Springsteen as "Indie Ideal" That Used to Be Brian Wilson

Indie is ALL about ideals.

that should be "indie."

Footnote: was Brian Wilson the "`indie' ideal" 10 years ago? Someone refresh my memory.

the "boom" of wilson-influenced stuff along the lines of elephant 6 might have you believing so

Does this just mean "working class hero," or some shit?

i don't hear any springsteen in any new music i've been listening to, perhaps i'm not listening to the 'right' records?

I kinda took it as a ref to the surge in earnest folk-rock?

...

Has there been a surge in earnest folk-rock?

I certainly hear a lot of indie kids talk about Bruce Springsteen.

Like, one might point to Connor Oberst and maybe the "freak-folk scene" (ugh), but really wtf else is there

really wtf else is there

Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, Hold Steady's Boys & Girls in America.

Let me play Anyone-Who-Ever-Posted-on-ILM for a second and say: I don't understand the logic of that guy's sentence.

I'm sorry, James, do you mean my sentence? I meant that many critics and fans have said that the new Arcade Fire and Hold Steady discs are influenced by Bruce Springsteen's sound.

No, Daniel, I meant the original quotation italicized by edd hurt. Your example was useful in trying to unpack it.

I don't know about the actual sound of "indie," whatever "indie" might mean and whatever the "sound of indie" might be, but Springsteen is getting dropped in reviews (and some interviews) all over the place as a reference point--the major ones being the two that Daniel mentioned, plus the Killers' Sam's Town, if that "counts" as "indie."

I thought judging by the original post that Edd was implying that Bruce was somehow... unworthy? Or something? Or that "Born to Run" doesn't kill? To which I can only say, Edd must not be from New Jersey.

Nebraska might have been an influence but I can count the number of indie albums that have reminded me of Born To Run on one hand

Uh what I mean by that first paragraph is that I see the Springsteen refs in reviews way more than I hear them on the records--Hold Steady has sounded sort of like the Boss for years (and still sound sort of like him in the same way they sound sort of like every bar band reference point (Bob Seger, say). Arcade Fire does sound a lot like Springsteen, but I don't know that this is, like, a trend or something. If it was I might be buying a lot more indie rock albums!!

I think this all started with the Killers album, at any rate, which doesn't really sound like Springsteen... really it sounds like what a bunch of kids who've only heard Born to Run and buy heavily into Springsteenian myth might make if they wanted to make a Springsteen album.

I'm still waiting for the "indie" "I'm Goin Down."

this sentence is my favorite

He has inspired pale imitators (Tom Petty, John Mellencamp), but has no peers to speak of.

that dismissal of petty as a pale boss is the funniest thing i've read on pitchfork in a while

Against Me! have a little bit of Spring in their step.

i've heard a shitload of indie covers of bruce songs in the last year, about 2/10th of which i've enjoyed, but i can't really see the influence having a further reach from "we have a crush hehe". it is probably impossible to have another boss, but i will keep hoping the badlands will start treatin us good.

2/10 is way more cult than 1/5

good point! sloppy math

Against Me! have a little bit of Spring in their step steen.

-- Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, October 5, 2007 2:31 AM

"Indie ideal" Brian Wilson (ca. Pet Sounds) was crazy misunderstood hermit genius/savant beardo somehow making harmonies that everyone in America loved while his band went out and actually did the work of touring, business, etc (ie, the stuff that's a distraction from the actual making of music)---all of which sounds like a very idealized view of artistry in general... one that all indie/punk/outsider dudes can be sanctimonious or cute or serious in aligning themselves with.

"Ideal" Bruce Springsteen (ca. Born To Run, according this review, if i'm reading it right) is overlong shows, Clarence Clemons sax solos and odes to "escaping" that are born to be misread by fratboys like some glockenspiel-soaked On The Road. This ideal is for RADIO ROCK bands, not INDIE ROCK bands. Thus, the Killers or Against Me comparsions are probably the most apt--a record in it for the artistry (of course) but ALSO the thrill of big rock spectacle, live shows, and getting some money.

The grunge-era equivalent would be liking Led Zeppelin. Certainly an excellent touchstone, but far from the "indie ideal"

The indie ideal Springsteen is NEBRASKA, duh.

Nebraska = Sufjan, Iron And Wine, Sebadoh, Smog, Cat Power, etc, etc

That's the indie ideal ca. 2007 if anything

If anything Springsteen, that is.

I wanted to be the first person to say "glockenspiel" in this thread but Whiney beat me. One of my pet peeves with Sufjanesque indie these days.

I'm seriously considering a ban of all songs with glockenspiels on Paper Thin Walls. This shit is getting out of control this year.

i haven't played glockenspeil since 6th grade

"Keep The Car Running" sounds a lot like "On The Dark Side" by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band which copies Bruce and the E Street Band down to the smallest nuance. I mean, every single second: the hand claps; the voice; the sax solo; the lyrics. I can only imagine when Bruce heard it for the first time.

hmmmm. alleged 1997 indie ideal brian wilson = weird, spacey, unreliable, unhealthy, druggy, savant, music guy. alleged 2007 indie ideal bruce springsteen = normal, focused, reliable, healthy, drinky-but-not-druggy, workaholic, lyrics guy. have indie kids changed that much in 10 years, or has their perception of themselves changed, or has the media's perception of them changed, or does a country with a booming economy and relative peace produce a different kind of hipster kid than a country with a sinking economy and a disastrous war? or is pitchfork just making shit up again? or are the killers really the same band as third eye blind, only the '00s version is considered "indie" whereas the '90s version wasn't, and therefore we shouldn't compare the '00s indie ideal to the '90s indie ideal, but rather we should compare the '00s indie ideal to the '90s commercial pop ideal? also, what does it mean when indie kids and toby keith worship the same ideal right now at this very minute?

Orchestration followed grunge; classic rock followed new wave.

or is pitchfork just making shit up again?
^^

that dismissal of petty as a pale boss is the funniest thing i've read on pitchfork in a while

Agreed, this is retarded.

i hope the next so-called "indie ideal" is Robert Palmer and the Power Station

Andy Taylor = the new Phil Manzanera

this far w/o a "broooce sux" comment?

Let me supply it, then. Bruce really does suck.

I have noticed that there is a lot more name-dropping of the Boss than there used to be, and Arcade Fire et al truly do sound like him, but I'm not sure if it can be seen as indicative of a major trend. For one thing, I wouldn't call either The Killers or the Hold Steady indie. For another, we can still point to lots of folk making Brian Wilson inspired music (hello there, Panda Bear).

Agreed. Bruce sucks. So does indie.

somebody made The Boss comparison with Neon Bible before I heard it so when I did hear it I found it pretty easy to hear a link but I DID hear it so...uh, yeah

x-post

spacey, unreliable, unhealthy, druggy, savant--Factchecking Cuz on Brian Wilson

Most of the Brian Wilson hero-worship and the Springsteen namedropping is from a musical angle and not based on the characteristics you cite.
Also can you elaborate on your indie kids = Toby Keith meme some more, not sure I understand how uh Bright Eyes, Battles, Deerhunter,Decemberists and Keith all worship the same ideal.

Part of the influence, definitely for someone like Toby Keith, would come from seeing how Springsteen pulls off his standard three-hour concert.

New Boss = Vince Clarke

Most of the Brian Wilson hero-worship and the Springsteen namedropping is from a musical angle and not based on the characteristics you cite.

i couldn't disagree more, especially vis-a-vis wilson. the kids tend to like him because of his music AND because he's weird.

Also can you elaborate on your indie kids = Toby Keith meme some more

that's me being flip. pitchfork maintains indie kids worship bruce. it's plain as day to me that toby keith, a populist patriot with big guitars and big biceps, does too. so i just did some basic ILM math.

(oh, and also, toby keith is way more talented than every single indie act mentioned anywhere on this thread, but that's another story for another day.)

That Hansel, he's so hot right now.

Bruce's disillusioned populist lefty politics might be making sense to people these days. Whether you buy it or not, his nostalgia for some kind of golden age of 50's/60's ideal America is as attractive now with Bush & Iraq as it must have been when started out in the aftermath of Nixon & Viet Nam.

And there does seem to be a bit of a resurgence in E Street Band tactics with rock bands these days... a cast of thousands onstage doing big give-the-people-their-money's worth-type long-ass sweaty live shows with BIG! MOMENTS!, tons of covers, solos, guest stars, encores, and soul + gospel signifiers (call and response, swelling ganged up back-ups and choruses) but not a lot of funkiness. It is all a bit Bruce-y.

(Ironically, all this Bossiness is especially big with Canadian indie bands like Arcade Fire & all those Mtl. bands from a while back, Black Mountain, Broken Social Scene, Constantines, even mopers like The Dears... they're all into those showboaty bombastic live shows. As Neil Young, The Band and Peter Jennings can attest, no-one does Americana as well as Canadians.)

The singalongs and moments of solidarity with the crowd, the emphasis on a shared transformative experience between audience and players, the big anthems - it might be a bit of a backlash against the detatched cool of bands like The Strokes et al.

I figured this would get some interesting responses. I have to say, I'm not much of a Springsteen fan--but I do hear some value in some of it, more than I used to. The Meltzer piece in his collected works on the Boss is just so funny, and Meltzer so indignant about Bruce's conflating of the '50s and '60s in a way that in Meltzer's opinion trashes the value of those two (to RM) beloved decades, that I have trouble hearing Bruce without singing, "Oooo-klahoma..." Bruce as rock-as-Broadway-musical. Which isn't that far off the mark.

I think the Pitchfork review is just hilarious--it's an obvious ploy, in my opinion, to make some convultion-of-hip statement on how we're all healthier or more heartfelt now, free of the effete influence of Brian Wilson (who to be fair was sort of a Shoney's Big Boy hamburger with top-secret sauce to Bruce's middling mid-American hamburger with ketchup). But in no way do I think Bruce made anywhere near the contribution that Brian Wilson did--to my mind, that's plain ridiculous. And, Tom Petty was a Roger McGuinn imitator. A pretty good one, from Florida. I mean, let indie be indie is how I feel about it, see, there are indie bands everywhere now but there's only one Bruce. That's cool, I like it fine, but bringing the Boss into it just seems too much for me. I mean I'd be happier if they'd said Canned Heat was the indie ideal--honest fat guys without Bruce's workout equipment, so I'm a democrat at heart. I guess the Pitchforking dude meant Bruce's integrity, but I just think he's been around long enough for the convolutions of hip to turn back toward whatever it is Bruce represents for people who aren't lively enough on their own and need some mediated idea of rock and roll to make their lives better. And sure, the Beach Boys you could say the same thing about except it seems far more graceful, impenetrable and therefore artistic to me than Bruce's exSpectoraization of rock. That's me, that's my taste--I just cannot take Bruce Springsteen seriously as someone who has anything to tell me I don't already know.

bad news for me if springsteen actually is any kind of musical ideal (esp over b.wilson). one of handful of artists that I can't imagine owning anything by, ever. next in line would be anyone who's "imitating" him.

I don't know, I like a lot of Springsteen so I don't see so much of a problem with the Pitchfork comment, but I don't really expect him to tell me something I don't already know.

the '90's brian wilson revival was very much a reaction against grunge: orchestration, melodicism, innocence, fussiness, cuteness all valued again after years of guitar-bass-drums wooly angstiness... so I don't really think Pfork's trying to take Brian down a notch so much as saying that there's been another shift in the cycle of which Spector-worshipping old guy is in with the kids

the springsteen as favoured template goes back a few years now, maybe with Green Day's American Idiot as it's first big moment (or maybe even Andrew WK's first record - which is essentially Springsteen bombast boiled down to stupid perfection) but also running through The Killers, My Chemical Romance, and a bunch of emo bands I don't know the names of.

i love "brilliant disguise"

me too!

chromatics have a "im on fire" cover

electrane do "i'm on fire" too

Springsteen is OK, but I still don't understand all this talk about The Killers and Arcade Fire being influenced by Springsteen. I hear no Springsteen at all, just a whole lot of The Cure and Echno & The Bunnymen.

its the songs where they reference cars, geir

So Gary Numan is heavily influenced by Bruce Springsteen then? OK, fine....

Here's a Bruuuuuuuuuuuuce primer by the way:

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/primer_bruce_springsteen

Also, I think a lot of this might tie into a class consciousness. Even if 99% of indie fans are middle to upper middle class, liberal university educated future NPR listeners, Bruce represents working class "realness" which indie kids drinking PBR are currently all about, whereas maybe 10 years ago they'd be into hanging out in their mom's basement recording their very own 4 track Pet Sounds sounding (but not really Pet Sounds sounding, maybe just God Only Knows, nothing that sounds like Sloop John B or really most of the realistically pretty minimal tracks on that album) concept album about a European girl who lives in a gingerbread house or something.

Personally I like Bruce's winding, complex almost modernist lyrics -- almost reminds me of Paterson by William Carlos Williams sometimes, but maybe because they're both about new jersey -- and can take or leave the music 75% of the time. Crooked Finger's covered Promised Land when I saw them, and the only indie bands that I actually hear Bruceness in are typically singer song writers who look really dirty and tired. I (thankfully) only heard Arcade Fire a few times on the radio and they sounded like The Cure to me.

Springsteen is OK, but I still don't understand all this talk about The Killers and Arcade Fire being influenced by Springsteen. I hear no Springsteen at all, just a whole lot of The Cure and Echno & The Bunnymen.

In terms of rhythm, I hear the Knack in so much modern/indie rock.

I was trying to think of a better boomer rocker for indie to idealize but after seeing how they've reacted to Neil Young and Prince I've decided on Loudon Wainwright III.

If they're gonna fetishize someone with stunted emotional growth, it might as well be the guy whose funniest and most self-aware about it.

I also like that Loudo can write a good topical one sometimes.

but actually so can Springsteen, so we're back where we started

(btw, I really like the new Brooooce so :P )

The single is really funny, haven't heard the rest.

and as Loudon isn't a big fan of symphonic rock or colon blow, we're really not back where we started

I still don't understand all this talk about The Killers and Arcade Fire being influenced by Springsteen. I hear no Springsteen at all, just a whole lot of The Cure and Echo & The Bunnymen.

I agree with this, actually.

Also think Cougar > Springsteen > Petty > Wainwright, but what the hell do I know.

I like "Livin' In The Future" on the new Bruce album; the rest, not so much. Details on rolling country thread shortly.

I was trying to think of a better boomer rocker for indie to idealize but after seeing how they've reacted to Neil Young and Prince I've decided on Loudon Wainwright III.

i saw some indie new york band at the rhapsody party in sxsw, and they covered john prine.

But then, there already is a Clem Snide, so maybe I really want most indie bands to just stop.

or maybe have a new idea rather than an ideal

if some freak folkie made a 21st century nebraska then i would be willing to tolerate the killers' moustaches.

...but aren't freak folkies more into Nick Drake and the Incredible String band?

...or even (gulp) David Crosby?

point taken

I've been catching a whiff of a Springsteen renaissance for a couple years now, but it's always been sort of "on spec". I'd say Pitchfork took the bait and tried for some revisionist one-upsmanship. Really, from an "indie" standpoint, has Springsteen ever been much more than not-as-bad-as-you'd-expect?

Arcade Fire Rocks With Springsteen In Ottawa
October 15, 2007, 12:00 AM ET
Jason MacNeil, Toronto
billboard.com
The Arcade Fire made a surprise appearance during the encore of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's show last night (Oct. 14) at Ottawa's Scotiabank Place, playing on two of the latter's songs as well as one of its own.
The collaboration began on "State Trooper," its first airing on the tour so far and first E Street Band performance since 1984, according to Springsteen's Web site <http://www.brucespringsteen.net>;. Springsteen then yielded the spotlight to the Arcade Fire, who played its song "Keep the Car Running" from this year's acclaimed "Neon Bible." The group remained onstage for "Born To Run."
The show also featured the tour premieres of "Tougher Than the Rest" and "Backstreets."
Springsteen's outing in support of the just-released "Magic" continues tonight in Toronto and will play two shows at New York's Madison Square Garden later in the week.

How the fuck would "State Trooper" work with like 90 people onstage

It seems like Baby Boomers love anything where there's a hundred people on the stage. Thats why they like all those rock and roll hall of fame dedications and festival performances where a bunch of old assholes sing some terrible song all at once.

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=23556&rendTypeId=4

lovin that hat

I'm guessing this "State Trooper" was a group-dirge like the Cowboy Junkies' version.

Springsteen's cred renaissance may've begun with the Sub Pop tribute to Nebraska.

r.i.p. quiet desperation

Much better when they cleared all those geezers off the stage and then came back and sang the Marvin Gaye song.
(xpost)

I was at the Ottawa show. The audience was hilariously whatever when Win & Regine got onstage.

who is this now?

i'd love to read competing histories-of-indie/alt/the non-mainstream that were based on different sequences of the reigning ideal past figures of the times

It was never Springsteen for a start... well, maybe in the US.

Arcade Fire? Gaslight Anthem? (do they count sort of?)

Clearly Fleetwood Mac imo.

Oh sorry I misunderstood the question.

More likely I would have thought.(xp)

I confess the appeal of Bruce Springsteen is completely lost on me.

Prince, maybe? I'm not sure how big a musical influence he is (I know St. Vincent talks about him), but as reigning ideal ultimate unassailable figure, I think he fits.

i think there's supposed to be some (at least tenuous) sense that their music, or i dunno, their musicmaking ethos, is to be emulated too.

not that i have a good feel for how much current indieish music could be plausibly thought of as princeish or not in that way.

I think "indie" is too fragmented these days to assign one voice that's regularly emulated. That said, I'm hearing a resurgence of earnest 90s identities lately.

Well there was that list that Pitchfork recently published of the five choice Enya tracks that you should check out.

I must have missed Springsteen's ascendance. Brian Wilson makes sense as part of the E6 to AnCo trajectory.

CAN ought to be mentioned somewhere in the 00s story as well.

Yeah the Brian Wilson indie was biggest up until 2006 or something?

Here's the definitive guide to Indie Ideals. There is no debate, I declare this argument settled.

90s: Brian Wilson
2000s: Springsteen
2010s: Kraftwerk

there's a four day indie rock / noise rock festival running in my town right now and every other band in the programme seem to list can as an influence

but uk =/= usa

Original recordings or reissues?