Confessions of a Fanboy

So, I’m in the middle of an insanely busy stretch of writing reviews for BC and trying to keep my musical thoughts pulled together and assembled here on Fanboy and my head is starting to swim. I should be finishing my McCartney review, but I’ve only 40 minutes left to write about Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA…

Born in the U.S.A. was another huge commercial breakthrough for Bruce Springsteen. He’d had hits and was a known quantity among music lovers before Born, but this was the album that likely cemented his icon status. He was great before this record and he’s been great after it, but for a generation of fans this is the album he’s known for. The impact of MTV and a string of hit videos probably has as much to do with that as anything else. I may never be able to listen to “Glory Days” without seeing Silvio Little Steve making goofy faces during the chorus.

I said all of that to setup this heresy: I’m not crazy about this album.

Let me clarify: I don’t by any means hate the record. I don’t even dislike the record. There are many songs on this album that are fabulous. It’s not, in my view, Springsteen’s best or Springsteen at his best. It doesn’t work as a consistent album for me the way Born to Run does, for example. This plays more like a collection of songs than an album of songs that belong together. Sure, there are some songs on the record that create a narrative but I don’t find it as consistently rewarding a listen from beginning to end as I do other Springsteen records. The best songs here are among his best, but song for song it just doesn’t happen for me.

The album will forever be tied to the Reagan years thematically and sonically. The production does give the album more of a time capsule aesthetic than a timeless one. In that way, Born in the USA and The Rising have something in common. Rising plays a lot like a collection of songs, some of which coalesce to create an anthem with a few that simply sound out of place, tied to a very specific time period. It will probably take 20 years for us to know if the production sounds dated, but the similarities are there.

What makes this idea of timely and timeless all the more interesting is that Live in Dublin will be released in 25 short minutes where I live. Live in Dublin is a live album Springsteen recorded with the Seeger Sessions Band. Seeger Sessions was an album of folk songs written or popularized by Pete Seeger. Those songs were timeless and Springsteen and Co. presented them in arrangements that borrowed from folk, Americana, blues, country, swing, and mountain music; timeless songs in timeless presentation.

Is timeless inherently better than timely? Probably not. I tend to think a little more of music with a timeless quality but there is something appealing and important about music’s ability to serve as a marker on a timeline. What all of this suggests is that Springsteen is the kind of artist who is versatile enough to do both. His best songs and albums are the ones that seem to do both simultaneously.

I’m going to listen to a little Born in the US to tide me over until Dublin tomorrow morning. We’re pulling for you, Silvio!

Filed under: Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Musical Musings and Random Ramblings