Word: springsteens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What's missing on The Rising is politics. Springsteen says he has never considered himself a political person, but after Ronald Reagan tried to hijack Born in the U.S.A. for his 1984 re-election campaign, the singer developed a spare but effective political voice that he generally raises on behalf of liberal causes and the occasional liberal candidate. In 1991 he played a fund raiser for the Christic Institute, a radical think tank that has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of illegal covert action in Latin America. On the subject of America's current foreign policy, he is with...
...absence of politics doesn't mean The Rising is controversy free. For some Springsteen fans, it arrives too quickly on the heels of tragedy to leave its motives unexamined. Charles Cross, who for 16 years published and edited the authoritative Springsteen fanzine, Backstreets, heard The Rising at a listening party for diehards. "They're really marketing it as a Sept. 11 album," he says. "I think we want art that can deal with it, but it's still such an uncomfortable thing, and it's still pretty fresh. Frankly, the commercial element of it really scares...
...Springsteen suspected the exploitation charge might be leveled, and he takes his time responding to it. "When you're putting yourself into shoes you haven't worn," he says, "you have to be very...just very thoughtful, is the way that I'd put it. Just thoughtful. You call on your craft, and you go searching for it, and hopefully what makes people listen is that over the years you've been serious and honest. That's where your creative authority comes from. That's how people know you're not just taking a ride...
...Springsteen claims he is a big believer in the old saw "Trust the art, not the artist." But Springsteen devotees love the songs and the singer equally, and by playing his fans' experiences back to them over stadium speakers, Springsteen has been an active partner in a pop syllogism: he sings about people like me; he looks and dresses like me; therefore he must be a person like me! Perhaps what Springsteen means, as some of his friends suggest, is that he feels less worthy than the people he sings about. Perhaps that's why touring, communing with those...
...July, Springsteen and the E Street Band were holed up in a small theater on the Fort Monmouth Army base, cramming for a 46-city tour that starts Aug. 7. During a break backstage, the band members were playing their consummate blue-collar roles. Guitarist "Little" Steven Van Zandt says he has to move out of his Eighth Avenue apartment in Manhattan after 20 years. "The place is fallin' apart." Drummer Max Weinberg suggests Steve check out a place in the legendary Upper West Side apartment building the Dakota; Van Zandt looks as if he has just been told...