Bob Seger vs. Bruce Springsteen

And I know what you mean about "guilty pleasures." Mine include Buckingham/Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac and the Monkees. :-)

Well, you just described me! Seger sorta wins by default but that's more because I still haven't gotten around to hearing all these early singles of his, which sound intriguing. Then Seger will probably win by merit too.

and tho I can take or leave the Monkees, I own every Michael Nesmith album - genius!!

john sinclair takes sides, circa born 2 run, throws down a long form argument anti-boss/pro-bruce with digs at marsh and landau along the way.

http://oldnews.aadl.org/node/200073

right on!

no no no he's pro-BOB *slaps forehead*

Despite was Sinclair claims, Marsh hated Don McLean. Marsh also praised Seger at every opportunity, before, during, and after Bruce's ascendance.

All the "West Side Story" crack shows is that Sinclair (himself a virulently anti-rock'n'roll snob until he was asked to manage the MC5) had never heard anything by the Ronettes, the Crystals, or the Shangri-Las, among others.

i was listening to an mfsl half speed mastered copy of born to run the other day and i like that it reminds me of christmas music. and bat out of hell. and that whole rocky horror theater-rock thing that was in the air back then. also, the song born to run will always sound like the best phil spector wall ever. so weird that i never get tired of that song. how many times do you think i've heard it in my american lifetime?

x-post-that Sinclair piece is a fun read.

the opening bit about black musical culture being on the verge of totally taking over is v prescient

I love the Christmas music aspect to Springsteen (his Christmas soul covers are, not coincidentally, total ragers), and of course Bat Out of Hell is at least partly driven by the E Street Band. BtR the song is some once in an eon force of nature. There's a great bootleg from I think '74 or so, right around the time before the album landed, where Bruce clearly doesn't quite know what he has yet. The song comes third - third! - in the setlist, and while the rest of the show is great, BtR lands with this weird out of context wallop.

Anyway, interesting piece, albeit tainted a tad by dirty laundry. I love reading about the rise of folks like Springsteen from a contemporaneous perspective, because I can imagine someone totally dismissing it as smartly marketed hype, before the dude had proved himself a thousand times over. Seger, I don't know much about that cat except the radio songs, which I really don't like. But a lot of people I do like like him, so I've always been curious, though not enough to dig anything out. Is there one Seger album whose deep (that is, non-single) cuts are so great they'd convince me?

Incidentally, Springsteen was always reportedly very self-conscious about his inability to attract a black audience. Possibly because the ascendant funk and soul of the '70s was so different from the '50s and '60s black music his own music echoed. If anything, I wonder if the number of non-white people attending his shows has gone down since the early '70s. You'd almost think, listening to the albums, that those early Springsteen shows would attract relatively diverse crowds, esp. c. the 2nd album, but I have no idea.

Is there one Seger album whose deep (that is, non-single) cuts are so great they'd convince me?

short answer is no

long answer is:
http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/5450595340/never-mind-the-bullets-bob-seger-1966-1974-i

I liked Born in the USA and Tunnel of Love when I was a teenager but have long soured on Brooooce. His appeal is a perennial mystery to me.

Ramblin' Gamblin' Man is a GREAT album. my favorite of all his albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BwBjfExLCk

uh, in answer to the seger deep cuts album to get...

Oh, should have said, I have that garage rock stuff already, but I don't count it.

I've yet to get tired of Bruce, and every time I take a break some months later I either catch him live or re-listen to a bootleg and he convinces me all over again. I'm a sucker for the sound, the romance of it, and honestly a lot of his anger/frustration/catharsis. And lately his weird optimism in the face of the former.

yeah idk I find his whole blue-collar-manly-man-playing-REAL-rock-n-roll-with-the-gang schtick just totally unappealing. almost offended by the reactionary conservatism of the aesthetic tbh, there's just no way into that for me.

Springsteen may well be the greater or better artist re songwriting, but I'm too lazy to do the cherrypicking(after the 70s) probably required to prove it. Seger's seemingly effortless risin' rasp has always seemed to have more starpower than Springsteen's sometimes strained warble-yelp, and in this century I'm more inclined to listen to him, often starting with those singles, often re-posted over the years by Myonga and Tyler (thanks so much, guys)

Also thanx to Scott for RGM!

xpost I can see that, but that's sort of how I feel more about bands like, I dunno, the Strokes, who are ten times the poseur than Springsteen ever was. I believe (foolishly?) in the myth of Bruce's man of the people authenticity, because that has overwhelmingly been what people have claimed and reported of him.

I know by now his schtick definitely scans as conservative, but I've always thought his dedication to that particular aesthetic sort of rebellious, the same way punks worshiped girl group sounds and rockabilly. Or at least far more rebellious than any other multi-millionaire legacy act these days. He's still engaged and pushing hard without losing his innate Bruce-ness.

Regardless, Springsteen has multiple great albums post-70s, so not much need to cherry pick!

fair enough, although Brooce's authenticity is not the issue for me. While I unreservedly love a lot of his sources - Dylan, Spector, Motown, etc. - he slots them into a framework that just has zero appeal to me. He strips out the otherness and odd edges of those sources and makes them into an all-american muscle car. And as much as I respect and am sympathetic to his blue-collar-lefty bona fides, as music it just seems like he took a bunch of interesting stuff and made it boring/safe(r).

I'm sure I've said all this before on some other Bruce vs. somebody thread...

makes them into an all-american muscle car

listen harder.

I've tried, but even the hits don't hit me. I can't even remember how Born to Run goes, and I must've heard it a hundred times.

WTF

Let's rank Seeg's top forty singles.

yeah idk I find his whole blue-collar-manly-man-playing-REAL-rock-n-roll-with-the-gang schtick just totally unappealing. almost offended by the reactionary conservatism of the aesthetic tbh, there's just no way into that for me.

I got a really nice copy of Nebraska today, great album. Love love love “highway patrolman”

One thing I will say for Bob Seger, he's surprisingly good at/interested in writing from a female perspective. My favorite is "The Fire Inside," where "you" go out to a club, pick up a guy, bring him home, and then lie awake waiting for him to leave so you can lock the door behind him. That detail of the door impresses me every time.

That said, though, Bruce all the way. I like Seger just fine, but Springsteen is just on another level as a writer and artist.

Nebraska was the album that converted me from casual fandom to full-on Bruce insanity.

I love them both and will never choose between them

It seems that there should be some type of late 70s LA crime love triangle movie that uses "Hollywood Nights" as the big theme tune.

"I'm just another consensus on the street."