Frank

Well, if the forced hiatus allowed the E Streetters to cure their ailments, I see no reason why the band shouldn't the be at their "peak" (or, and much more reasonably, as good as they were in the recent past). It is not that playing their pop-rock music requires particular strengths. It's a matter of proficiency rather than muscular power. Unfortunately, things may be quite different for the leading singer.

Well, the problem is even bigger. For both songs, the presence of a particular term (or a few ones) is making them unacceptable regardless of the context in which they were used. Mark told plenty of times how the lyrics of Money of Nothing are the transcript of a true conversation/rant he happened to overhear in an appliance store in New York. And the video made it abundantly clear. Now would you really think those professional movers avoided uncensored speech while talking to their blue collar colleagues about rockstars? In the Eighties? As for Brown Sugar, it's about slavery, and it was written at the very beginning of the Seventies (for reference, desegregation in the States was signed into law a couple of years before, and Apartheid in South Africa ended some twenty years later - after Stevie got involved, that is ). Of course most listeners have never gone beyond the salacious chorus, no surprise when you have Mick Jagger singing it. But that was basically a blues band going back to their roots. As for the next victim, I'm afraid the airing days of Pink Floyd's The Wall (one of the greatest albums ever, IMHO) are numbered.

My point started with the line, "Imagine witnessing history for under $20" in Bruce's last tweet, OK? Now, the MUSE shows were great, and so will be this new release. However, as Bruce himself recently confirmed, they are released as a spin off of what Thom Zimny accidentally uncovered while working on the Letter To You documentary. Not out of public demand. And my whole point concerns their relevance today, or more in general, their popularity within Bruce's (the MUSE "l let my music speak for myself" line-up guy) career. Not about how popular the MUSE shows were 42 years ago. I've spent more than 20 years on this website, and I can't remember many threads craving for those shows. More importantly, for most of us here the basic knowledge of the MUSE came from what we read on Dave Marsh's Born to Run (and, since 1988, from the two clips on the 'Live Anthology' VHS; clips that were essentially revered because they were the only official live material showing a pre-1985 E Street Band until 2005 Born to Run boxset). So, again, I'm not belittling the importance of the MUSE event when it took place, but if you're not a die-hard (that is, the kind of fan who buys VHS/DVD and reads books about Springsteen), you're still under 50-55 years old, and you happen to live outside the East Coast, the MUSE is most probably something you never heard of. No legend, no history, no 20 bucks. It's no Woodstock, no Isle of Wight, not even Concert for Bangladesh. As I said, for the general audience, these shows would be as well-known as the Christic Shows.

The problem is, why stopping at music? Why should national networks broadcasting films or theatrical plays get a pass when a few tongue-in-cheek-self-deprecating terms (Mark is refereeing to himself and his fellow musicians in the song) make a song a 'no go' thirty-six years later? That Shakespeare guy will soon be out of business should someone decide to give him half of the same treatment.

Never seen this stuff. Pretty solid, thank you.

Why the "NO"?

Well, it's basically the same discussion we're having in the Stones/Brown Sugar thread. When you're made to believe your current opinion is the ultimate judge of society, history and culture, those who know less are often the ones who tolerate less.

Indeed, but buying a the VHS of "Live Antology" back in late eighties-early nineties, and taking the time to know where those performances came from, wasn't exactly casual fan job.

Do you really think non die-hards knew about these supposed pieces of evidence? A 42 years old rally and a rock magazine? C’mon. It’s like pretending a casual fan knows about the Christic shows (before the Nugs stuff, I mean).

Ok, but I’m not seeing what you’re getting at with your quote, or with the Muse lineup on the cover of BruceCO household magazine. I mean, I get that in the wake of a nuclear accident scare, those shows helped mobilizing people, but that does’t make those concerts a Woodstock-like event in rock history. As I said, nobody outside the inner Springsteen-Riatt-Browne die-hard circle would remember those shows (let alone consider them history's or legendary) if it weren’t for Dave Marsh, or for that couple of ‘Live Anthology’ clips.

Well, it depends on your world's view, I guess. I don't want to open a can of worms here but: "WOKE" might be a synonym of "enlightened" if you share the post-modernist view of art according to which the HERE and NOW are the only acceptable social and artistic criteria. Therefore, what doesn't comply strictly with an overt progressive mindset must be censored, banned, or made fun of. (Of course, what is cutting edge progressive today will be borderline conservative in a few years - let alone in a generation - but who cares really?) However, if you consider culture for what it has always been, and you value art as the LOGIC expression of the specific historical period which produced it, being "WOKE" - that is, judging the past by your own current, personal, selfish, narrow perspective - is being ignorant, or childish, at best. Basically, the idea of discarding culture and history in favor of what may be socially cool (to you and your pairs) in the here and now is what gave rise to fascism(s) a hundred years ago. After all, why did they burn books back then? For sure, not because they thought the ideas in those books were new...

The Stones are wise enough to avoid pointless controversies at this point of their career, especially after losing Charlie. That being said, retiring a 50 years old songs because it might hurt some casual listener’s sensibility today bodes badly for rock 'n roll (and art in general).

I know it’s not Bruce managing his Twitter account, but WTF is that? Pretty disgusting as far as I’m concerned (no matter how self-proclaimed “legendary” his glory days might have been to him or his management). History? For a price-tag, Bruce??? Give me a break. Ask any non die-hard Springsteen fan if they knew what the MUSE was before this release was announced… (and even most die-hards would know it because of the cake incident Dave Marsh made famous in his first Bruce book).

It was great Bruce and the Band visited the Southern Hemisphere on that tour. But what if they didn’t? Would it still make the “great tour” category? That tour had great shows, no doubt, but as I said, to me what makes a tour great is a theme and an strong album backbone. And for sure, the HH tour didn’t shine for that.

I think you’re misinterpreting my the last sentence. My point is D&D, SSB, Magic and WB (especially in their first legs) were great tours because they had that backbone (and a theme). The following second, third, fourth, full-album-greatest-hits-filled-free-for-all-legs were far less remarkable IMHO. The same is true for the ‘Mr. Landau, please book me anywhere’ WOAD, HH , and (euro) River 2016 tours.