Heartache With Hard Work

Loose Ends – Bruce Springsteen (from Tracks)
Keeping Me Alive – Tom Petty (from Playback – the Petty box set)

(Tracks chosen to represent Petty doing his best Springsteen and Springsteen doing his best Petty. And to give you something not from the regular albums)

Yes, this is another post about Springsteen that’s not actually a review of the new record. And it may only be interesting to me.  But it’s my blog so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want. So here goes.

It occurred to me this morning that the career paths of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty are remarkably similar. The thing that brought this to mind is the analogy between Born to Run and Damn the Torpedoes. In each case, it’s the third record – and it’s the first one to really grab the popular imagination. It’s where the voice of the artist becomes really clear. And then I thought: hmmm, they both also have mid/late 80s records that were huge but are often critically panned for being overproduced (Full Moon Fever and Born in the USA).

So I started to think about their whole discographies, and the similarities are really striking. Bruce is a couple of years ahead the whole way, but if you stack up his first, second, third, etc. against Petty’s, they track VERY well. Generally speaking, the Springsteen records are better. But they’re usually in the same ballpark. Observe:

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Greetings From Asbury Park

Debut albums, show a ton of promise, clearly fairly derivative of major influences. Beloved by some fans, but generally not considered peak work.

You’re Gonna Get It
The Wild, The Innocent…

Generally similar to the debut record, but developing the premises a little bit. A few major, long-lasting hits. Bruce’s record is probably more highly thought of by fans – but it’s still reasonably close.

Damn the Torpedoes
Born to Run

The breakthrough record. Clearly shows a lot of signs that it’s the same artist, but has taken a significant leap. Songs about people living difficult lives and wanting to believe in something more. Even the Losers as an analog to Thunder Road or Backstreets. Louisiana Rain as an analog to Jungleland. Refugee is one of his biggest hits, so it’s at least somewhat analogous to Born to Run.

Hard Promises
Darkness at the Edge of Town

A much darker version of the breakthrough record. Both of them were famously unhappy when working on this one because of huge fights with the record company. The Waiting is an analog for Badlands. Springsteen is definitely more down in the muck, though. There’s nothing that really compares to Racing in the Streets or Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Long After Dark
The River

The analogy isn’t tremendously strong here. But in some sense these are both records about being in a holding pattern. There is an effort to try and get back to the roots of the music after the last two bigger ones. The River, though, is big and sprawling where the Petty record is not.

Southern Accents
Nebraska

Their roots record. For Petty, this was about his own personal heritage. While for Springsteen it’s all about characters. But the general feeling and tone of the records is similar. Stripped down. About the very small parts of life. This the first record where Petty has a reasonable case for being better, though of course the Nebraska-lovers will disagree.

Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)
Human Touch/Lucky Town

This is the first out-of-order comparison. Petty had his crappy ‘wait, I’m a rock and roll guy who is still relevant and stuff’ record come prior to his uber-popular one, rather than after. But still, they’re pretty similar(ly bad).

Full Moon Fever
Born in the USA

And here is the big one. Made people angry for being overproduced and selling out, etc. Has a ton of really good songs in spite of that.

Into the Great Wide Open
Tunnel of Love

This is another relatively weak analogy. ItGWO is basically just Full Moon Fever redux, while Tunnel of Love is clearly on the other side of a significant dividing line from Born in the USA. This is another one where Petty is probably better.

Wildflowers
The Ghost of Tom Joad

Acoustic music! Wooo! The analogy isn’t fantastic here, though, because a) there’s a fair number of rockers on Petty’s record, too and b) Wildflowers is his best album, while Tom Joad is…not Bruce’s best record.

Echo
The Rising

Big records from big stars right around the turn of the millennium, reflecting their sense that they are now the elder statesmen rather than being in the mix of it. They’re both quite good.

The Last DJ
Working on a Dream/Magic

The real analogy is between The Last DJ and Working on a Dream.  They are both records that demonstrate they have forgotten about being elder statesmen, and kind of fail because of it.  But Working on a Dream is kind of just the far-inferior version of Magic, so they kind of fit together.  And the title track for the Petty record is very similar in quality and content to Radio Nowhere from Magic.

Highway Companion
Devils and Dust (slightly out of order)

Acoustic-fun, part II. But not as acoustic. Mediocre (but not bad) records.

There’s only a couple records – all from pretty recent – that don’t really fit. Petty had a record that was a soundtrack to a bad Jennifer Aniston move in the late 90s with some good songs but which kind of dragged. And a boring record a couple years ago. And Bruce did has Wrecking Ball and the Seeger Sessions (which maybe doesn’t even count).

Anyways, I thought it was interesting.

Youngstown (live) – from the wonderful Live in New York City

I’ve got a an actual review of the new Springsteen record coming up (short version: it’s quite good!), but I wanted to make a separate comment today about the critical response to Springsteen. I was reading the Pitchfork review and, surprise surprise, it’s grounded primarily in an unfavorable comparison to Nebraska.  How tiresome.

Look, Nebraska is a good album. It absolutely is. And it is perfectly reasonable for someone to consider it the best of his albums. But the industry of people for whom it serves as the terminal benchmark for all things Springsteen is just incredibly tiresome. People laud Nebraska because it’s gritty and quiet and stark, and so it doesn’t make them uncomfortable like the earnestness (naïveté) they perceive in the rest of his work. No one is going to make fun of you for liking Nebraska.

But that is a lazy and, frankly, reflects a failure of aesthetic imagination. There is a tremendous amount of complexity in his work over the decades. It’s just silly to pretend it’s not there because he writes big rock songs, or because he’s not afraid to utilize powerful symbols of patriotism, family, belief, and movement. Yes, there are plenty of Springsteen clichés. He obviously likes metaphors about trains and cars: they symbolize the idea of freedom, of escape. But it’s not just that: they also symbolize the failures of those ideas. You’ve got the only possibility of redemption in the engine of a car in “Thunder Road” – but you’ve also got people wasting their lives in cars in “Racing in the Streets.”

He loves to valorize hard-work, physical labor. A kind of blue-collar ideal. And of course this sometimes descends into silliness. But it’s wonderful that he continues to care. And if you consider the whole scope of his work, the archetype is by no means uncritically affirmed. He emphasizes the power of nostalgia, but it’s not simply about wanting things to be the way they used to be. He doesn’t want to return to the Depression – he wants to remind us of how protest music can capture an ideal. He doesn’t think we can just go back to Youngstown the way it used to be. But he wants to remind us of what we have given up in this brave new world.

Basically: Springsteen is a troubadour in the old sense. He helps us to build our cultural narratives. In individual moments it can trend toward the absurd. But it’s sloppy thinking to simply condemn his more earnest moments as somehow inferior to the darker elements. There is tremendous power in our dreams, and I’m glad that someone like him still cares enough about that power to try and make something of them.  In a way, it’s far more risky.

It’s no surprise that Springsteen gave us the best musical response to 9-11. It would be easy to make an angry record about 9-11 (and the way it was used to develop a War on Terror). It would be easy to make a mournful record. And it seems like it would be easy to make a hopeful record about 9-11, about the possibility of redemption. But that last thing is not actually easy at all. You have to be willing to put your heart on your sleeve and genuinely feel. And that’s very scary. But that’s the defining feature of Springsteen. He is never afraid to give it a shot.

Sometimes he misses, and the results can be embarrassing. But he’s a great artist because he still finds reasons to believe, because he seems to really think that music can make a difference, because he continues to give everything he’s got in his concerts. You can laud Nebraska all you want, but lamenting that he didn’t keep remaking it just reflects precisely the kind of fear that Springsteen is willing to shrug off. And I love him for it.

Emmylou – First-Aid Kit
King of the World – First-Aid Kit

A pretty large chunk of my 2012 musical consumption has come from the far north Atlantic. The best song I’ve heard so far this year was from Iceland, and this week I’ll be covering a few more Scandinavian artists. First on the list is the two sisters that make up First-Aid Kit.

They got a bit of fame a couple years ago with their cover of “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” by Fleet Foxes going viral on Youtube. I don’t even actually like that song very much, but there’s something unbelievably enchanting about their video. They’re just these two Swedish kids sitting on a log in the forest, but the sound is far beyond their apparent years. It’s strangely haunting.

Their new record The Lion’s Roar demonstrates a continued commitment to the sound of Americana. That’s best seen on the absolutely lovely “Emmylou” which is an ode to some of the country partnerships of old “I’ll be your Emmylou and I’ll be your June, if you’ll be my Graham and my Johnny, too.” It’s an ode to love, companionship, partnership, and a long history of music. The vocals remind me a lot of The Innocence Mission – with that haunting, shimmery catch in their voices.

Elsewhere, the opening track “The Lion’s Roar” has some absolutely perfect vocal harmonies and the closer “King of the World” is a great stomping conclusion, with Ring of Fire horns and a Conor Oberst interlude. And yes, it all works together perfectly. “This Old Routine” has a wonderful slide guitar bridge, and that wonderful feel of an end-of-the-night ballad. And “I Found a Way” reminds me of the dark tracks you’d find buried on an old Neko Case album.

There are a few tracks in the middle of the record that don’t quite stick the landing. But it’s hard to complain too much about such a self-possessed and flat-out beautiful record.

I’m hesitant to even waste my time mentioning this, but I do have a slightly larger point to make. So here it goes.

The new big ‘scandal’ is that Barack Obama while a law student at Harvard said some nice things about Derrick Bell. That’s the whole scandal. Derrick Bell, you may be aware, was an incredibly brilliant legal thinker. He is most famous for being a leading light in Critical Race Theory, which makes the oh-so-controversial claim that legal institutions are not neutral even when explicit forms of discrimination are wiped away. For example, you may be surprised to learn that racism did not disappear the second the Civil Rights Act was signed.

Of course, CRT is a far more complex set of arguments, and there is no clearly defined limits to the field. So it’s possible that some of the more radical claims made by its proponents might go a bit further than everyone will agree with. But you can say that about literally anything. And on the whole, CRT has been a tremendously positive force in our efforts to make law live up to its principles. Which is to say: America is a far better place today because of Derrick Bell. And the fact that Obama spoke highly of him (as he was protesting discrimination in legal hiring practices BTW) is about as controversial as it would be for him to speak highly of James Watson and Francis Crick.

So what’s the larger point? Well, this is an example where people who care about the issues at stake need to aggressively push back. Saying that Obama wasn’t really all that close with Bell is not just beside the point but it (subtly of course) implies that it would in fact be a problem if they were. We should be taking this opportunity to talk about how great Derrick Bell was, and pointing out all the evidence that he was, you know, right in his diagnosis of our society.

Same thing goes for this contraceptives insanity.  Normally it’s not news that Rush Limbaugh says something stupid and aggressively outrageous.  But in this case, it has called attention to just how much the conservative element of the Republican Party (which increasingly exercises total control over the whole party) just flat-out hates women who dare to find pleasure in sex.

Which is to say: people shouldn’t be satisfied with making just ONE of the incredibly obvious responses to this phenomenon.  We should be actively making all of them.  Because at each level, the conservative treatment of Ms. Fluke betrays deep problems in their social picture.  So don’t just point out that many women use birth control for reasons that have nothing to do with sex (though of course that is true and important).  Don’t just point out that people have to pay taxes for things they don’t personally support all the time (though of course that is true and important).  Don’t just point out that the issue here is not taxes at all, but rather what the health insurance that individuals will pay for will cover (though of course that is true and important).  Say all of this and more.  See Scott Lemieux for a great example.

The point here is that these folks are doubling down on their complete craziness. If this thing had blown over quickly, fine.  There’s no point in attacking the extremes if the middle is going to dissociate themselves from it.  But when that doesn’t happen, there are very important contrasts to be drawn.  And it’s plenty worthwhile to do it.

Which is to say: give people all the facts, but not simply as a matter of fact-checking.  Give them the facts in order to drive home the larger point: these folks would absolutely love to punish all women who believe that their bodies belong to themselves, rather than being owned by the men in their lives.  These folks would absolutely love to roll back all the (admittedly piecemeal) racial gains that our society has seen.  Incidents like these are not just ephemeral – they are opportunities to clarify who we really are, and what we want out of our society.

Sunshine in Chicago – Sun Kil Moon

This has got to be the best song out of Mark Kozelek in a decade.  He’s always most enjoyable doing pretty, world-weary songs but often has a tendency to let them run away from him.  No chance of that here.  It’s two and a half minutes and doesn’t even feel that long.  It’s just him and the acoustic guitar and those gently tinkling bells that make me think of Buddy Holly.  And he’s got the sort of voice that has improved leaps and bounds as it gets a little older and more crackly.  There’s something incredibly intimate and real about it.  Which is not to say that’s overbearing or especially weighty.  The tongue is obviously in cheek on lines like this:

Sunshine in Chicago makes me feel pretty sad
My band played here a lot in the ’90s when we had
Lots of female fans, and fuck, they all were cute
Now I just sign posters for guys in tennis shoes

Still, it’s not a mocking sort of irony, just a bit of a wry grin.

Among the Leaves is due out on May 29.

New Hope – Blink-182
Fake Empire – The National

There’s a good debate going on between some political bloggers about Star Wars. I say ‘good debate’ with reservations, though, because it implies that there are legitimately contestable opinions here. Which is not exactly the case here. Kevin Drum lays out as convincing an argument as can be made for Jedi as the best film, but ultimately falls short. The problem is that the Ewoks are not nearly as inoffensive or skippable as he implies. And the whole Endor plot is really pretty much a black hole. It’s the background against which the very good scene with Luke, the Emperor, and Vader can take place. But that’s it. Really, Jedi is two very good sequences in the middle of 90 minutes of a decent movie.

Still, nice effort. The far crazier position is Seth Masket’s claim that Revenge of the Sith is better than Jedi. I mean, sure, Sith is the best of the new trilogy. But that’s like saying that a blow to the head is better than pancreatic cancer or a wolverine attack. That is a slight exaggeration–Sith is actually a modestly successful film. But come on. It still has many of the lumbering incoherencies of the other two prequels. Plot elements layered upon plot elements with absolutely no reason to care. Not to mention a lack of explanation for those elements. Which weirdly makes it both way too long and way too short. Who in the world is Grievous, why does the film open with him considering he’s never been mentioned before, and why is this of interest? There are stupid action scenes (though none as aggressively stupid as the video-game crawl from Attack of the Clones), annoying references back to the original series (hey look! Chewbacca.  And he’s carrying Yoda.  LOLZ), but none as aggressively ridiculous as the idea that Vader built C-3PO.

Ultimately, though, there are two overwhelming flaws. First, the scenes with Anakin and Padme are just gut-wrenchingly terrible. Second, the whole premise of the prequel series was the anticipation of watching the emergence of Vader. Of him tracking down the Jedi and killing them. That’s what was supposed to make this cool. Instead, the Jedi are basically all killed in ten minutes or less. And it’s mostly done by drones!  And, um, haven’t we seen countless examples of the Jedi deflecting laser fire with ease?  WTF changed?  Ugh.

The decisive element in the battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin involves Obi-Wan stating that he has the ‘higher ground.’ Double ugh.

‘Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo.’  Triple ugh

Finally, ‘noooooooooo!’

A new study says the Oprah Book Club doesn’t cause more book sales. To which I respond: who cares? Why are book sales a relevant measurement of our literary culture? In general, I would rather people read one Anna Karenina than read 10 romance novels. Anna Karenina is a singular and monumental literary achievement, with deep insights into character, humanity, faith, and sorrow. Dime-a-dozen romance or mystery or science fiction or whatever-genre novels are, by definition, not.

Which is not to say I have a problem with reading genre-fiction. Genre fiction is great! I read a lot of SF and enjoy it plenty. The point, though, is that when there is an opportunity cost it’s almost always good if people supplement their genre fiction with ‘classics’ of the sort that Oprah promotes. Unless you’re in the business of selling books, I’m not sure why you should care how much generic product is moving off the shelves. It seems far more important that people get genuine value out of what they’re reading. The Oprah Book Club doesn’t guarantee that by any means, but very likely helps for a lot of people. And that’s awesome.

I also don’t like the subtle infantilism that accompanies many of the reports on this subject. For example, from Brad Plumer:

Oprah could argue that she got America reading more difficult and more rewarding titles, if somewhat fewer books overall. Of course, that’s assuming people were actually making their way all the way through “Anna Karenina”…

Or Kevin Drum:

While millions of Oprah fans were pretending to slog their way through Faulkner and Tolstoy, they were too drained to read their usual light fare. So the beach reading genres suffered. And if my cynical view is correct, the net effect was to reduce the total amount of reading among America’s households. We read less crap, but probably didn’t make up for it by actually reading the doorstops endorsed by Oprah. Most of us probably plowed our way through a chapter or two, then slowed down to a page here and there, and finally gave up in exhaustion. But I admit that this is a dim view. Perhaps Garthwaite’s next paper should tackle the question of whether people who bought Oprah’s recommended books actually read them.

I’m sure this is the case with plenty of people. But that’s the nature of taking on projects in all forms. Anna Karenina is not a doorstop; it’s a beautiful book that happens to be quite long. Love in the Time of Cholera, another book cited by Plumer is not even very long. I read it in one or two days and it was every bit as engaging as your standard ‘page-turner.’ We’re not talking about Finnegan’s Wake here. I’m sure many people who otherwise would never have even made the attempt discovered that these are not impenetrable literary texts, and had a wonderful reading experience.

Little Talks – Of Monsters and Men

If there’s one thing I need right now, it’s a dark, weird, Icelandic musical romp with big horns and an energetic chorus.  Fortunately, here is Of Monsters and Men, ready to provide just that.

This is one of those songs that sounds like it was recorded while stomping through the forest.  The quiet bits call to mind a dark, moonlight night and tender touches of fingertips.  And then the loud part comes in and you realize that you’re surrounded by some sort of Icelandic forest band, ready to melt back into the night when the quiet parts return.

(hat-tip to Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good, who describes this as the Magnetic Zero’s “Home” but without the kitsch – which seems absolutely right).

They’re big in Iceland, apparently, but will be releasing their record in the US very soon. So stay tuned.

Probably ten times in the last couple days I’ve heard variations on the following argument: “the delegate count is what we really ought to be focusing on.  Narrative shouldn’t really matter.” Usually this is accompanied by claims that we shouldn’t focus so much on Michigan, given that Romney is going to win a winner-takes-all contest in Arizona. There is a sense in which this is true.  If there is a protracted campaign, ultimately only delegates matter.  And it’s also true that a 500-vote victory and a 500-vote loss are almost indistinguishable in a proportional state.

So it’s silly if a narrow victory gives a candidate momentum which a narrow loss would crush.

That said, it is 100% reasonable that people will focus on Michigan tonight.  It’s a close vote for one thing, so there’s an actual story.  But even more importantly, Michigan is the place where it is still possible for the seemingly inevitable (Romney wins) result can be disrupted.  Because let’s face facts, Romney is still the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination.

People seem to think the proper analogy here is Obama/Clinton where narrative turned out to matter very little and delegate math mattered a lot.  And I guess it could still turn out that way.  But there really is still not a lot of evidence to think that’s the situation.  The reason why narrative is a perfectly legitimate thing to focus on in covering the race right now is that Santorum is dancing on a tightrope and will have to sustain it in order to pose a real threat.  He has to continue convincing people that he’s a real candidate to win the nomination or the whole thing will turn into a damp squib.

Here’s a poll on the favorability ratings for the 50 states. Which leads me to wonder: is there any state worse than Delaware? I have a hard time coming up with an argument for anywhere else. What do the rest of us get out of Delaware? We get about five miles of I-95, and for the privilege of driving on this road we have to fork over about six bucks. We also get lax banking regulations that mean every financial institution in the country operates out of Delaware (thanks federalism!). That’s about it. Joe Biden, I guess.

At least some of the other terrible states give us a smug sense of self-satisfaction. ‘Sure our state has problems but at least it’s not Mississippi.’ West Virginia has some beautiful geography, as does Utah. New Jersey doesn’t have a lot going for it, but a lot of actual people come from there. How many people have you ever met from Delaware?

Other questions: how did Tennessee end up as the second most popular state? How is Oregon in the top 10 while Washington is in the bottom half? What’s the difference?

And finally, Florida is in the top 10? That is perhaps the most insane thing about the whole poll. Florida is awful. Not quite Delaware-bad but really quite close. C’mon America.