Bob Seger VS. Bruce Springsteen

[KooL]

fuzznuts said:

He looks like he's trying to let one rip in that picture.

Ya Mo Be There

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Dude, imagine being the drummer and having to smell that old ass every night!

I think the load may already be in his pants when that picture was taken.

[KooL]

hahaha! I bet PEW wouldn't mind giving ol' Bob's bum a nice long whiff himself.

[loudaab]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

Uh, PEW I did read it. And I quote: "And last of all, lets take a comparitive look at how both men are considered to represent the blue-collar working class ethos. We see that Seger didnt really make it big until he was nearly 30 years old. We see that he had to toil in small clubs and work his way up the ranks, paying his dues, signing with small Indie labels, endlessly on the road trying for one last chance to make it in the biz. Springsteen was being called the New Dylan as soon as his first album came out and was getting his picture on the cover of the top magazines while riding around in limos. So when it comes to who actually represents the blue-colar workign man most authentically, the answer has to be Seger. "

That statement there pretty much to me would represent that the person who made that statement doesn't think that Springsteen earned his position.

Look, don't take it out on me that everyone around here pretty much thinks you are nothing more than a blog whoring shit stirring ass. Change your approach. I don't think you can, that's why I say vote you off the island with out a paddle.

Do I think Springsteen deserves his position as the spokesman for the blue-collar working man? Fuck NO!
But that is much different than what you accused me of saying prior when you said --and I quote--"I also take issue with the fact that Bruce didn't put his blood, sweat, and tears into his work like PEW has suggested."
Certainly Springsteen has put in the work to attain his success, but that doesnt make him spokesman for the working class, does it? I mean Dick Cheney has busted his ass to attain the position he's arrived at, but does that make him the spokeman for the blue-collar man?
No, it doesnt. It's not how hard you work--lots of people work hard. But working hard does NOT mean you represent the blue-collar, working man ethos. It is your experiences in life and how you deal with them that allows you to represent the blue-collor working class ethos.
Now there is no question about Segers authenticity in this regard. He comes from the belly of the motor city and lived the first 30 years of his life on the fringe. Springsteen on the otherhand was accepted into the Rock communitee immediately and was wrapped up in the poltics of Corporate Rock before he even reached his 23rd birthday.

[Galactus]

Even if Seger does better represent blue collar workers, how does that in any way make his music better? I know actual blue collar workers in bands and they're shit.

[loudaab]

ded said:

Even if Seger does better represent blue collar workers, how does that in any way make his music better? I know actual blue collar workers in bands and they're shit.

Well its like this. You have two guys who are percieved as being the voice of the american blue-collar working man. One has actually lived that life while the other has looked down on that life from his Corporate Rock Ivory Tower. Now tell me, which one is going to be more credible? I mean Springsteen may be able to bend a phrase better and pout his lip out better and have a better voice and show his pretty ass on his album covers while standing in front of a US flag, but that is all sloganeer and posturing. There is nothng authentic about that.

[Galactus]

One has actually lived that life while the other has looked down on that life from his Corporate Rock Ivory Tower. Now tell me, which one is going to be more credible?


Either you're a complete moron or you're baiting us Springsteen fans...a little of both is my guess. Either way I'm done discussing this with you.

[Kensterberg]

ded said:

One has actually lived that life while the other has looked down on that life from his Corporate Rock Ivory Tower. Now tell me, which one is going to be more credible?


Either you're a complete moron or you're baiting us Springsteen fans...a little of both is my guess. Either way I'm done discussing this with you.

I was actually going to go into a Top Ten Reasons Why The Boss Kicks Seger's Ass (which I may still do, it's kind of fun to write), but DED's right that PEW isn't trying to have a "discussion" --he's just trying to rile people up. And then he'll pimp his blog some more.

This isn't new, creative or even interesting, PEW. You've got nothing to say, and a really annoying way of saying it. Just shut the fuck up. And go. away.

[Galactus]

You know I'm always down for talking about the boss, I'm just not going to talk to pew about it anymore. I'd like to see your list.

[Ryosuke]

kenholzman said:

I was actually going to go into a Top Ten Reasons Why The Boss Kicks Seger's Ass (which I may still do, it's kind of fun to write), but DED's right that PEW isn't trying to have a "discussion" --he's just trying to rile people up.

Not that you need further proof of this, but...

loudaab said:

Like I said, the Sire records, the informed journalists of the day, the Rockists and scenesters recoginzed the difference between punk and new wave. It was only the mainstream--people like Ken who really didnt knoe the scene or that music very well--who mistakenly referred to these bands as punk.

The guy is worthless. If strat seriously thinks that he is less detrimental to the discussion here than the Neil Sedaka clique, then that's his prerogative. But this place is increasingly becoming an unattractive forum to talk about music.

[KooL]

ryosuke said:

The guy is worthless. If strat seriously thinks that he is less detrimental to the discussion here than the Neil Sedaka clique, then that's his prerogative. But this place is increasingly becoming an unattractive forum to talk about music.

I want to comment on this too, but my gut feeling tells me it will get ugly [again] so I'll just do what we've been telling PEW to do for ages now and just shut the fuck up. Not that it's any secret of course how I feel on the matter...

[KooL]

Let's just say PEW's still a cunt. Only now he's just a boring, predictable one too.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

PEW, as a reminder there is this: "And that's probablly because he had a major record contract by 22 and didnt have to fight his way through like Seger had to." That's a pretty derrogatory image on The Boss and does suggest that he was some prissy do nothing.

"Springsteen was born and grew up in Freehold, New Jersey. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was a bus driver of Dutch and Irish ancestry." That's from Wikipedia. I think growing up in the house where your father was a blue collar worker gives you a pretty authentic view on what that life is like.

Which also begs the question: What is with this authenticity crap that you keep harping on about? Raising the issues of farmers and blue collar workers to a mainstream audience is a great thing whether he actually pulled the wheat from the ground himself or not. While I am not a fan of RATM, I still applaud their efforts to raise awareness to causes they think are important that they discuss in the subject matter of their songs.

Now, when looking at the personal history of Bob Segar, one finds that he may have been nothing more than an upper middle class white kid in the burbs of Detroit. In your terms, that doesn't speak very well for his authenticity and shoots down your argument that he's more "blue collar" than Bruce.

It's a ridiculous argument though. I'd rather base the issue on which one rocks me more and it's The Boss. I do have love for the Segar, just more for the Bruce.

[Kensterberg]

Top Ten Reasons the Boss Kicks Bob Seger's Ass
No disrespect to Mr. Seger, but he's clearly (at least) one tier down from Springsteen in the rock and roll game. I'm not gonna limit this to "pre-MTV" b/c that's an arbitrary and pointless limitation. It's sort of like saying that Blur or Oasis are better bands than Radiohead, as long as you stop counting before OK Computer came out. Seger had more Top Forty hits than Bruce did in the seventies, but his albums were demonstrably inferior during that period, and Springsteen has more than surpassed Seger in the longevity department.

And with that out of the way ...

10. Seger needed a "greatest misses" live album to make a splash on the national stage -- he took the Peter Frampton route to stardom. Unlike Frampton, Seger was actually able to cut and release two albums of grade A and B material (Night Moves and Stranger in Town) before running out of musical ideas and falling into lyrical cliches (on the hopelessly flat and utterly predictable Fire Lake, which has a total of one really good song, Against the Wind, which speaks directly about not knowing "what to leave in, what to leave out." There was a lot of pressure on Bruce to release a live album after E Street instead of Born to Run, but Bruce (and Jon Landau) stuck to his guns, and produced a masterpiece instead.

9. Seger didn't make it big nationally until after Bruce kicked the door open for this kind of rock. Look at when Live Bullet! was released -- 1976, the year after Bruce had made people interested in this kind of bar band inspired, r&b based rock and roll again. If Bruce had done what the label (and his then manager) had wanted and followed up Born to Run right away with either another album of new material or a live record, Seger might never have gotten that big break. Much of Seger's late seventies success had to do with filling a demand for Springsteenesque music which The Boss couldn't meet.

8. Seger has cut a total of one great album (Night Moves) in his career. All the rest of his work is hit and miss. In contrast, Bruce released nothing but great albums from late 1973's The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle through 1987's Tunnel of Love. He then released three hit and miss recordings without the E Street Band, and then returned to form on The Rising.

7. Springsteen writes rings around Seger's lyrics. Seger has written some fine songs, but nothing to lyrically match, just for example, "Thunder Road," "Atlantic City," "My Father's House" or "Darkness on the Edge of Town."

6. Springsteen's artistic vision, no matter how you measure it, is both deeper and broader than Seger's. Bruce has musically accomplished more than Seger, and lyrically he's both covered more ground and more fully explored it. Seger has nothing in his catalog that can compare to the complex examination of father/son relationships that Bruce has explored from "Adam Raised a Caine" through "Independence Day" and "My Father's House" and on to "Walk Like a Man."

5. Bruce has never done anything as maudlin or cliched as "We've Got Tonight." Just the fact that Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton had a big hit with this says it all. Kenny fucking Rogers.

4. The Big Man shits all over the sax player from the Silver Bullet Band. Clarence has more character and stage presence than Seger himself, for that matter.

3. Miami Steve Van Zandt. Bruce had not one but two foils on-stage, and Steve was his musical collaborator and compatriot during the crucial period of '75 through '84. Again, no one in the SBB can match Steve's contributions to the E Street sound. For that matter, Roy Bittan and the rest of the E Streeters deserve some mention here. Springsteen was always musically more challenging and harder to keep up with in a live setting than Seger was. For proof of this, all you need to do is compare Seger's second live album, Nine Tonight, with Springsteen's exhaustive '75-'85 compendium. Every song on Nine Tonight is flat and sounds exhausted when compared to the studio cuts (no small accomplishment considering that the tracks from Fire Lake already sounded pretty tired in their original incarnation), but every song on Bruce's set sounds more vital, more fully realized, than in the studio. There is more (and better) interplay between the Boss and his band than Seger and his musicians, too.

2. Bruce is an ace guitarist, one who many who heard him play when he was the fastest axe-man on the East Coast wish would really cut loose with a workout of Hendrixian proportions. Bruce can play his ass off, but he sticks to what the songs need rather than just playing to his own ego. In contrast, Seger, well ... can Bob Seger even play guitar? He sure as hell never played his own leads.

1. Born to Run. Right there, Bruce shuts down every comparison between himself and the rest of the pretenders to his throne. On this one album, he redeemed every promise he'd ever made, every ounce of faith that anyone had rested in him. Seger has nothing close to it. Nothing.

OK, there are actually more points that I could go on and on with, but I'm not going to. It's pretty obvious to anyone with ears to hear and half a brain to follow the lyrics that Bruce is the winner of this "competition." Anyway, it was kind of fun to write this all out ... hopefully some of you guys will enjoy reading it.

[loudaab]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

Now, when looking at the personal history of Bob Segar, one finds that he may have been nothing more than an upper middle class white kid in the burbs of Detroit.

Bob Seger, upper-middle class???
Oh my God! Now you are just making shit up skvor. Seger came from a broken home and was raised by a single mother who worked multiple jobs just to try and make ends meet.
At least if you are going to try and contradict every thing I say (simply becasue I'M the one saying it) at least try to base it on some fact. Again, I recommend that you do some research (beyond a quick wikipedia search) and get to know what the hell you are talking about if you truly want to have a constructive conversaton. But if your motive is just to blindly try and contradict every point I make without actually thinking open-mindedly about the issue, then you are going to continue to look like a fool by putting your foot in your mouth...