There Was Nothing You Could Do

May 1, 2024
Ambling biography of Bruce Springsteen's most popular album. Rock critic Hyden, author of This Isn't Happening and Twilight of the Gods, was just 6 when he discovered Born in the U.S.A. At that age, he writes, he did not comprehend the title song, a bitter lament from a returned Vietnam veteran and the forgotten lives he and his comrades would lead. Of course, half the people who heard the album didn't get that connection, certainly not Ronald Reagan, who wanted to use it for a campaign theme. Writing on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the album, Hyden argues that the album "managed to capture the center of American life"--a single album able to accommodate interpretations from all points along the cultural and political spectrum. No more. In this polarized and fragmented time, where Springsteen had formerly eschewed taking political stands, he now placed his bestselling record to the left, turning his back, perhaps, on a good chunk of his audience who take a more rightist stance. The thesis is unremarkable, but Hyden scores good points along the way. Some are of the cultural-critical sort, as when he notes that the album "represents the peak of the boomer generation controlling what was popular in music." Soon after, listeners would fragment, with younger audiences turning away from classic rock and toward self-curated playlists rather than what MTV and the radio were selling. New attitudes were also emerging: Hyden contrasts Springsteen's album with Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, with the left-behind jungle of Vietnam turning into the inescapable jungle of America. As for Springsteen's one-time plea for togetherness, fuggedaboudit: "Outside the arena, the dream disappeared. All you had were the broken pieces of America." Fans of the Boss will find arguable interpretations on every page, but definitely a book worth their attention.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 20, 2024
The 1984 album Born in the USA cemented Bruce Springsteen’s reputation for drawing listeners from across the political divide, according to this boisterous account from music critic Hyden (Long Road). Recalling how he first heard the album as a six-year-old in his father’s car—“All these years later, I am still chasing the rush”—Hyden traces some of Springsteen’s musical influences (Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan) before situating him alongside John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, and other contemporaries whose songs centered working-class protagonists. According to Hyden, Born in the USA straddled “a hard-hat, working-class conservatism” and an idealism “born out of the civil rights and anti-war movement of the sixties.” That combination garnered Springsteen fans on both the right and the left, Hyden writes, noting that the title track, a song about the disillusionment of a Vietnam war veteran, was co-opted by Reagan-era conservatives as a patriotic anthem. Balancing a fan’s enthusiasm with a critic’s attention to detail, Hyden sheds light on Springsteen’s legacy and the political moment that allowed him to occupy the cultural “center of American life.” Fans of the Boss will want to add this to their bookshelves.

June 6, 2024
Steven Hyden was six years old when he first heard Bruce Springsteen's 1984 album Born in the U.S.A. His description of the experience reads like a Springsteen song. He is sitting in his father's car. He reaches in the glove compartment "because I am a bored little boy." He pulls the cassette tape out and holds it his hands, examining it. The next few moments are life-changing even if it initially goes over his young head: he hears a solitary piano chord followed by a big BOOM! and then the sound of a man shouting, not exactly singing. He has a "gravelly" voice and, the boy concludes, sounds angry. "This is a shock to the system." The preface sets the tone for the rest of the book--it's a work of criticism published to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the album's release--that explores Springsteen's music and career. Specifically, Hyden is interested in not only why Springsteen made Born in the U.S.A., but also how it changed the culture. He also explores its modern-day impact. Even longtime Springsteen fans will learn a thing or two from Hyden's entertaining examination of the man and his music.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.