Springsteen : Today’s Musical Hero

In the Independent, Shane Danielsen writes a detailed analysis about why the “world’s coolest bands” are borrowing from the much derided Boss:

It seems little short of remarkable, in a season dominated by breathless, momentary hype about “nu-rave” acts like Klaxons, New Young Pony Club and Shitdisco, that the presiding spirit of the two finest rock albums of the past 12 months should be a grizzled American veteran, now approaching his seventh decade. But somehow, against every expectation, Bruce Springsteen has rarely seemed more relevant.

…Why this mining of Springsteen’s back-catalogue, this reiteration of his sound? And why now? Rosen makes the point that, after more than a decade on the commercial sidelines, overshadowed by hip-hop and shiny, digital pop, rock musicians are actively seeking to reclaim their place in the spotlight – and in the process, rediscovering the attractions of scale, grandeur and making a noise.

In practice, these bands’ sensibilities may differ: there’s nothing remotely ironic about The Arcade Fire’s music – on the contrary, their sincerity is what enables them to evade accusations of bombast – while The Hold Steady seem all too aware of, yet utterly besotted by, the broader clichés of stadium rock. Nevertheless, both The Neon Bible and Boys and Girls in America work, both as stylistic homages and as artifacts in their own right. As such, they repudiate a great deal of conventional wisdom about the diminished state of contemporary popular music.

..Beneath the recurring motifs – the girls and cars and girls in cars – Springsteen’s abiding concerns are social, rather than strictly personal: his despairing sense of love for his homeland, and his keen awareness of its squandered potential. A liberal in the New Deal sense of the word, his patriotism is knotty and complicated, and the friction between his Walt Whitman-like dream of the US, and its disappointing reality, provides the basis for much of his finest work. As such, he might be rivalled only by the less famous Steve Earle, as the most politically relevant US songwriter today.

Why the coolest bands in pop are bowing down before Bruce Springsteen – Independent Online Edition > Features