Several posts have already been made about Bruce Springsteen on this thread. Rather than make an entire thread about him, I'm just going to post this video on this thread. After watching this, it got me thinking that my comments were too off-the-cuff and also just too harsh for almost no reason. If I were going to say something now about Springsteen, it would be something similar to this video. Whoever this guy is, he is more articulate than I am, and also probably has more of an overall grasp of the music world itself. But the point is what he says about Bruce Springsteen makes a lot of sense to me. He also made me realize that I also tend to prefer bands over solo artists. Actually, I already realized that, but now even more so.
It would be an overstatement for me to say that I'm a great fan of David Spuria aka
The Real Music Observer, his videos on bands tend to be a mix of the obvious and some hearsay, with very little depth and copious amounts of gushing cringe.
Springsteen is too cerebral for him? That's like saying that AC/DC plays too many chords. Neither Springsteen's lyrics nor his music are remotely cerebral - if they were, the Boss' music wouldn't touch so many people worldwide. Nor is Springsteen's music really preachy - he's a chronicler of the little (wo)man who falls down only to get up again. And politically, he's probably somewhere where Franklin Delano Roosevelt was.
Finally, if Herr Spuria didn't realize that
I'm On Fire was an homage to Elvis Presley and his singing style, albeit through the lens of Bruce Springsteen, I can't help him, maybe that wasn't explicitly mentioned in one of his Styx lyric sheets? If you're gonna call yourself "
The Real Music Observer", you should offer some insight, but this was
ouch and waffling all the way.
Springsteen is not a varied, nuanced singer - he either mumbles or delivers his stadium roar. His songwriting is not really varied either - introspective ballads where he talks over the music or stadium chorus hooks. His chord structures are plain. For a man playing guitar for close to 60 years, he's a rudimentary strummer, nothing more. The E-Street Band live is often just a wall of sound, as unfunky as Nickelback and static + heavy-handed in its musical approach as regards its arrangements (as well as insulated against inspiration from any other form of music unless its traditional/vintage). Too many people playing the same stuff unimaginatively (nowhere on earth are the talents of two good guitarists - Lofgren and Little Steven - more wasted than in the E-Street band, Bruce must pay them well). What they need is an arranger to sort their stuff out (that is why the Manfred Mann's Earth Band covers worked so well because they actually arranged the musical melee for the first time).
But too cerebral? What is Herr Spuria gonna say about Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention and Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull then?