So, what have you been listening to lately?

[uwe]

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?

[westen44]

I didn't even know the guy's name.  I had seen some of his videos before.  I avoid them much of the time.  One big reason is that when he recommends new bands, I almost always don't like them.  After a while, it became obvious that we had very different tastes in music.  However, I have liked a few things about his videos.  He seems to have somewhat of a sense of justice.  For instance, he spoke up clearly about how he thought Lindsey Buckingham had been mistreated.  Another thing is Spuria seems to be the kind of person who has kept up with a lot of details in the music world.  I tend to avoid that and tend to mostly look at the big picture.  But sometimes he'll have some pertinent info that I can use. 

I also immediately noticed that the word "cerebral" wasn't really the right word to use.  I think he probably has a basic idea what the word means, but maybe not.  I'm not sure what the word should have been exactly, but it definitely shouldn't have been cerebral.  I realized from the context that what he was trying to say is he didn't like songs to be carefully laid out, almost clinical and without much emotion, setting forth a carefully planned agenda on how people should think and act.  I'm reminded of the song "Sunshine" by Jonathan Edwards in which he sings "he can't even run his own life; I'll be damned if he'll run mine."  Most of us would prefer, of course, that we be allowed to run our own lives.  Maybe Spuria thinks Springsteen's lyrics can get a little intrusive.  I haven't listened to Bruce Springsteen enough to say one way or another. 

[uwe]

Springsteen isn't unemotional either - on the contrary, he writes songs and performs like Steven Spielberg directs movies: from a more somber European viewpoint it's always a bit too much, too grand the emotions, too much the passion. But millions of people love him for just that. I was at a gig where a female fan handed him her infant which cannot have been more than a few months - if that - old. I don't know what he was supposed to do with it, he's Catholic like me, perhaps wash away the original sin? To his credit, he took the baby like the experienced grandfather he was (getting on his knees of course to do so) and handed it back to her ever so carefully after planting a kiss on its head. I mean just imagine, what might Ozzy have done? 

[westen44]

Springsteen isn't unemotional either - on the contrary, he writes songs and performs like Steven Spielberg directs movies: from a more somber European viewpoint it's always a bit too much, too grand the emotions, too much the passion. But millions of people love him for just that. I was at a gig where a female fan handed him her infant which cannot have been more than a few months - if that - old. I don't know what he was supposed to do with it, he's Catholic like me, perhaps wash away the original sin? To his credit, he took the baby like the experienced grandfather he was (getting on his knees of course to do so) and handed it back to her ever so carefully after planting a kiss on its head. I mean just imagine, what might Ozzy have done? 

I don't know, of course, what Ozzy would have done.  I do know that I've gotten way more out of Ozzy's music.  This is really mostly just about people's taste in music.  Whatever emotion Springsteen may be trying to convey, it just doesn't register with me.  But that really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things.  Liking or disliking music has a lot to do with subjectivity itself.  When I was younger, I probably had a degree of pride in my taste in music.  If it ever existed, it's all gone now.  In fact, when I see artists such as Springsteen and U2 that millions like, but I don't, I try to step back the best I can and question myself a little.  I haven't spent the time, though, with Springsteen the way I have with U2.  But I am no closer now than I was at the first to understanding why they are so appealing to so many people.  Springsteen is even harder to analyze because he is from my own country.  I get puzzled at why I'm not feeling what so many others of my countrymen are feeling.  I can see it's real, but I still don't get it.  Some might say it's because I'm so far away from that area.  But Billy Joel is just as far away and I easily relate to him. 

This situation with Springsteen goes way back to when I lived in New Orleans.  A woman there who was a native that I was around a lot was always raving about Bruce Springsteen in that intriguing New Orleans "Yat" accent. She was a big, big fan.  But I hardly knew what to say to her.  I tried the best I could to be polite.  I was polite and puzzled.     

This woman in New Orleans was also a tremendous Joan Armatrading fan.  This is probably of no great importance, but here is Armatrading as a guest background vocalist on a Queen song.  The second video is, of course, Joan by herself.  This song was one of the songs my friend was talking about so much the best I remember.

[uwe]

Joan Armatrading is great. But her music is music for a small hall (nothing wrong with that). Springsteen is CinemaScope for stadiums. That determines much of his music. That forced reduction to grandeur that projects into even the last corner.

I hate stadium gigs, no matter who the band is. Avoid them like the plague. And in general, whenever a band reaches stadium size audience capacity, their music invariably suffers.

[Basvarken]

What if ZZ Top wrote Seek And Destroy

[slinkp]

I enjoy some of those "What if X wrote Y" covers:

[uwe]

What if ZZ Top wrote Seek And Destroy

Best ZZ Top song in a long time, those guys have the ZZ Top mannerisms down pat, lovely!

[uwe]

I enjoy some of those "What if X wrote Y" covers:

The guy is hilarious, lovely too!

But I think I'll wait a couple of more decades before I incorporate a Slayer album into my CD collection ... It strains my - perhaps archaic and uncool - concept of what I call "music".

[Basvarken]

I don't think that guy really captures the Slayer vibe as good as the guy who did that ZZTop/Metallica mash-up.

Here's another one from him (Denis Pauna)

[Pilgrim]

I don't think that guy really captures the Slayer vibe as good as the guy who did that ZZTop/Metallica mash-up.

Here's another one from Denis Pauna

I couldn't stand to listen to the Slayer parody...but they're not my speed anyway.  THIS one, I really like.  They nailed that dark, sinister approach.

[slinkp]

No accounting for taste... I would rather listen to a thousand Slayer parodies than a single minute of anything by (or imitating) the Doors ... your mileage may vary

[Dave W]

No accounting for taste... I would rather listen to a thousand Slayer parodies than a single minute of anything by (or imitating) the Doors ... your mileage may vary

Not a Slayer fan, but Jim Morrison's voice makes me nauseous. I'd rather listen to Yoko, if only for the humor value.

And while we're at it, how the hell did Janis Joplin become big? Neighborhood cats yowling sound better. She claimed to be a disciple of Bessie Smith, but Bessie could actually sing.

[uwe]

As could Janis, Dave, and you know it. Her voice was raw, sometimes demandingly so, but it could transport emotion. And there was something vulnerable about it. Plus not just the Blues component, but even some country influence - and if I may say so myself.

Jim Morrison was technically no great singer, some people say even tone-deaf, also a baritone (unusual for rock), but I have yet to hear someone sing Roadhouse Blues and bring across the same laconic acceptance of impending death. He was a great stylist. I used to hate/not understand The Doors, but I've come round.

[westen44]

Not a Slayer fan, but Jim Morrison's voice makes me nauseous. I'd rather listen to Yoko, if only for the humor value.

And while we're at it, how the hell did Janis Joplin become big? Neighborhood cats yowling sound better. She claimed to be a disciple of Bessie Smith, but Bessie could actually sing.

I totally agree.  It would be hard to pick out two that get on my nerves that much.