Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Album: The River
I discovered Springsteen relatively late. Sure, his work was always part of the background of my world–which, when you consider that I’ve spent a fair part of my life in New Jersey, shouldn’t be a surprise.
Rolling Stone has an article about a poll that shows that Bruce Springsteen has a higher approval rating than the current governor of New Jersey, among other things. Now my question is this: if they had an election for governor of New Jersey and the race came down to Jon Bon Jovi versus The Boss, who would win?
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town
Awhile ago, I had listed this song as one of my top 10 ‘bad day’ songs. There’s something about it that I find singularly uplifting–especially the bridge leading into that last chorus.
I always wind up turning to music when I’ve had a bad day. Sometimes it’s a concert DVD, and sometimes it’s just turning on the computer and letting Windows Media Player shuffle until it hits the right song.
So, I present the top 10 songs that I turn to when I’ve had that truly rotten day… (more…)
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Album: Born to Run
Ah, yes. The quintessential Springsteen song. I had to get to this sooner or later, didn’t I? Actually, I didn’t encounter Bruce’s work until relatively recently. His music wasn’t part of my parents’ collection, so this was something that I discovered more or less on my own.
Jon seems to be a busy boy lately. Today I stumbled across an interview with Ray Davies of The Kinks, where he mentions that he is in the process of recording an album of duets.
This sounds interesting. Usually, I rate this kind of album as a low priority, mostly because in a lot of cases, I haven’t gotten around to getting the original albums and I really think that I should familiarize myself with the originals first. However, I already have a lot of stuff from The Kinks, and I definitely have stuff from most of the artists he’s working with. Plus, The Kinks, and most of the songs that they have recored are just plain awesome. They are one of the few bands to produce songs that can still feel completely fresh and new, even decades later. Every Kinks song that I’ve ever heard could have been written yesterday.
Plus, the list of artists working on this so far includes nothing but artists I like. Both Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen have what it takes to do a good job on a duet of a Kinks song. The Killers do as well–they’re one of the few relatively new bands that I enjoy. And I’m really interested to see what Metallica can bring to this project.
I’ll have to give the samples on Amazon a listen when this comes out. It sounds like one I’d be tempted to buy, which is rare.
There’s a nice writeup on Bruce Springsteen’s appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert at CNN. They even managed to get a good picture of The Boss from the event.
It’s great to see both Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel showing a sense of humor about their respective home bases. Personally I would have loved to see this show, especially with Bruce performing ‘Proud Mary’ with John Fogerty as well.
Bruce Springsteen will be playing the last concerts to be held at Giants Stadium before it is demolished. (The full article can be found at Rolling Stone.)
The choice of The Boss as the last artist to play Giants Stadium is fitting, if predictable. However, the interesting part of this article is that evidently Springsteen will be playing several full albums during these concerts. This seems to be a trend in rock concerts lately; I’ve remarked on it before.
The great thing about artists playing entire albums live is that for the fans at least, it’s a treat. Most fans will attend a lot of concerts by their favorite artists; playing whole albums gives the fans a chance to hear songs that they have heard played live infrequently at best.
Of course, that also is a problem. People attending the concert who are only casual fans, or who are attending with friends, are more likely to feel left out if it’s an album concert. A more standard “greatest hits” type concert will tend to be a better experience for people who aren’t big fans. I think that’s why I don’t really like the concept of album concerts; while they do cater to the fanbase, they don’t grow the fanbase at all.
However, with the iconic status of the albums that Bruce has chosen for these concerts, this should be less of a problem. An album like Born in the U.S.A. works much better for this concept, as the songs are going to be much more familiar to a wide range of people.