LogFAQs > #975555939

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. results

The participants sorted by deviation from final results:
BlueCrystalTear (12)
MaxGalactica (14)
FoolFantastic (20)
Sheep007 (22)
Fluttershy_Pony (24)
neonreaper (26)
ZaziGuado (26)
HBJDubs (28)
Seanchan (32)
Johnbobb (44)

General Album Comments

Seanchan: First listen to Born in the U.S.A. done. And it truly was a first listen, as despite it being my choice I can now say I had not heard the full album before. There are 3 or 4 or 5 classic rock radio all-timers on here but the rest of the album was unknown to me.

I came away a bit surprised, honestly. When you think of Springsteen, you think about "AMERICA" or maybe I should say "'MERICA": small town, blue jeans, dirt, sweat, and manual labor, hanging out at a townie bar, shooting pool and drinking cheap beer. The Rust Belt and the Great Plains, despite the fact that Bruce was born in New Jersey. This album obviously has a lot of that, or at least an aura, real or imagined, of that. But there's also more going on; it felt more playful and broad than I expected. I think it was the 2nd song, Cover Me, that really caught me by surprise, especially after the title track.

BlueCrystalTear: First listen down.

This is such a good album - it's where The Boss starts incorporating pop hooks into his blue collar themes, creating an album with universal appeal. While some of the songs stand out more than others, it manages to sound like a cohesive unit while letting each serve its own purpose and still telling a story. I should listen to Born to Run and Nebraska in full again - it's been a long time tbh. But that's for another time.

Fluttershy_Pony: 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.

FoolFantastic: I think that's why I generally prefer three of the big Springsteen albums before Born in the USA. His best songs capture the daily traumas and escapism of working class American living, but Born in the USA sounds too bright and poppy to fully sell it to me. Now, to be clear, I'm saying this as someone with 4 Springsteen albums in my all-time top 100 including this one, but this album has the distinct sound of someone going pop, and I think it's the reason Springsteen gets treated like dad rock when his earlier subject matter feels like something that would resonate with the more politically minded generations that followed.

BlueCrystalTear: One thing that's so fantastic about a quality Springsteen album like this is that it feels like a Greatest Hits compilation - almost every song is a banger. This is true with this one, Born to Run, and Nebraska; each is a phenomenal listen. Like Nebraska, this one has this blue collar concept, but the themes tie the story together more tightly - the result is a cohesive album where the songs work as a unit as well as on their own, and the incorporated pop hooks made this a smashing success. He recorded a whopping 80 songs during this time, a list which includes other good stuff like "Pink Cadillac", "None but the Brave" and "County Fair" - all of which would've been welcome here, but he wanted to shoot for about 45 minutes for a reason. The album works largely because it doesn't overstay its welcome.

MaxGalactica: I liked this album a lot more than I was expecting. Born in the U.S.A. is a song that I'd normally dislike for being as repetitive as it is, but it hits the right notes and the accompaniment to the main motif is varied enough that I don't feel the repetition too much (I'm Goin' Down is a song that doesn't do as well at selling the repetition to me). Dancing in the Dark is a classic and I'm on Fire is gorgeous. Really good, well-rounded album.

Seanchan: This is a very good album. In many ways my feelings about it are very similar to Ziggy Stardust, another rock classic that I hadn't heard in full before we covered it; I was surprised by the first listen and then I enjoyed it even more on subsequent listens. I'm still not a big fan of the title track, and I think that can color your expectations of an album that is generally more fun and playful than the initial song lets on.

ZaziGuado: This album didn't do a whole lot for me. Dancing in the Dark is a great song, but nothing else could really reach that height. The songs aren't bad by any stretch, but I just don't get much enjoyment out of listening to them. There is a feeling of nostalgia that radiates from the tracks, but nothing that touches me in the way it probably touches others. Perhaps if I was of the era I would cling to it more. I only did one listen, and I can sense there is room for growth, but I don't think I could ever appreciate this album in the way others do.