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The Scotts are back! Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott have returned for another edition of their music podcast and the name is too convoluted for me to bother trying to remember it. To me, it will always be U Talkin’ U2 2 Me? even though they aren’t talking about U2 anymore. This one is about Bruce Springsteen. Something about springing Springsteen on their bean is the title. You can find it. It’s worth it, because the podcast is really funny, and the music insight is solid.
From the previous three editions, I didn’t necessarily get into U2, and my fandom for Talking Heads remained where it was, but I did get more of an affinity for R.E.M. because I didn’t realize how good the early stuff was. What about “The Boss.” I grew up hearing a lot of Springsteen, and obviously he has some indelible songs. There was a period of time, say 15 years ago, where I started to listen to him a bit, but only like eight or nine hits. Like, I was listening to “Badlands” and “Candy’s Room” in addition to “Born to Run,” in essence.
After listening to the first two episodes of the podcast, I decided to give his work a deeper listen. I’ve only visited the first two albums thus far. My takeaway is that Springsteen is…pretty good? Here’s the thing, and this is a thesis in flux: The songs that have been codified as canonical probably got there for a reason, and in turn the other songs did not perhaps for a reason. Not because they are bad, though he has some songs I don’t like. They just are fine. An album with two good songs, six fine songs, and two mediocre songs is a success, as far as I’m concerned. It’s just not remarkable.
The early stuff is clearly quite Bob Dylan indebted. Springsteen has always had a way with lyrics, but he’s quite wordplay heavy early on. I like his voice, but the songs are story songs in a way that isn’t effective for him. In time, he would come to excel at this, but he isn’t there yet. There has been no great discovery of Springsteen’s greatness for me, but what I have heard has been reasonably solid, and so I think I shall listen along to the albums with the podcast. Also, I listened to some R.E.M. Still really good.
