Kevin Kinkead positively unloads on Springsteen and Born To Run. Not being a fan of either of those, I just about killed myself laughing at this masterpiece.
Happy 50th Anniversary to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” One of the Worst Albums Ever Recorded
There is so much to hate about this album, it’s hard to know where to start. Thunder Road is the opener, and it begins with Bruce mumbling over over piano and harmonica for 90 seconds before someone mercifully hits a drum. Then there’s Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, which shows some promise at times, but is really more of a soul song than a rock song. The album finally starts to display some balls with the underrated third track, Night, which at least has some tempo to it. It only lasts about three minutes though, then we’re slowing it down with Backstreets, featuring more piano wankery, but at least there’s a guitar solo at the 3:33 mark. Unfortunately it’s only 19 seconds long, but better than nothing. Then you’ve got the overrated title track, which builds but never really goes anywhere, bookending two side B filler tracks with Jungleland salvaging a D+ album grade.The other thing is that Bruce can’t sing, which makes it tough to get into the music itself, which isn’t very good to begin with.
I think the thing that offends me in particular about Springsteen is that those of you who are 50+ got to experience the height of the 1970s music scene, when so many great bands were making so much great music. Even in 1975 alone, when Born to Run came out, Zeppelin released Physical Graffiti, Queen released A Night at the Opera, and Pink Floyd released Wish You Were Here. Aerosmith dropped Toys in the Attic and Black Sabbath was on to Sabotage. You had prime ZZ Top and Deep Purple and David Bowie and Fleetwood Mac and all of that, and your favorite artist was BRUCE? For who? For what! We millennials would have killed to be alive during that era. Imagine wasting it listening to The Boss mumble on about his friend being a good baseball player in high school. Listening to Bruce in the 1970s would have been like wasting the 90s listening to Dave Matthews Band (shout out to that one reader who has seen Dave 47 times in Camden).
If you’d like to hear more Bruce slander, I recommended our Pulitzer-winning column from a few years back, titled Someone has to Say it: Bruce Springsteen Totally Stinks.
Oh, you’d just better believe I’m a-gonna be checking that one out right away.
- Entries
I’m old enough to remember when Greetings from Asbury Park debuted and the Rolling Stone critic, Jon Landau pretty much performed fellatio in his review, calling Bruce the next Bob Dylan. On and on he went extolling the genius of Springsteen to the point that it was almost nauseating. At the time I was a fan of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes who was thought to be the hot band to come out of that area. Instead the legend of The Boss was created. I vaguely recall that there was a connection between Landau and Springsteen. Friends, money? I don’t remember. All I do know is that IMHO Springsteen is one of the most overrated artists of all time. Never cared for his music and most definitely never cared for his politics which he wears on his sleeve like a badge of honor. Born In The USA? Blow it out your ass Bruce.
As I recall reading in Rolling Stone back in the days when I still gave a damn what they might have to say about anything, Landau was hired on as Springsteen’s publicist either just before or just after that interview you mentioned came out.
As for “The Boss,” if the Merriam-Webster entry for “limousine liberal” included a photo beside the definition and etymology, it could only be Springsteen’s. He’s the living incarnation of the words, the Platonic ideal of what a limo-libtard is–always was, always will be.
Can’t stand that smarmy, boring poseur. He could do his best service to humanity by taking a job as a non-addictive, OTC sleep inducer. Just don’t listen to Bruce’s “music” while trying to drop off; that toxic swill is excruciating enough to jerk any plumb tuckered person bolt-upright in bed, gasping for breath, a-tremble with horror, and drenched in flop-sweat so badly the sheets are wringing wet with it.
Once you’ve calmed down from that nightmare, restored your equanimity and soothed your shattered nerves, and laid back down for another stab at catching some much-needed Z’s, your own personal chyron begins to run on endless loop in your head: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN MADE ME A CHRONIC INSOMNIAC!
I was essentially out of the country for 1975 and 1976 so never even heard of Springsteen until sometime after that. Having missed the opening splash, his charm was entirely lost on me. I do believe, however, that he is the next Bob Dylan, someone I also never cared for. To be fair, my list of the next Dylan/Springsteen is fairly extensive, popular mediocrity shows no sign of slowing down. (Now for a little Art Tatum)
Got an original album set of Tatum on old 78 records. Columbia IIRC.
I always thought I was alone in my hatred of that SOB. As mentioned on occasion, I’m not musically astute, so wouldn’t really know what is good and isn’t, but I don’t care for the SOB’s music. But my hatred stems not from that but from the anti-Americanism.
I was happy to discover a few years back that my loathing of the SOB was universal among people I admire.
When it comes to categorizing music as good or bad,”musically astute” doesn’t figure into those calculations all that much. Nor does education, training, experience, or talent. In the end, all such judgments come down to one simple thing: Do I like this? Does it sound good to me, or bad? Do I like this because people I admire say they like it, or because I genuinely like it myself independent of the opinions of others?
And really, that’s all that matters. Yes, there is such a thing as objectively good music, as well as objectively bad music. So what? Those discussions are of interest to musicologists, theoreticians, music historians, and other scholars of related fields, and absolutely NOBODY else.
Same thing holds true for contemporary jazz. With most of the modern jazz I hear, these are truly remarkable players. Even so, I can only listen to so much of this stuff before I start looking for something else to listen to. Modern jazz is music for music students. It isn’t that the music is over my head, it’s that it just bores the hell out of me. After a certain amount of boredom, my lack of interest calcifies into outright irritation.
If you like a particular song, style, or genre, then right straight to hell with vain chowderheads who use musical knowledge as a means of making others feel inferior, as a handy stepping stone enabling their monstrous ego to scramble by more modest sorts whose ambitions and craving for flattery aren’t of such compelling importance to them.
Every time I’ve ever had the misfortune of being around assholes like these and watching them work, my first, strongest impulse has always been to give them a hard right cross to the mouth, maybe loosen a few teeth for them and/or do a little facial-bone structural rearranging via tire iron, pry bar, or length of rebar.
Using music as a prop to stabilize a shaky sense of self or to aid one in climbing onto someone else’s shoulders to thump one’s scrawny chest in triumphant mockery of the losers doesn’t actually diminish music, although I’ve had several musician friends over the years who vehemently argued otherwise.
It’s my own belief, though, that such victimization of blameless people who have never intentionally harmed a single soul and would never do such a thing does usually result in a certain, very specific diminishment–not of music–music being well beyond such craven, trifling human manipulations–but of the obnoxious dickhead doing the victimizing. Which is only fair, seems to me. As Tolkien’s favorite line says, “oft evil will shall evil mar.”
“And really, that’s all that matters.”
Understood. I know what I like and much of it is from my youth, say age 10 until mid 20’s (1963 – 1978)and generally called “rock and roll”, a descriptor I have never liked. On my “classics” playlist (I have modernized 🙂 ) I have The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Chicago, Derek and the Dominos, Cream, Steppenwolf, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby-Stills-Nash, Moody Blues, Santanna, and a few others that I would have to look up to recall.
That list is about 60 long, dominated by male vocals and is a counter to my other much larger list of which I recall is 236 songs long and almost exclusively female – Evanescence, Within Temptation, Leaves Eyes, etc, all mostly more recent and stems from my discovery of the “Irish” genre but fairly far removed from being Irish.
However, my own lack of musical ability has never made me feel inferior, only that I missed something useful. I made sure my children didn’t miss that as much as possible and with varying degree’s of success 🙂 (UNC band for one, accomplished guitarist for another, and the other two have an appreciation that surpasses mine).
“As Tolkien’s favorite line says, “oft evil will shall evil mar.””
I had forgotten that line, thanks for the reminder.
Yeah, Springsteen sucks.
Berkeley Breathed had some good zingers for Springsteen, back in the day. Here’s one:
“Barb! I can’t find the keys to the minivan and the Springsteen concert starts in twenty minutes!”
“They’re under your Rolling Stone in the bathroom.”
There’s another one where Bill the Cat sounds like he’s coughing up a hairball and smells like anchovies, and he gets mistaken for Springsteen.
Yeah, Ol’ Berke was ahead of his time.
I think all of you, including our gracious host Mike, have missed seeing the elephant in the room when it comes to Bruce Springfield.
His entire genre is music celebrating the “blue collar man” and the pain and suffering that blue collar guy endures just to eek by in the grand ole U.S.
Have you taken a look at what he charges those blue collar people to come see him perform? Let’s start north of the lower 3 digits for nose bleed seats, per seat. Want to get close, within binocular range, $250-350, a seat. You pay double to take your wife or G.F.
Want to get up close where the hippy chicks wag their fat asses in fron of you blocking your view, $500 to 700 per seat.
Yeah, that’s a guy that cares about the blue collar person and their struggles.
I can remember paying $7.50 for a ticket to see Rush, who played “Working Man” and did serious damage to my hearing while playing it. They were happy with what they earned for their work that day. WTF is Rick Springsteen’s problem with managing his cash? Is he a retard, or just another common New Jersey douche bag?
Ha! 7.50 for Rush, eh? Never did like them, but I do remember ticket prices in that range for sure. First concert I ever saw was Kiss, in what, 1977, I believe? A whopping $6 a head. Pretty sure I still have my ticket stub around here somewhere. Man, what an awesome show! Saw ’em several times since, and those shows were all awesome too, but I dunno–there’s just something about that first time.
As for Bruce Cougar Melonheadsteen, I say again: limousine liberal.
Following up on my previous comment.
Perhaps Bruce Springfield could get a second job, as an actor in a sit-com about a NYC taxi company ran by an obnoxious midget.
No, that wouldn’t work. Rick Springsteen already did that.
Last follow up.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not entirely about the money within the concert industry, per se’.
It’s about being the “all time loser” Jethro Tull spoke about in “Locomotive Breath”.
Bruce supports you, only as long as he’s one of you. But he’s ambitious.
The moment he achieves having “fuck you” money, he turns on you like a rabid dog.
I was young back then, Mike. My tastes have changed since then. Rush, Pink Floyd, and several other “psychedelic” groups are no longer amongst my play lists. The only reason I can rationalize for why they were on my list back then is they were loud, and quiet when they needed to be before they abruptly got loud. Pretty sure it had something to do with the “tobacco” I smoked back in those days.
Regardless. Nothing can justify ticket prices these days.
You’ve got to be really fucking good for me to buy a ticket at those prices, or on your way out and may never be seen again, which is the justification I used to rationalize spending $800 to take my step daughter to see ZZ Top a few years ago.
And I’m glad I did, the young lady’s mind was blown by the old guys.