When I think about Springsteen's career, I generally consider his early years to be Greetings through Born in the USA, and his later era begins with Tunnel of Love.
This year, Springsteen played 1,148 songs from the early era and 442 songs from the recent era.*
Almost 3/4 of his songs at concerts this year were from the early years.
I certainly think this distribution is justified (and possibly even too heavily weighted toward recent stuff) from the standpoint of basing his song selection purely on what his best songs are (not necessarily what's new or what he should be promoting).
I'm pretty sure most people prefer the early years, but do you think the early era is 2.6 times better than the recent era (that's the proportion reflected in his song selections this year)?
Check out the poll on the right hand side of the page - if you think the early years were greater than 2.6 times better than the later years, choose the first option. Otherwise, choose something else!
*Only includes songs from the albums.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Never having heard "Lucky Town" or "Tunnel of Love," but being familiar with the awfulness that is "Human Touch" and "Ghost of Tom Joad," I would argue that a third era began with "The Rising." I think it makes sense thematically. The early stuff was characterized by the realization that the world at large was out to get you, but there hope that you could escape it if you ran fast enough. The middle stuff was about realizing that no one can run that fast, but maybe you could settle for what's there anyways. Then came the realization that "no, that's not going to work, either" and all the anger/frustration that entails (this seems purest to me in "Last to Die.")
ReplyDeleteHe's teenager, he has a mid-life crisis, then he gets over it.
Basically, I chafe at the idea that "Magic" and "Rising" would in any way get lumped in with "Tunnel of Love" through "Ghost of Tom Joad."
Tunnel of Love has some good stuff (Tougher than the Rest and Brilliant Disguise are both great songs, certain towards the top of "era 2") but I agree that the 90s were weak. I do think there is a strong argument for 3 eras, especially because of the country sound of Tunnel of Love, Human Touch, Lucky Town, and also Ghost of Tom Joad. That country sound can be found on some early and also some later stuff, but is definitely most prevalent in ToL through GoTJ.
ReplyDelete