LogFAQs > #975359405

(General Comments)

While this is one of the best albums we've covered and I really like it, I've been having a hard time figuring out exactly how much I like it. On the surface, this seems like an album that should be in the running for my favorite. I have a very clear affinity for songs with blunt sadness & pain and Bruce definitely delivers the type of lyrics I'm drawn to. Just the opening lines to the first track perfectly set the type of mood I'm here for:

"Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground"

And I'd also cite "I'm On Fire" for also really hitting the mark:

"Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull"

Ah, blunt misery. How I love thee. I'm also naturally drawn towards pop hits of the 80s and this album is as stacked with 80s hits as any Greatest Hits album, featuring several of Bruce's biggest songs and an incredibly catchy style. Even on tracks like "I'm Going Down" which is incredibly repetitive (he says "down" over 80 times), the music is so catchy that I honestly don't even mind the repetition. This feels like it's almost specifically created to be my favorite album of all time! And I do really like it, I might even kinda love it, but somehow it's just not at that absolute highest tier *in spite of everything it has going for it*. And I've been left puzzling over this for days now, trying to work out why I'm not completely in love with it.

My current theory is that in the search for mainstream success, Bruce sanded the edge off all of the songs. "Born in the USA" is a tragic look at the way the country failed Vietnam vets, but the song is so bloody enthusiastic that an alarming number of people miss the pain and tragedy altogether. Lyrical dissonance is a thing, yes, but I prefer my pain and anger to... actually have pain and anger in the delivery? And all the other tracks feel much the same; catchy & good, but lacking in emotional connection. At no point does he succeed in making me feel anything. I wouldn't say the music is inauthentic or hollow, but somehow, the combination of these stories & this musical style results in something that's less than the whole of its parts; A+ lyrics & A+ music blended together into a B+ paste.

Which is still pretty great! There aren't that many albums we've covered that I'd rate higher than this one and I enjoyed myself for almost its entire runtime. There's only one track that I disliked and even it's decent enough that I don't mind it. It's a very solid album and, considering the overwhelming success, it's quite apparent that Bruce made the right decisions. I just personally wish there was more emotion: really show me how angry the Vietnam war and its aftermath makes you, give me the cathartic release that your hometown is as despicable as mine, drive that dull knife into my skull so that I can feel your pain! But... well, catchy music is nice too.

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Born in the USA: Perhaps the song that best illustrates how little attention people pay to the lyrics. Still, an all time classic that I find works equally well as something you actually think about or shut your mind off & enjoy the classic rock verses.

My Hometown: I honestly thought this would be one of my favorite songs as I tend to *love* songs complaining about hometowns (see: Shit Towne by Live, a song that I've gone back to so many times over the years), but this... never works for me. It's too downbeat to offer catharsis and doesn't have any really catchy hooks like many of the other songs on the album, Still, it's... fine. It's fine.