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[Bruce Springsteen is NOT complex - Born in The U.S.A. is, well, insipid.........apologies if any readers here enjoy that one but I can't.........
Finally. Somebody hears and sees it like I do. Can't stand Springsteen as well man. He's voice is comical to me. It's Adam Sandlers fault from SNL
Reminds me of when I was living in LA as a teenager in the mid-1970s, totally into early- and mid-70s prog at the time. The LA Times music reviewer (I forget his name - and I am glad!) pontificated wildly about how inane progressive rock groups were; they did not even have a personal identity. Then, came Springsteen in 1975 (thanks to a lot of contrived media hype - especially appearing on the cover of Time magazine) and this LA Times reviewer waxes eloquently about how refreshing Springsteen is, and so new; even with a personal identity - "Bruce Springsteen" - that everyone could relate to. Needless to say, I lost total respect for the LA Times music reviews, and never - to this day - stand to listen to anything ever recorded by that propped-up poster-boy Springsteen...
I purchased "Greetings from Ashbury Park" I think in 1978. I stil have to finish listening to it and probably I will never. There's still a lot of Bob Dylan , Arlo Guthrie and CSN &Y to waste time with Springsteen.
[/QUOTE]
AMEN brother!! Stay away from L.A! Ooooh that rhymes. Anyway, burn Ashbury park and then buy ARENA and IQ's discography. Let the healing begin. Lol
Joined: March 19 2007
Location: Estonia
Status: Offline
Points: 108
Posted: November 02 2012 at 12:06
Dayvenkirq wrote:
Manuel wrote:
for me, complexities is mainly a factor product of orchestration ad arrangements. Sometimes musicians get to entangled in complexity, making their music a little dull. complexity is good, provided it conveys the emotions and the ideas the music is meant to express.
Exactly my thought.
At first thought, this sounds all real right. But I cannot think of a single example in prog where a piece is bad because it's too complex.
Joined: May 25 2011
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 10970
Posted: November 02 2012 at 12:12
^ GG's "The Boys in the Band".
On a sidenote: guys, please, stop that with Springsteen! We already spent one page on that guy, and that had nothing (if not barely anything) to do with the thread's topic.
Joined: March 19 2007
Location: Estonia
Status: Offline
Points: 108
Posted: November 02 2012 at 12:26
Cannot agree with that at all.
Octopus is brilliant, all round. Though I'm reluctant in doing so - I'd like to think complexity is only a good thing.
Meshuggah may possibly be a counter-example I'd consider. But even with them, I'd say they don't have ANY melodic or harmonic complexity, so that nullifies any interesting rhytmical structures, if *these* even can be called complex (they repeat a pattern mostly, with slight variations - that's hardly all-out complex).
Joined: May 29 2006
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 8368
Posted: November 02 2012 at 12:28
Dayvenkirq wrote:
On a sidenote: guys, please, stop that with Springsteen! We already spent one page on that guy, and that had nothing (if not barely anything) to do with the thread's topic.
No!
I am not afraid to admit that I find Springsteen's first three albums excellent, particularly The Wild , The Innocent and the E St. Shuffle. Some of the tracks on that one are almost proggy (New York City Serenade, Incident on 57th ST.) After that, however, I agree that he became depressingly uninspired and uninteresting.
I don't think he should be stoned...put him in a sensory depravation tank and play him prog epics one after the other till he sees the pointlessness of the Commerically acceptible product that Springstein produces......
Sorry, I wasn't aware that my preferences were objectively wrong. I'll get around to changing them.
Dayvenkirq wrote:
^ GG's "The Boys in the Band".
Really? I don't find it any more complex than the other songs on that album. Frankly, it is a
very complex album, but I always found it to be a very catchy album
too. Now you might dislike "The Boys in the Band" for a myriad of
reasons, but if it's too complex for its own sake, how come you don't
dislike the rest of the album on the same grounds (unless you actually
do)?
Joined: May 25 2011
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 10970
Posted: November 02 2012 at 14:02
HarbouringTheSoul wrote:
Dayvenkirq wrote:
^ GG's "The Boys in the Band".
Really? I don't find it any more complex than the other songs on that album. Frankly, it is a
very complex album, but I always found it to be a very catchy album
too. Now you might dislike "The Boys in the Band" for a myriad of
reasons, but if it's too complex for its own sake, how come you don't
dislike the rest of the album on the same grounds (unless you actually
do)?
That song is certainly more complex than "A Cry For Everyone". I'm having a really hard time remembering what comes after the first few notes of the ... ahem ... motif on "The Boys in the Band". And no, I do not have a myriad of reasons to dislike it! Plus, I kind of like "Knots". Reminds me of Faust a bit.
Joined: May 25 2011
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Status: Offline
Points: 10970
Posted: November 02 2012 at 14:05
thellama73 wrote:
Dayvenkirq wrote:
On a sidenote: guys, please, stop that with Springsteen! We already spent one page on that guy, and that had nothing (if not barely anything) to do with the thread's topic.
No!
I am not afraid to admit that I find Springsteen's first three albums excellent, particularly The Wild , The Innocent and the E St. Shuffle. Some of the tracks on that one are almost proggy (New York City Serenade, Incident on 57th ST.) After that, however, I agree that he became depressingly uninspired and uninteresting.
All I'm saying is that what we really derailed the previous page of the thread, ... and we can do better than that.
Joined: March 08 2008
Location: New York
Status: Offline
Points: 3595
Posted: November 02 2012 at 17:50
That's my favorite Springsteen song (and it's off my favorite Springsteen album, the only one I love). I could do without the Born albums. I don't much care for the blubber of The River. Nebraska's alright for dusty, barren neo-folk type. The first couple albums were sharp in a tight 'jam' like thing. I pretty much hate everything else. The critics heaped praise on his newest work. I suspect they'd have done it even if it was the worst album on the planet.
That song is certainly more complex than "A Cry For Everyone".
Not particularly. "A Cry for Everyone" might have a riff that's built out of 'simple' power chords, but if you try to actually isolate it from the song, you will find that it's quite long-winded. And there are millions of other bits in the song, like the way the keyboard and guitar dance around each other while playing the same lick in the 'main' instrumental and the way the bassline from that part is repurposed as a riff in the middle section. It's a much more complex than it might seem at first. It's catchier than "The Boys in the Band" though, I'll give you that.
Dayvenkirq wrote:
I'm having a really hard time remembering what comes after the first few notes of the ... ahem ... motif on "The Boys in the Band".
That 'motif' is indeed almost impossible to sing or remember exactly in your head. It's way too fast and rhythmically complex. But as a test, try singing the aforementioned riff from "A Cry for Everyone" out loud without listening to the song beforehand. The other motifs, if you will, in "The Boys in the Band" are quite a bit less twisted and more 'singable'. I assume that what makes the song hard to remember for you is not the fact that it's complex, but the fact that it has no vocals that you can associate it with. It's always easier to associate GG songs with their vocal parts because you can actually remember them precisely in your head.
In fact, I myself ignored the song for a long time because I didn't actively listen to the album. I had it on as background music (my preferred method of getting acquainted with new music)´, so the vocal parts caught my attention a lot more than the instrumental. Listening to "The Boys in the Band" a more closely was necessary to get an idea of what's going on. And listening "A Cry for Everyone" more closely, I was surprised with how much is going on in that song that I wasn't really aware of before.
Dayvenkirq wrote:
And no, I do not have a myriad of reasons to dislike it!
That's not what I meant to say. What I meant was "there are many possible reasons for which you might dislike the song", not "you might dislike this song for many reasons at once".
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your on fire today.
octopus-4 wrote:
