Why did High Hopes enter the top ten and not American Beauty? Nothing to do with quality, both of them have good songs, neither are great. So why? Because even the most die hard of Springsteen fans doesn’t have that short a memory. It was only a couple of months ago they bought an album that they didn’t much care for, maybe discretion is the better part of valor and they are saving their shekels for the tour.
It could be age, it could be arrogance, it could be a just an inability to do it any more. Laziness? Belief in lies that are being told about you? Who knows, but the man can’t do it anymore. Nobody will ever mistake High Hopes, or Wrecking Ball for that matter, neither complete dogs, for Born In The USA.
Perhaps it is one too many yesmen, cerainly the E Street Band, as proven during their dreadful Rock And Roll Induction Speeches, aren’t the people to stand up to “The Boss’ and so nobody keeps the quality under control. At its best, 62 wasn’t gonna be 35, but at his best, Bruce had the biggest reward in his grasp. The reward that really nobody has received so far, recorded longevity. Bruce needed to get somebody to share the writing with. I would claim Tom Morello but I don’t think he is good eough. Maybe a Patrick Stickles or a Craig Finn or a Kurt Vile, somebody to do for Bruce what Costello didn’t really do with McCartney.
It’s hard to explain to Bruce just how condescending and stupid his blue collar musings have become; how out of touch he is with any form of reality. For decades Bruce managed to be both the Boss and the Man but I would claim since The Rising, and absolutely since his support of the pathetic John Kerry for President back in 2004, he stopped being the man.
In 2014 he bristles so much he seems to made of tinder, his ego is so fragile it is constantly on display, his super-ego has taken a snooze, and his quality control has snapped. Springsteen is such a self-proclaimed genius he writes his own reviews now… and he likes his work very much.
But the rest of the world, I mean outside of Rolling Stone, keep getting burnt and with American Beauty , they hadn’t had enough time to forget how little they liked High Hopes.
I don’t know what can save Bruce in 2014, I mean a man who refuses to explain why he pays no taxes on his huge (a quarter the size of Central Park ) farm shouldn’t be crossed too often.
