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April 26, 2005
Devils and Dust
The Boss has a new record out.
Yawn.
As far as hackneyed, cliched and downright boring music goes, Bruce Springsteen is on his way to becoming a legend. I'll admit that Nebraska was an alright album, but why anyone takes a guy like Springsteen seriously is beyond me. I can think of a dozen American songwriters who have created and are creating music that is far more moving. Springsteen's politics are as outdated as a sky blue leisure suit, and as liberals go, Steve Earle has him beat in a landslide. Damien Jurado and Richard Buckner are better storytellers. Conor Oberst is probably as full of himself, but at the rate he's maturing, he'll have Springstreen outdone - in the area of songwriting - in twenty years. Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard are still writing powerful music, and that's to say nothing of Townes Van Zandt's output before his death in the late 1990s.
Look at it this way. Gram Parsons died at a very young age, but rock and country fans still recognize "Sin City," "Love Hurts" and "$1000 Wedding." Other than "Born to Run," "Thunder Road" and the terrible "Born in the USA," will anyone remember a Springsteen song in twenty years?
Posted by Matt at April 26, 2005 08:53 PM