Bands/Artists We Love – Bruce Springsteen
After a break in December choosing my favorite albums of the year and the decade, it’s time to continue with our fourth act in this series of ten (in no particular order).
It’s Bruce Springsteen, my favorite American artist. No need for an introduction here as I am pretty sure everyone (fan or not) knows about the Boss. Bruce is a fantastic story teller and a perfectionist when it comes to his art. I remember on a Jimmy Fallon interview years ago about his unreleased album The Promise (made up of outtakes from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions), Bruce said he wrote about 100 songs for the album and then reduced it to 10. Jimmy laughed and said “A hundred songs! That’s what a crazy person does”, I agree with Jimmy, only that I see genius instead of crazy there.
I knew of Bruce since high school probably but it was in college that I was really exposed to his music and got into it. Born To Run was the album for me back then as I felt identified to it in how he sang of all the dreams we have at that age, wanting to go out into the world and conquering it. Nowadays my favorite is Darkness, it’s follow up which speaks to me of facing the harsh reality of everyday life. Gone are the days of dreaming of an easy way out and here are the days of working hard to make ends meet. If we want to reach the Promise Land, we’re gonna have to work for it.
The Boss’ catalog is full of masterpieces. The River is a double album tour de force, Nebraska shows a true artist taking a real risk and succeeding in his own terms. After Nebraska Springsteen promised his record label an album full of hits and he delivered Born In The USA with its whopping 7 top ten hit singles. As great as it is and despite its popularity doesn’t crack my Bruce top 5, that’s gotta speak of the quality of this man’s work for sure. Later he released Tunnel of Love, his break-up album which includes what is for me one of the best break up songs ever, Brilliant Disguise.
The new millennium found Bruce reunited with The E Street Band after a long break and producing some of the best albums of his amazing career. The Rising with its uplifting message, the masterpiece that is 2007’s Magic (my favorite Bruce album since Darkness), the holy grail that was to finally have The Promise released and last year’s Western Stars which shows the Boss at 70 refusing to stand still and unafraid to venture into new territories.
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band hold a legendary status when it comes to performing live and rightfully so. I saw them perform live on The River Tour in 2016 for well over 3 hours in what will definitely be one of the best concerts of my lifetime (won the lottery and got to be on the front row, absolutely surreal when during Thunder Road he walked over and held my hand while we both sang). The energy of Bruce and the band was not only amazing but contagious as well.
Going back to The Promise or the Tracks box set Bruce released full of outtakes that would be hit singles on many other discographies, that not only shows his immense talent but also his integrity as an artist who has no problem to discard dozens of great songs because they won’t fit the album he’s working on. Springsteen’s albums are works of art and should be seen as that.
If you are new to The Boss, here’s a playlist of my favs, you can thank me later:
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