Ben, Back in 1984, I told you I drew the line at Bruce Springsteen; I just couldn't get on with his music. Then Born in the USA came out, and, though it was unfair that it got it lumped in with Rambo and gung-ho Reaganism, that just reinforced how I felt. I said how I couldn't stomach the bombast and the self-importance of Bruce's sound. "Ah," you said, "well you should at least try Nebraska — you can't accuse that of bombast".
In 2000, I finally took you advice and bought it (for a fiver, from Fopp). It's the first and so far the only Springsteen album I've ever owned — though I was quite tempted by the Born to Run Anniversary edition recently, having read that the DVD material is really good.
And you were right, it really is a good album — one that reminds you how album-ish an album can be, since all its songs are of a piece, rather than being a hotch-potch of different themes and moods. There's quite an interesting essay about it by Howard Hampton in The Rose and the Briar
My friend David Kay played me a bit of the Badlands Nebraska tribute album
I actually saw Bruce play live once. I was in Toronto in 1992; it was my last night before returning to the UK, and Bruce was playing one of those enormous arenas. In the spirit of 'When in Rome…' I decided I'd go if they had any tickets left. As luck would have it, they'd just released a final block. The gig was terrible. It had all of the self-importance and strutting that I'd imagined it might have, but none of it was convincing. I think someone told me later that 1992 wasn't his best tour.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
|
Comments