Band Face Off - Round 12

[face of glass]

Originally Posted by Jyqm

I've got say, I have a very difficult time taking your opinion seriously when all you do is quote the same critic over and over again. It's nice that you've found somebody who shares your views on the topic at hand, but can't we discuss Springsteen with you and not your buddy George?

Starostin is the only critic I've seen to make valid points against Springsteen, I haven't found any others (at least in America the traditional school of rock criticism [the Creem/Rolling Stone wing of it] has done nothing but praised Bruce) but of course that is due to my lack of research. If you have other examples of this, I would like you to give me some links.

There are plenty of popular musicians out there who alternate between different modes because they simply have different musical interests. Of course it would be naive to suggest that Springsteen's "flip-flopping," as it were, is not a business decision on some level. But is it really so difficult to believe that the man likes making both loud punchy rock music as well as quieter acoustic material?

The interesting thing is that he RARELY dares to combine them on the same album and therefore doesn't want to give an impression of true diversity, instead he prefers to split these distinct sides of his to half in order to not alienate certain parts of his audience. This isn't to say an album like The River doesn't have parts of both but hell, it's a double album anyway.

Finally, none of this is to say that I don't respect Bruce (or for that matter, George Starostin doesn't respect Bruce; he also gives several high ratings to certain Bruce albums) as an artist. After all, very few people would dare to cover material like "Frankie Teardrop" or "Dream Baby Dream". That for me is reason enough to recognize his artistry.