[Harp-L] Meet the new Boss, Same as the old Boss

[Ronnie Schreiber]

>   He's Elvis and Dylan combined into one person, the most complete and perhaps greatest rock star of all time.

Well, at least you said "perhaps". I was a fan of Springsteen's early 
on. I owned his first two albums before seeing him on the Born To Run 
tour, at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, before he started playing arenas. 
A great performer and a decent songwriter and I came away from that show 
thinking he was the real deal and worthy of the massive hype that Jon 
Landau was generating with his connections in the music publishing biz. 
My oldest child was at a Springsteen show when she was a year old (but 
obviously doesn't remember Bob Seger coming up to do Thunder Road with 
Springsteen during the encore).

Then he started thinking he was a serious artist with his Nebraska 
album. He may be as dynamic a performer as Elvis was in the early days 
but he ain't no Dylan or Leonard Cohen when it comes to serious stuff. 
They'll be playing Dylan and Cohen's songs long after most of Bruce's 
oeuvre will be forgotten.  Then Springsteen decided to ignore Frank 
Zappa's sage advice ("Listening to a musician talk about politics makes 
about as much sense as listening to politicians making music.") and use 
his platform as an entertainer to make it clear that he really didn't 
like about half of his audience. I just love having a man who spends six 
figures on a single horse for his equestrian daughter (now that's a real 
working class New Jersey sport, isn't it?) lecture me about income 
inequality and how he supports the working man.

His dynamic performances may have evoked the early Elvis Presley, but 
like Elvis, Bruce Springsteen isn't very smart (source: The Mansion on 
the Hill). $100 spent on seeing local bands and upcoming touring acts 
seems to me to be a wiser choice.