Artist bio

Along with Michael Jackson and Madonna, Bruce Springsteen stands as one of the largest popular music icons of the 1980s. Yet unlike Jacko and the Virgin Queen, the Boss has managed to outgrow his teen idol image with his songwriting abilities and critical esteem 100 percent intact.

By the time he rose to international superstardom in the 1980s, Springsteen was already a well-established artist. After releasing two strong, but largely unnoticed albums, he released his first masterpiece, Born To Run in 1975. Featuring some of his most well-known rock anthems -- "Thunder Road," "Backsteets," and "Born To Run" to name a few -- the album officially began Springsteen's career-long examination of the American identity. And with "Wall Of Sound" production, inspired lyrics, and an epic musical vision, Born To Run secured Springsteen's reputation amongst rock lovers.

What makes Springsteen such a wonderful artist to appreciate is his almost obsessed attention to his craft. Each of the albums following Born To Run are worthy of close study. While 1984's Born In The USA marks the commercial apex of the singer/songwriter's career, his less commercially succesful albums best stand the test of time. On albums such as 1978's Darkness On The Edge Of Town, 1982's Nebraska, and 1987's Tunnel Of Love, Springsteen creates musical visions that are both deeply personal and amazingly universal.

As a songwriter, Springsteen continually returns to the same themes -- love, loss and moral redemption, to name a few -- and continually finds new insights and perspectives. Be it the sprawling rock epics of his early career, "Incident On 57th Street" (The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle), or the concise acoustic dirges of his later work, like "Dry Lightning" (The Ghost Of Tom Joad), his songs mine the hearts and souls of his characters and follow their everyday dilemnas with startling clarity.

To top it all off, Springsteen is arguably the best live performer in the history of rock, if such a claim could ever be definitively made. At the height of his physical abilities, he was able to put on four-hour stadium-sized shows, rocking 50,000 in legendary fashion. Now in his mid-50s, he performs a shorter show -- but one with increased musical and vocal precision.

Like the Rolling Stones and Dylan and all the other rock legends that came before him and informed his work, Springsteen will be celebrated for years and years to come. But unlike artists such as the Stones, we have every reason to believe Bruce will continue to make noteworthy music and grow as an artist. And without question, we will be there to listen.

Albums by this artist

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006)

Devils & Dust / Prairie Wind (2005)

The Rising (2002)

Live In New York City (2001)

18 Tracks (1999)

Tracks (1999)

'Missing' (1996)

'Hungry Heart' (1995)

The Ghost Of Tom Joad (Recommended) (1995)

Human Touch (1992)

Lucky Town (1992)

Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

The River (1980)

Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Recommended) (1978)

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (Recommended) (1973)

Concerts

July 15, 1999
Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, N.J.

May 29, 1999
Parkbuhne Wulheide, Berlin

Bruce Springsteen

Live In New York City

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» BEN FRENCH | CO-DIRECTOR

Bruce Springsteen Live In New York City Columbia, 2001 RiYL: Bob Seger, John Mellencamp

When Bruce Springsteen put out Live in 1986, he and the E Street Band weren't just at the zenith of their relevance and popularity. They were cutting edge. The compact disc was a relatively new invention and Live was a three-disc "box set," a buzz word and concept that had yet to take hold of the industry. For a legendary act that had never put out a live recording, this boxed set was a Godsend to die hard fans and Bruce neophytes alike and it sold accordingly.

Now it's 2001 and times are a lot different. Sadly, Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band are not. While Live In New York City -- an amalgam of two shows from the group's 10-night stand at Madison Square Gardens last summer -- does nothing to diminish Bruce and his bandmates' reputation as one of rock history's finest live acts, it doesn't offer many listeners a substantial reward for purchase. In fact, it offers listeners with computers and an Internet connection literally no reward at all. Sure it's great to hear a crystal clear version of "41 Shots," far and away the best song of the set, but the release on the whole just seems out of date.

Back in the '80s and early '90s, a Bruce Springsteen live release, any Bruce Springsteen live release, would have made me happy. And the two live sets he released in that period -- Live and Plugged -- made me very, very happy. But those two albums didn't really satiate my hunger as much as they made my live lust grow worse. So in 1991, I convinced my brother Tom to "lend" me his K-Mart bag of Bruce boots. I spent the subsequent three years enjoying those crusted tapes for all they were worth. I knew my older siblings had to search well outside of the bounds of Indiana to find these recordings and I appreciated them despite their perpetual hiss and buzz.

But only a few years later, I was able to throw them all away with not a lick of guilt or pause. Why? The Web, dummy! And I'm not just talking about Napster. I'm talking about chat rooms, where one could find folks willing to trade higher-grade versions of those coveted 1978 Darkness shows. I'm talking about search engines that could lead me to a company in Italy that could deliver the 1975 Main Point concert to my hands without me setting foot inside any seedy inner city record shop. This Internet has brought Springsteen fans total access. With the proliferation of Napster and similar file-trading programs in the past year, a fan could actually hear a show within hours of it being performed.

So can someone tell me why I would want to go out and buy Bruce's new album? Ah, right, the packaging and the quality! Well with Live In New York City all the buyer gets in the way of packaging is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the New York Times last summer (which by the way, can be read online). And as for the quality, I'd much rather hear an unedited 6-CD version of these two shows than the very choppy 2-CD, fade-in, fade-out, sloppily edited version we get here. While an Internet rendering of these shows wouldn't necessarily be "flawless," it wouldn't have the nipped and tucked feeling of the actual release. Plus, half of songs featured here have been previously released in a live format. And more often than not, the older versions are better.

Sure, I want to hear the ultra-rare "Lost In The Flood" and the full-band version of "Youngstown," but I shouldn't have to pay $20 to own them. As a listener of the new millennium, I should be able to hear the shows in their entirety and pick and choose songs as I please. It could be like going to Wendy's restaurant, except better! "Yes, I'll take the heart-stopping 'Murder Inc.' with a side of 'Ramrod' and acoustic 'Born In The U.S.A. But please, hold the 15-minute 'Tenth Ave. Sermon.'"

Now, I know there are millions of Springsteen fans out there who would rather run out to Tower to buy this album rather than log onto the Internet to download a personalized track list. For them, Live In New York City should be a rewarding enough purchase, as it does a fairly good job of recreating a typical performance from the reunion tour. But in ten years this CD is likely going to be a complete waste of space for merchants like Tower and Virgin -- like that vinyl version of Live that's collecting dust in some Sam Goody out there.

Already, artists like the Black Crowes and Phish are using the Web as a means to an effective medium to distribute their songs. In fact, the Crowes plan on making every show of this summer's upcoming tour available for download on their Web site for fans who have purchased the band's upcoming album. If Bruce thinks he's too old to keep up with these youngsters than he ought to check out the official web sites for David Bowie or Pete Townshend.

Let these artists and their sites serve as a wake up call to the Boss and his manager Jon Landau and all their Columbia cronies to get a clue and make use of that sporadically updated brucespringsteen.net. If they would create a download section, I would gladly pay for any and every live show they post. Come to think of it, they could make a pretty penny off of me and every other Springsteen aficionado if they would start backlogging concerts. Release the Passaic show of '78 and Brixton concert of '95 and put a few Italians out of business. And while you're at it, why don't you put out the umpteen unreleased studio cuts you dumbly left off of the ill-conceived Tracks.

And for all you folks out there who think me a criminal for enjoying the fruits of Napster, you can join me in the 21st century whenever you feel like it. I fucking worship Bruce Springsteen but I am not about to feel guilty listening to music from shows I paid an absurd $75 to watch, by an artist whose every official release I own. No sir, I will not feel guilty at all. Instead, I'm gonna burn a few tracks off this album onto one CD and sell it back to a store in the Village so I can go buy me some more re-writeables.

BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.