Bruce Springsteen is a famous rock musician from the USA. He was probably most famous in the 1980s, but his music has proved to be popular across the generations. He sings about the American working class, and what it’s like to be poor in the country of the “American Dream”. His most famous albums are definitely “Born in the U.S.A” and “Born to Run”. His band of musicians is called the E Street Band, and they’ve become successful in their own right. Bruce Springsteen has sold over 120 million albums worldwide, and he is more successful commercially than Jay-Z.
Bruce Springsteen is from New Jersey, a state in the US that’s close to New York. It’s a commuter state, and is often the butt of many jokes in the US. His parents were working class, and the young Bruce Springsteen didn’t really fit in at school. He started playing music when he was 16, and was a part of lots of different bands when he first started out. He got himself a record deal in 1972 with Columbia, and although the music critics loved his music, he struggled to get people to actually buy his records.
The fact Bruce Springsteen and his band played so many shows across the US in the late 1970s definitely helped make him a staple feature of the music scene back then. However, he didn’t achieve his full potential until the mid-1980s, when “Born in the USA” was released. Because there was an election in 1984, many people thought the song was patriotic, and an ode to American values. However, when you actually listen to it, Springsteen is singing about how badly the government has treated war veterans. Looking back, it’s quite funny to see all the politicians (including Ronald Reagan) praising Bruce Springsteen’s supposed American optimism.
Following Born in the USA, Bruce Springsteen got lots more hit records. Dancing in the Dark got to number 2, and the music video featured a young Courteney Cox, or Monica from Friends! He was also one of the artists participating in the “We Are The World” charity single, which is basically America’s version of Band Aid’s “Feed the World”.
In the 90s, his popularity declined a bit, because he started experimenting with a sadder style of music. Many listeners didn’t like it, because it didn’t represent the Bruce Springsteen they had originally loved. However, he bounced back in the late 90s and the 00s with songs like “Long Walk Home”. You may have heard his name in the news a few times over the past few years, as the saxophonist from the E Street Band (Clarence Clemons, who also featured on Lady Gaga’s song “The Edge”) died in 2011. He also had his set cut off at a gig in Hyde Park in 2012, because local residents complained about the noise and claimed he went past the curfew time. In the same year, he released an album called Wrecking Ball, and another album was released in 2014.
What’s next for Bruce Springsteen? In late 2014, he opened up the Bruce Springsteen Archives, which contains a huge amount of unseen material that fans have been previously unable to access. We can expect a lot of interesting things to be unearthed in this treasure trove!
Image from: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5908460/bruce-springsteen-masters-10-of-his-best-for-itunes
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