Scott Peterson

This was awesome info, Fuse, almost all of which was new to me—thanks so much for sharing! So...speaking of new to me, was the fact that Toby Scott's not with Bruce any more common knowledge and I just missed it? Or was it kept somewhat quiet?

A variation on that which only has officially released songs would be dandy. (Obviously, starting with this list and doing it oneself is a lot easier than compiling such a comprehensive list in the first place.)

1974-01-29 Muther's Music Emporium, Nashville, TN (You Mean So Much to Me) 1974-03-03 Gaston Hall, Washington, DC (Saint in the City) 1975-02-05 Main Point (The), Bryn Mawr, PA (You Can Trust Your Car to the Man with the Star) are the three pre-Archive shows to which I keep returning. And I'd surely love official releases of any or all of them.

Of course they're allowed. But when they're a celebrity and they publicly make what's objectively a terrible choice, indefensible, verging on a human rights violation, we then get to point and laugh. In fact, that's simply proper etiquette. (Miss Manners said so.)

"Does Bruce Springsteen have other songs I should check out?" No. No, that's pretty much his only quality offering.

Well, maybe with the extra time gained from being quarantined, they've been able to extract a second Rising show.

I am a fan of both Richard Thompson and Nick Cave and consider them great artists. But I realize I may be in the minority on this board in not considering either of them nearly on Bruce’s level. That is not meant to be any disrespect to either of them. I have many friends who consider them much greater artists than Springsteen. But I was very talking about artists on the popular level of a Bruce Springsteen or a Bob Dylan, and not extremely popular cult artists, which is pretty much what those two guys are. And, again, no disrespect intended: perhaps my favorite band ever never got beyond the status of cult artist. As for Johnny Cash and his fantastic run of albums at the end of his life, on any given album he wrote between 25 and 40% of the material, and even those songs were sometimes written with co-writers. That’s why I specifically used the word “written“ when referring to Bruce’s run of albums this century. Again, absolutely no disrespect to the great man in black, a towering figure, but if he doesn’t cover “Hurt,“ among other covers, that run of albums doesn’t get the attention it does and so richly deserves.

Springsteen on Broadway was a (brilliant!) one-man show, a format which has been around, in one form or another, for at least decades, and more accurately probably over a century (depending upon your definition). As for (the brilliant!) Western Stars, it was very deliberately an attempt to do his version of a Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb sort of late 60s/early 70s SoCal pop song cycle. Again, absolutely phenomenal album! Not groundbreaking in the least. Heartbreaking, to be sure. (One of the things about Springsteen's career that's closest to being groundbreaking would be the fact that in his mid-50s to late 60s, he's written and recorded some of the finest music of his incredible career—now, that is nearly unprecedented. Curse you, Bob Dylan, for once again doing it first!)

Well, no, the idea was put forth that it'd be nice if Bruce did some livestreams like other artists. And you said That's how we got here. Or, at least, how I did.

Bruce is a brilliant synthesizer, but I can't think of something notable he’s done in his career that was groundbreaking in some way—brilliant, yes, absolutely, but not trailblazing, even in a fairly small way. It’s not exactly controversial to say the first album was extremely Dylanesque, the second was obviously heavily influenced by Astral Weeks, the third as he himself said was a combination of Roy Orbison and Phil Spector, The River was him doing his take on frat-rock and garage rock and rockabilly and the Byrds, and so on and so forth. His stage show drew heavily on James Brown, his early guitar soloing was clearly based upon Clapton's playing. Nebraska was his take on the country and folk he was really delving into for the first time and so on. He got into video later than any other artist of his stature, and the same with synthesizers and drum machines. He has always sat back and observed until he was comfortable with a new move—just look at how late, again, relative to many other artists of his stature, he was at getting into the Nugs type services. This aren't meant as criticisms. There's nothing wrong with his approach, especially since the results are as phenomenal as they are. I'm actually a bit baffled as to why the idea of Bruce not being a trailblazer is controversial, and assume it has something to do with my unclear writing, rather than the argument. (Caveat: an argument can obviously be put forth that no artist has not stood on the shoulders of those who came before, and that even Bach and Wagner and Stravinsky and Armstrong and Hendrix and the Velvet Underground and so on and so forth simply took an additional step or two, in which case this discussion is even more pointless.)

Feh. Another one of the sheeple horde has tried to parlay this disaster into fame. https://www.stereogum.com/2078245/neil-young-fireside-session-second-rarities-watch/video/

Maybe I missed the part where people were insisting he had on obligation to do something. My impression was that many of us thought it would be a really nice thing to do, given that others are doing it, it's something relatively easy to do, and something at which he's absolutely spectacular. As for following the herd—beyond how oddly dismissive that is of the artists who are choosing to put on free concerts for people—Bruce Springsteen is many, many things, but a trailblazer isn't all that high on that list: almost his entire career consists of paying careful attention to what others are doing, deciding what works well and what doesn't, and then doing a brilliant job at doing what others have previously done and making it his own. (Notable exception: following Guns n' Roses' model on releasing two albums at once.)

Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service) is one of those artists who's been livestreaming a solo acoustic set every day, taking requests, doing deep cuts and covers, and it's been fantastic. It's surely be great if Bruce could do the same.

OUTSTANDING.

Man, I loved the park bench story.