Workin’, Breathin’ and Livin’ the Dream
By Eric Kline with Bruce Pollock
While the Glory Days of the music industry may be a thing of the past, for Bruce Springsteen business has never been better. In 2009, his team, including manager Jon Landau, co-manager Barbara Carr, and publicity chief Marilyn Laverty, realized a mind-boggling set of promotional opps for the Boss. In January he won a Golden Globe award for his title song, “The Wrestler,” and he appeared on the HBO Inauguration special, "We Are One," singing 'The Rising' and 'This Land is Your Land,'.
His halftime show at the Super Bowl in February (see link) showed the world he STILL defies gravity and age alongside his legendary E-Street Band. The media blitz helped the Boss land the #1 spot in the US for his new album, Workin’ on a Dream’ (which sold nearly 400,000 units its first three weeks) and the #1 spot in Europe for three weeks running.
But there have been some missteps along the way, the biggest being his label Columbia Records’ decision (with management approval) to release a Greatest Hits album exclusively at Wal-Mart. Why did this move provoke such a backlash? Because, for the past 35 years Springsteen has personified what was courageous and right about the music business. He’s been an avid supporter of human rights, the food banks, has done countless benefits and has stood up to inequities that have risen in the recent (and not so recent) past. Amazingly, he allowed this to go through, but he was man enough to face the heat. The day before the Super Bowl he admitted to New York Times reporter “It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be."
Any aspiring musician can learn a lot from the way Springsteen has handled his business (complete ownership of not only his music but patent and trademark). But they can learn even more from the way he feels about his fans.
--Eric Kline
In the studio with Bruce...
The Making of "Queen of the Supermarket"
Videos courtesy of HBO & Columbia Records
Backstreets.com is the home of Backstreets Magazine, which the Chicago Tribune recently tapped for its "Fifty Favorite Magazines" list, calling it "the gold standard." This glossy magazine has been following Springsteen's career in-depth since 1980, making it the ultimate resource for the serious Springsteen fan. Subscriptions are $28 for four issues in the United States; it's also available worldwide. Click here to find out more about "The Boss Magazine" and to subscribe!
Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band perform at Superbowl XLIII
Photos Courtesy of Alan Chitlik/Backstreets
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TRAKIN CARE OF BUSINESS: MEET THE NEW BOSSBy Roy Trakin
1. Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream (Columbia): Being a centrist—or maybe fence-sitter would be more accurate—the Boss’ latest falls somewhere between the kinda forced Rolling Stone five-star rave and some of the brickbats being thrown his way by betrayed loyalists. The album’s actually a worthy addition to the E Street trilogy starting with 2002’s The Rising and ’07’s Magic as well-meaning attempts to return to the Top 40 pop of his youth. Of course, you’d probably have to go back to 1984’s Born in the U.S.A., itself the center of sellout controversy, for the last great Springsteen album, but Bruce’s underrated way with a tune comes through loud and clear here.
The eight-minute, horse operatic narrative “Outlaw Pete” is a rather strange way to open an album of supposedly radio-oriented singles, its stuffed-to-the-gills, suffocating Brendan O’Brien production making it the exact opposite of its reported inspiration, The Beatles’ playful “Rocky Raccoon.” It's a bit of an overblown piece of self-mythologizing along the lines of Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” or Dylan’s ode to mobster Joey Gallo, “Joey,” partially rescued by a searing sax solo from Big Man Clarence Clemons. “My Lucky Day” is more like it, a romantic, Spectoresque Wall of Sound rouser in the mode of “Born to Run” or “Badlands,” while the title track goes for the universal anthem qualities of
“This Land Is Your Land,” once again hitting on the kind of working class sentiments that once were slam-dunks for Bruce, but now seem to rub people the wrong way coming from a wealthy, successful rock star in the midst of the current economic crisis. It seemed hard to take seriously the controversial “Queen of the Supermarket,” in which the Boss sings the praises of the local food emporium, until I found myself standing in a long checkout line at one on the morning of the Super Bowl, realizing it truly is the last bastion of American commerce. Elsewhere, Dream offers a survey of the kind of music the Boss grew up on—the Pet Sounds riffs and Roy Orbison bleat that fuel “This Life,” the wheezing harp and Creedence-style swamp blues of “Good Eyes,” the Byrds-y, “Tangled Up In Blue” folk-rock of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the elegiac “The Last Carnival,” its tribute to the late Danny Federici, with an evocative accordion solo from his son Jason.
Added as a bonus track, “The Wrestler” is another one of Bruce’s character studies, and even though it was written specifically for the Mickey Rourke movie, it fits here like a glove, a worthy successor to “Streets of Philadelphia” which deserved the Oscar nomination it never got. For one who is neither a Springsteen apologist nor a detractor, the harsh reaction to the album is puzzling. Even Bob Dylan and Neil Young are allowed their occasional missteps. It’s not Bruce’s fault that the music, which still inspires him, no longer dominates the radio airwaves, nor is it the voice of the current youth generation. But that’s no reason not to derive pleasure from the man’s work. Rock & roll still means something to him, and if it does to you, stop kvetching and give the man the benefit of the doubt. After all, he’s earned it.
2. Springsteen at the Super Bowl: “Step away from the guacamole dip,” he ordered. “Put down those chicken fingers… Is there anybody alive out there?” Hey, I did as I was told, even if substituting buffalo wings for fingers. I mean, what do you want? The guy was always about the shtick, whether it was his shuck and jive with the Big Man, or sliding across the tables at the Bottom Line, when I first saw him back in '75. The Boss still gives you your money’s worth, and the 97 million watching from their homes weren’t paying anything anyway. So why all the complaining? Was Bruce demeaning himself by shilling for his new album? Was it unseemly for him to perform to the lowest common denominator of halftime at the most-watched-TV event of the year?
I just don’t get the level of playa-hating out there, but I thought Springsteen and the band rose to the occasion, compressing the usual three-hour show into 12 memorable TiVo minutes, complete with an HD-enhanced crotch slide into the camera worthy of instant replay. Had to be the best Super Bowl halftime show since they started booking rock icons, and certainly more in the spirit of the occasion than the previous record-holder, Prince. I even dug the referee throwing a delay-of-game penalty. Sure, it was corny, but what did you expect from a master showman like Springsteen? The generosity of spirit was there, as was the hope for better times in this grand ole U.S. of A., and isn’t that all you can ask for in the current malaise?
The Wrestler Music Video
“The Rising” performed at
We Are One:
The Obama Inaugural Celebration
at the Lincoln Memorial
“There's so much going on in a big hall; there's a certain entertainment factor happening in the audience, and if you look past it, you're going to miss it,” Springsteen said. “I always try to keep the big lights out of my eyes or else you can lose your sense of the audience and that's the most important thing. Unless you can win an audience you’re in for a tough time. That’s the most challenging thing, to play the kind of music you want to play, do the kind of shows you want to do, and win people who will listen to you, win people’s ears, all kinds of people. And then be able to sustain that relationship by being responsible about it.
“I feel most at home on stage. I always have, since I was young. When you get on the road it feels like you’ve been there forever. After five shows you cannot recollect what it was like being home. There’s a very different feeling that happens when you get out there, really out there, where there’s nothing for miles and miles around. Then you ride into a town and see all the houses. Like when we play Pittsburgh. That city, when the sun’s out it looks like it’s cloudy. It’s great, because you see all the people in their gray little houses, and they come out and down to the show, and its wild for a few hours. Then you go back to your room and you see that gray skyline and you feel like you whipped it, just for a night. For a little while you feel like you won something.
“I go back a certain amount of time with the same guys. We can think of nights when we were 16, playing in this teen club, and we get into all the stuff that’s come down in between. It doesn’t feel that much different. What happens inside is very much the same. I always felt free when I was young because I liked my job. I was playing in a band. I’d get up when I wanted to get up and go out and play at night. As you become more successful the idea is to maintain that particular freedom, because you can lose it easily. My ideal is just to do it better, just to keep going at it. I think that’s where I’m most useful.”
Bruce Pollock is the author of a dozen books on music. His latest, No Easy Way Down: Rock, Rage & Revolution in 1969 will be out in September. This piece is taken from Working Musicians: Defining Moments from the Road, the Studio and the Stage (Harper Collins, 2002), now available as an ebook through HarperCollins.com, Mobipocket, Palm, Fictionwise and Powell’s.com.
