Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA v. Happy Mondays 24 Hour Party People v Kraftwerk The Man Machine

24HPP will always be classic in my book because the first time I heard it I was dancing in a hot sweaty room with a pretty girl I had met just five minutes before. That song makes a lot of sense when you are drunkenly dancing in a dark room.

Three years in the ILX house and Jess responds in typical fashion.

Jesse, it's just a general observation - of albums that define 'way of life' maybe kraftwerk didnt fit in as solidly as the Mondays and Springsteen, but the Mondays and Springsteen both evoke different manners of living through their characters in the songs. The narrator in Born in the USA, Bobbie Jean or Ryders 'wearing a vest like a sleeping bag...etc' - specifically the character songs and the coded drug references in the Mondays. I read a review about Shaun Ryder being called the 'new Dylan' and was thinking about the previous Dylans of which Bruce Springsteen was one. It was just odd - listening to the first Mondays album and then Springsteen's - and was wondering if anyone picked up on the comparisons? Both portray 'small-town life' and the characters who came up through this...

(Anyway it is Kraftwerk because they are more pro-robot)

Jus' pointin' out summat or other...

I think pointing out that none of these albums are specifically of their country and the themes could be easily inverted to other locales is a more valid point (to agree with your last post)

Constrast with my friends who work in a factory in Northern Ontario who listen to Bruce Springsteen it's a similar evocation of a way of life but tinged with regret for the past; Bobbie Jean, Glory Days, Born in the USA...

james: it would be a situation where happy mondays first album is easily subverted.

(no, agreed that everyone in germany is not a robot, nor is everyone in manchester a drughead nor is everyone in america not jersey trash) (but wouldnt the world be a beautiful place if the above were true??)_

squirrel and g-man is the perfect embodiment of group of mates standing at bus stop in northern town, drinking special brew aged 15, waiting for someone to turn up with some acid because at £2 thats the only drug you could afford then, then trawling round the estate, seeing some other dude you know poncing a sofa out some other house, played this round some guys house, and couple of us went out to get some more beer, and went over to the block of flats opposite, and went into 2nd floor house and knocked door in, and they threw everything in the flat out the window, it was some smack addicts flat, so there wasnt a lot to throw out, but its a scuzzy nasty thing to do, and i didnt do it, but its a perfect squirrel and g-man moment. its all for a laugh, it dont matter, its just kicking around. its not like you condone it

i love man machine too, but its something different to me, i'm not sure how i'd link the 2

i'd never thought of springsteen as comparable to the mondays in this way, i'd always though butthole surfers a more apt comparison, the looseness primarily, springsteen always struck me as too uptight, too mundane, too prissy. which records should i hear that will make me think of usa in the way that mondays make me think of the north?

gareth sort of summed it up. i *like* the process of ambling around a topic and getting people involved and refining it. i'm sorry, but isnt that ilx at it's best?

but man; i'd still think that born in the usa evokes a stream of life in which i would imagine the USA to fit. i was pleased when i spent time in manchester to find that 24 hour party people did sum up the experiences had with those folk; and no it was not music industry glitterati....

gareth have you heard toah dynamic? prob. the closest that i've heard to that skunk funk of 24 party ppl.

anyway, sorry to diverge there. i havent heard any bands that have managed to do what the mondays did, flowered up and regular fries made decent attempts (though regular fries were rubbish on record, they did approximate the feel live). the fall circa 82, had that dont give a fuck acid-speed-beer-busstop thing going on, but in a slightly different way, not quite as relentless as squirrel and g-man.

i think its definitely that feeling when you crack open more beer at 7am, and start like foraging outside cuz its light now and why the fuck not? theres something of the dawn and something of the dusk, its a daylight album. its an outside album, bummed is more like inside, its like Performance, its like sinking into the sofa, warmer, squirrel is harsh, squirrel has that edge of acid before beer takes that off and warms things down, that abrasiveness, dont look in a mirror now, cuz you going to have that look,

i love how the mondays translated so well to expat britain in LA 2 years after this

I mean I'm originally from Alabama and went to school in Tennessee and the one album of those three that I own is "Man Machine" for fuck's sake

if you compare the mondays and the springsteen; the comparison is valid as both discuss the 'imagined as through the eye of the particular artists' (that being ryder and springsteen), discussing 'ways of life', certain ways of life and capturing same on vinyl.

hell, this was sparked off by the 'dylan' comparisons that both ryder and springsteen both have been given. arguably, they were both the most successsful of the 'new dylans' (cf: a 70s rock critical pre-occupation)...

now, why are they both being called the new dylan? in listening to bummed, g-man (in my opinion ryder's finest moments) and springsteen's greetings from ashbury park and born in the usa, both are dealing with an 'imagined' (thrown in to shut up those thining - but i've never known a girl called bobbie jean) 'way of life'; in that the characters are on the fringes of society - usuaully working class and rely on substances such as drink, narcotics, girls or memories to see them through. the hedonism without hope and the hope that hedonism brings. etc.

pah. time to get off-line and get on with reality.

Kinda. Except. The Replacements were always more nostalgic. (And I say that as someone who distrusts nostalgia and still holds the Replacements in higher esteem than the Mondays, while maintaining a good amount of love for both.)

But I dunno, Marc Bolan?

i love this band

Doomie, you are a friggin' Canadian so just STOP IT.

'we learnt all we could ever learn from a three minute rock'n'roll record'...

I hate Bruce Springsteen. But the only thing that I hate more than Bruce Springsteen is Americanophile Bruce fans. If America was so great, we'd all live there.

Anglophilia is no better or worse than Americanophila.

Have you bothered to read the thread? sigh.

*dull voice* Yes, Kate. You are right. You are always right. I defer myself to your wisdom everytime.

As a perceived "American" in London, I attract Americanophiles like a piece of dead meat attracts flies. And you know what? They ALL fetishise Bruce and this perceived idea of America they've misunderstood from his lyrics. If I lived in the UK because I fetished Joy Division, I'd be a very sad twunt indeed. It's a very apt comparison, but fortunately one that's nothing to do with me. I hate -ophiles of every nationality. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, and they can always find justification for it in the oddest places. Including Bruce lyrics.

I could care less what you think of me and my "judgementalism". So go ahead and rant away if it makes you feel better.

Altho, it should be noted that there's no shortage of anglophilia around all the indie folks/music freaks that I know, myself included.

Altho, I think The Who has something to do with it.

..."twunt"?

I've spent half my life chasing round happiness, thinking that I would find it in a Place. When what is truly lacking in my own life is the sense of Belonging to a Place. Which no Place in itself on earth will actually deliver.

I hated Bruce when I lived in the US, as well. Meeting Americanophiles only reassured that hatred.

And the funny thing is, the most vocal of them are the ones who get on my case for being able to enjoy Blur's music completely free of ideas of "class" or "authenticity" so there you go.

actually, i do want to live in jersey. whenever i meet up with my friend, mark, in jersey, i'm like, DUDE, JERSEY IS WHERE IT'S AT. instead he choose the tropics. i mean, tropics v. jersey?

Sometimes, in the cases of truly dreadful places, they breed interesting and beautiful music - e.g. Liverpool. But what hath Jersey to offer? Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi? I could live without Yo La Tengo just to obliterate the rest of the State's contribution to music off the face of the earth.

Politicians in being-obtuse shocka!

CONNIE FRANCIS is from NJ

also ICE T

also SARAH VAUGHAN

Albany and Upstate NY may be dreadful beyond belief, but at least it has the outstanding natural beauty of the Hudson Valley and the Adirondacks. Even the supposedly "beautiful" parts of NJ look like executive office parks stuck in toxic waste dumps.

MY HATREDS MAY BE IRRATIONAL BUT THEY ARE ALLLL MIIIINE!!!

(Joke...
Q: How can you tell that a tourist visiting Calcutta is orignally from Philly?
A: He's amazed at how clean the buildings are, how well organized the traffic is and how smooth the roads are)

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http://www.bicycletours.com/images-new/group-bikes.jpg
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http://www.richmangalleries.com/images/Washington_Street_Bridge_web.jpg