![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thebaffledkingcomposing.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/album-bruce-springsteen-nebraska.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt was thirty years ago today that Bruce Springsteen released Nebraska.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In many ways it foretold the future not only of Bruce Springsteen, but of the business of popular music – and in both cases, it was a mixed blessing.<\/p>\n
In the early 1980’s, Bruce Springsteen was very nearly on top of the world. \u00a0He’d just released three of the most acclaimed albums ever –\u00a0Born to Run, Darkness of the Edge of Town\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The River<\/em>, the “Holy Trinity” as Springsteen fans refer to them. \u00a0They were evolutions on Bruce’s first two albums,\u00a0Greetings From Asbury Park NJ\u00a0<\/em>and The Wild, The Innocent And the E Street Shuffle<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>with clear debts owed to everyone from Elvis to Van Morrison to Gary “U.S.” Bonds to Bob Dylan; Springsteen’s first five albums owed as much \u00a0 to sixties R&B as they did to the rock and roll of the era.<\/p>\n And however it all went together, Springsteen was on the ragged edge of superstardom.<\/p>\n And it was as if to take a quick step back from the edge of being a mega-star that Springsteen released\u00a0Nebraska<\/em>. \u00a0Recorded on a TEAC TASCAM four-track cassette recorder in the kitchen of the Rumson, New Jersey farmhouse he was renting after the tour for\u00a0The River\u00a0<\/em>let up, the “master” – a common cassette tape – was intended to be a demo for showing the E Street Band some songs he was proposing for his next album. \u00a0They rattled around in his pocket for a few weeks before he showed them to his producer, Jon Landau.<\/p>\n Springsteen with Jon Landau, circa “Born in the USA”.<\/p><\/div>\n Weeks of recording with the band were aesthetically disappointing – and so Springsteen and Landau, against the wishes of CBS Records, opted to electronically “clean up” the cassette recording, but release it more or less as it was.<\/p>\n And after the jangly thrill ride of\u00a0Born to Run<\/em>, and the sobering but powerful statement of\u00a0Darkness<\/em> and the sprawling eclectic grab bag of The River,\u00a0<\/em>the new album was a shock.<\/p>\n The songs – just raw, barely-processed guitars and vocals, garnished with a few accents of harmony vocals, harmonica and mandolin – were sparse to the point of “gaunt”.<\/p>\n Radio didn’t know what to make of the album. \u00a0Q98 in Fargo – at the time a fairly daring mixed-format rock and roll station that blended Judas Priest and Husker Du in a melange of rock and roll joy that nobody could get away with today – actually ran disclaimers before playing the songs on the air. \u00a0Which they did for a few days, before moving on to different fare. \u00a0It was just not radio-friendly.<\/p>\n Unlike every album before, Nebraska <\/em>was unremittingly bleak. \u00a0Even on Darkness on the Edge of Town<\/em>, the darkest album Bruce had released, there was the release of “Backstreets”, the testosterone-laced binge of “Candy’s Room”, and “The Promised Land”, a hymn to redemption.<\/p>\n But Nebraska? \u00a0<\/em>The closest the album came to a “single” was “Atlantic City”, a song about a small-time grifter ekeing out an illegal living among the decay on the Boardwalk:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/bp0.blogger.com\/_Y-DbBvf7R5Y\/RxNQmh4BBzI\/AAAAAAAAHG0\/RZdyOGki4u8\/s400\/Bruce_and_Jon_Landau_jpg.jpg\")