226 - Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

[csberry]

One of my big distractions when listening to Bruce Springsteen is the fact that (other than the singles off of Born in the USA) I am much more familiar with Meatloaf and the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show than I am with The Boss's music from the 70s. Bruce's style of dramatic rock and roll gets put into the same bucket as those other influences in my mind. Nebraska was able to get past that prejudice of mine by the fact that it is essentially a demo tape of Bruce performing the songs with help mostly from his acoustic guitar and harmonica. Unfortunately, while the stripping of the backing band gets me to forget the Meatloaf comparisons, the quiet songs with acoustic guitar and mourning harmonica sounds just like another musical icon I'm not fond of - Bob Dylan. I'm sorry, but poets with an acoustic guitar and harmonica just don't do anything for me.

The songs that made me look up to see the song titles were almost exclusively the uptempo songs on the album. As a guy that doesn't pay much attention to lyrics, albums such as Nebraska are lost on me. I haven't the patience to listen to the lyrics since this style of folk harmonica evokes nails-on-the-blackboard feelings up and down my spine. But I must give respect where respect is due. Bruce's storytelling is well done. The atmosphere that the demo instrumentation provides melds well with this series of stories of bleak lives. The moment that usually really grabbed my attention on each listen is at the end of "State Trooper" when Bruce breaks out some echoed whoops. My first listen, I immediately thought of The Dodos and got excited about Bruce using the whoops as a new instrument. Unfortunately for me, the whoops were done only a couple of times. It fit perfectly into the mold, but I can understand how that sound was enough of a departure from his sound that it didn't serve a larger role in the song.

Songs I Knew I Liked: None

Songs I Now Like: "Open All Night"

Songs I Can Go the Rest of My Life Never Hearing Again: "Nebraska"

Comments

[chris21718.livejournal.com]

I've never heard anything from Nebraska, to my knowledge, except "Atlantic City" for which I have a music video in my collection. This album charted October 9, 1982 and reached number 3 on the album chart. This was early in my 9th grade year but I never heard anyone mention it. Nearly all of my Bruce Springsteen familiarity was with the huge "Born in the U.S.A." album (on the chart 139 weeks!), which hits from summer 1984 all the way to early 1986 (an album of longevity -- something you didn't see as much of in later years).

Note: I forgot to login when I first attempted to post, so if there's an anonymous copy of this, delete it.