When the late, legendary British DJ John Peel witnessed his first Bruce Springsteen concert in 1975, this was his assessment: “A trifle theatrical, like off-cuts from West Side Story. He is not…the future of rock ‘n’ roll, but rather a summary of its past.” Peel’s 32-year-old perspective nails the central irony of Springsteen’s career. In [...]

Springsteen does Seeger? Pete Seeger? It’s not only plausible, but a look back at the past 25 years of Bruce’s career suggests perhaps it was inevitable. Grammy nominations aside, categorizing Bruce Springsteen as a folk musician is somewhat dubious, but he has made three albums that merit consideration as folk music. Most notable is 1982′s [...]

Assessing Bruce Springsteen’s Devils & Dust in an online posting, a fan said he thought it was OK but liked Bruce better before he got that twang in his voice. Putting aside the question of whether a voice can, in fact, twang, you might find yourself wondering how the pride of Asbury Park has evolved [...]

The sticker on the cover seems like it must be a mistake, proclaiming The Rising to be Bruce Springsteen’s “first studio album with the E Street Band since Born In The U.S.A.” How could it be that he has spent 60 percent of his career not recording with them? Much of this, of course, is [...]

As memories are sneaky, self-absorbed creatures who often excuse themselves from context in order to join the family photo albums, approaching a tribute album project — one of nostalgia’s natural breeding grounds — on Bruce Springsteen, it would be tempting to overlook 1982′s dark Reagan-era Nebraska in favor of the cooler cars ‘n’ chicks stuff. [...]

Directing his artistic vision outward again, Bruce Springsteen returns to the role of social critic. The album and its 12 songs will inevitably draw comparisons to the 1982 masterpiece Nebraska, an accidental collection of lost characters, bad luck, and meanness. Recalling that album, Springsteen said in 1990 that he hadn’t thought of its political implications [...]