Bruce Springsteen: Helluva Guy

I heard through the grapevine that Bruce Springsteen has a new album and a Superbowl performance coming up, complete with Rolling Stone cover story. In celebration, I reveal 10 little-known facts about The Boss here:

• Springsteen's patriotism knows no bounds. He created every American monument in the history of the country. Then, out of sheer humility, he credited other people. What guy!
• Bruce Springsteen's music is so magnanimous the state of New Jersey was created to contain it. Jersey sucks so much because The Boss goes on tour a lot.
  
• Springsteen concerts can last so long some people age visibly during them.
• No one truly in the working class has been able to afford to see Springsteen since approximately 1987.
• Federal Law bans Bruce Springsteen, Bono and Nas from being in the same church. Parishioners would would be trapped forever in a maze of Messianic imagery.
• Bruce uses the same alphabet as English translations of a Bible. This is a subtle hint that he was sent to Earth to save music through his piledriving arena rock and occasional acoustic ballads.

Jokes aside, I do like the man's music, and I'm sure the album's fine.

Slate: The Spiritual Journey of ODB

I know - I'm not doing so well with the "updating every day" thing. No excuses, it's tough to get used to this whole "blogging" thing. Still gotta try my best, though.

Slate posted this excellent article about the manic kind of wisdom that kind of gets splattered all over Ol' Dirty Bastard's music.

Slate: The Spiritual Journey of ODB

It's somewhat surprising that Slate was able to come up with a full two-page article about Ol' Dirty and spirituality, but really, is there anything involving the depth of the Wu-Tang that can be surprising?* I listened to Nigga Please after reading the article, and it's tough not to miss ODB's style and humor. No one really does it like this. The closest modern hip-hop has is Lil' Wayne, and he's not even close. That dude's just eccentric. Dirty is off his fucking rocker. Listen to "I Want Pussy" and not crack up. I dare you.

Who else could get away with a farce like "Cold Blooded?" It's been about 30 minutes and I can't remember anything else but ODB warbling his way through the Rick James song over and over again. No one can make sense of the closer "Cracker Jack." Scary thing is, this album presents a pretty reigned-in version of ODB, produced by The Neptunes on their ascent to the top of the pop world, dueting with a pre-"Milkshake" Kelis. And yet he still blasts through it all like he loaded a cannon with a bunch of knee socks, Nickelodeon slime, slim jims and R&B records from the late 70s/early 80s, and lit the fuse.

*...that is, aside from U-God making a classic album out at some point? I'd be surprised, at least.