Darkness on the Edge of Town, even before he was playing concerts against nuclear weapons and releasing a sparse Dorothea Lange-sort of album that was universally received as a critique of cruel Reaganism.
Well said. As a fan from the mid/late 70s, who saw him live on stage at Penn State's Rec Hall, that guy disappeared sometime around Nebraska. He is far away from his roots now.
Excellent analysis.
I started to watch Springsteen on Broadway, on Netflix, because I was in my early twenties and in the Navy when Born in the USA came out. When he is sitting at the piano, near the beginning of the film, he said, " I made it all up." For some reason, the statement hit me hard and I couldn't watch the rest of the show.
Part of me admires that he "came clean" to some extent, a lot of Bruce's more ardent fans could use some reminder that the man is in the mythmaking business. But in a way he reminds me of Jon Stewart in that when it's convenient Bruce is all too happy to be an American prophet hurling fiery jeremiads and then at other times just to say "what's the big deal, I'm just an entertainer." So much of his appeal over the years has been his supposed authenticity, it can be disorienting for the switch to be turned on and off.
I still have Nebraska on vinyl. I read that Howard Zinn inspired the album which was released on the cusp of economic renewal. Certainly THAT had something to with Boss's more optimistic turn. Victimnomics didn't sell well after 1984.
There was a very defensive Bruce superfan who tried to "debunk" me on Twitter and preposterously argued that Springsteen only became political in the early 2000s. The shift to a more "topical" subject matter is palpable on Darkness on the Edge of Town, even before he was playing concerts against nuclear weapons and releasing a sparse Dorothea Lange-sort of album that was universally received as a critique of cruel Reaganism.