How I Met Your Mother - Finale

This was originally posted at http://allenlulu.com/uncategorized/how-i-met-your-mother-finale/
You should go to there to read stuff from now's on. ;)

The interwebz are ablaze with contempt for the ending of HIMYM (I can’t tell if this should be pronounced like it rhymes with “hymen” or “Him Yim”. Either will do. You choose.) In fact, I’ve never seen such hatred since the ending of Lost 4 years ago.  Seriously. Dexter’s ending was sooooo very much worse than either of them. Where was the contempt for that??

Let me get this out of the way: I loved the finale of “How I Met Your Mother” (or Hymem). Loved it. Cried through it. Laughed. But, more than that, I appreciated it. I am in awe of it.

I’ve always marveled at how HYMNYIMN got away with doing what it did without anyone knowing. You know what I mean?

You don’t?

Have you ever seen a Harold performed at Second City or any other improv group? It’s a long form of improv with call backs, time jumps, characters that slide in and out, jokes upon jokes and nothing ever seems connected until about 25 minutes in when everything magically comes together. THAT’S How I Met Your Mother’s template. Unlike any other sitcom. Ever.

If the show ended the way many of those who are angry wish it did, with the bow and the happy ending with the mother, than it would be “any other sitcom”. But this wasn’t. And that’s why it was brilliant.

The producers have always said that they knew how it would end and that they filmed the kids’ stuff 8 years ago. And many across the webz have been decrying that decision, the decision to stick to an ending that to the story that the producers wanted to tell. (Crazy, man) Going as far as to believe that the writers had written themselves into a corner and HAD to use that footage.

Well, they didn’t. Obviously, they could’ve changed courses at any time and wrapped everything up in a nice, little, neat, rom-com bow. It certainly seemed like they were headed for that. But, had they done that it wouldn’t have been the HimYim we’ve come to know and love. The out of the box, extreme, larger than life situation comedy that threw left turns every chance it could. A conceit they established in the VERY. FIRST. EPISODE. (“That, kids, was how I met your Aunt Robin”). Left turn.

And the finale did the EXACT. SAME. THING. Throwing us for a left turn and going back to Ted and Robin.  How can people be mad at a show for doing precisely what it always had done? And, predictably, would and should do?

Oh, right. Because we’d already been down that road and we thought the show was about the meet-cute as the end all, be all. But, it wasn’t. Had it been then we wouldn’t have been privy to so much with the mother all season.

“Well, we spent alllllllll this time at the wedding and then, boom, Robin and Barney say they’re divorced in a span of 2 minutes.”

Yes. Precisely.

Why did we stay at the wedding for an entire season? Because Ted is telling this story to his kids. I’ll repeat that: HE IS TELLING THIS STORY TO HIS KIDS. NOT. TO. YOU.

OR ME. OR US.

And that seems to be the thing everyone has missed.

When you tell a story, you exaggerate, your bend truth, you amplify and you augment. The “real” people in the story, the “real” Barney probably doesn’t act as nearly as misogynistic as he is portrayed in the game of telephone Ted is having with his kids. He’s probably a nice, single, relationship challenged, good looking guy pushing 40 who has no trouble getting women to sleep with him. We all know that guy. He has an ambiguous job. We probably know what he does but we don’t care because he is sort of magical in how he lives his life. But when we tell his story to other people, the magic becomes mythic.

But back to the “season of one day”: This is the day Ted met the kids’ mother. He is, of course, going to focus on every single issue, every moment, every nuance. Double that with his actual intent on telling the story and the need for precise detail (the locket, leaving for Chicago, everything) is even more important. I can tell the story of meeting my wife in a minute. But, if you really want THE STORY, it’s gonna take about 20 minutes. At least. Maybe more. And the lead up to our marriage? That’s gonna be a long night, my friend.

“But but but, they glossed over the next few years with such speed!”

Yes. (And I wish I had thought of this instead of some commenter named “Barbie” on another site) But, the kids were already alive for the rest of that stuff.

They KNOW that Barney and Robin are divorced.

They were there when their mother died.

They know about Marshall and Lily’s kids and successes.

If you were telling your kids this story, would you tell them stuff they already know? No. Ted’s goal is to explain to his kids what happened BEFORE they were born. Who he was. Who Robin was to him. What she means to him. Because he seeks their approval. Because that’s the kind of guy Ted is.

Another complaint: That he went back to Robin. “Ugh! Haven’t we had enough of that!?!?”

No. Not only was it the right thing to do for the show. It’s the TRUE thing for Ted to do.

Mind you, by the time the story is being told, Ted is 52. It’s 2030. It’s been 15 or so years since the friendships blazed with intensity. And we’ve all had blazingly intense friendships.

And then people have kids. Buy houses. Get jobs. And groups break apart. And you almost forget that you were in that group that seemed SO important that you couldn’t live without them at the time. Hell, I had a band for 6 years. We saw each other 3-5 times a week. We slept in a van together. (Okay, Ford Explorer) We ate together. Drank together. Wrote together. Played together.

I have not seen the drummer in 8 years. Nor the bassist. The lead guitarist and I see each other 2x a year. Same with the rhythm guitarist. And the back up singer I see even less. (Although I adore her child through the posts on facebook)

What’s my point? To explain it I have to tell someone else’s story. Albeit briefly.

There once was a woman named…Freda, say. She was one of the first teenagers. She went to college in the 60s. Mad Men is totally about her era. And she fell in love, to the deep consternation of her jewish father, with a black artist. It was a love for the ages. And her father swore he would kill the man because he was black. So, she broke up with the artist. She married another, someone her father couldn’t object to, whom she would later define as her “best friend” when asked by her son why she married his father. She loved this other man very deeply. And then he died. And she felt alone. Helpless. And then, a couple months later, what did she do?

She sought out the artist, her first love, now 26 years later. He was married to another. He wasn’t kind to her. He had been rejected by her, after all. But, the point is, she went BACK to that love.

This happens all the freaking time. But, you really kinda gotta be in your 50s, or 40s at least, to get it.

Of course, Robin would be alone. I was just commenting the other day about how amazed I am at the large number of unmarried, childless, 40 somethings I know. I didn’t know that many growing up. Why should I? My parents were married and my friends had parents so I knew adults who had kids, and were married or divorced. The one adult that I knew that was single and childless was an anomaly to me. It shouldn’t have been, though. It was just my perspective.

Of COURSE Robin is still single. She couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t have children and she didn’t want any. But, it’s not that she doesn’t like young people. She doesn’t like them when they are dependent and useless. She likes people she can talk to. Relate to. And Ted’s kids are now “those people”. I bet she would get along with them just fine.

Of COURSE Barney would become the best father. Remember, he’s not really the character we’ve been seeing. He’s a version told through the exaggeration of perspective. And sometimes, the best parents are the ones you never thought should be parents. Just like the ones you thought would be great end up flying helicopters around their kids and prevent them from being vaccinated, do their homework for them and never shut up about PTA or some school shit. Barney will be a great dad. Not because he was a lothario and will protect Ellie from the likes of him. But, because she was what he was looking for all along. She fills that hole for him. (It should not be forgotten that Barney was actually a nice, loving, granola earth boy at first. This is by design) And, no, I didn’t wanna ever see Number 31. Chances are Barney will be a part time dad and she won’t matter to him at all. Regardless, she won’t matter to any of the group, least of all Ted’s kids.

And that is who he is telling the story to. His kids.

Not you.

Not me.

How I Met Your Mother got the ending right. By being true to itself and not being what people expected. It never was. It was completely unlike anything that came before.

Endings are hard.

How I Met Your Mother got it right.

The end is the beginning. In other words, we're moving.

This blog was a great experience. Wait, did I say "was"?
Yes. But, it's not the end.
I know I tried this before but that was a clunky experience because I was using iWeb and iWeb sucked.

I've fixed my website. www.allenlulu.com the blog is on the right. Or you can just come to http://allenlulu.com/blog-2

And my blog will appear there.

I hope you'll come over. That's where I'll be.

See you over there.

The Book of Mormon at the Pantages.

So, we saw BoM last night.
Here's my initial thoughts:

Spoilers will occur.
First off, I never in my life thought I'd live long enough to see such a bold and brazen takedown of; religion in general, broadway musical tropes, first world audacity and indifference to the third world, etc, and I also never thought I'd live long enough to see that kind of show win the Tony and become one of the most successful shows in history.
Maybe I should have since I fell in love with Avenue Q a decade ago and that show was irreverent and snarky, also won the Tony and the music was written by the same guy. (Robert Lopez, who also wrote the score for Winnie the Pooh and Frozen, the most successful animated movie of all time. He has an EGOT and yet, not, it seems, so much ego. He appears to be a really nice guy).
Full disclosure: I bought the BoM soundtrack a couple years ago when the play first hit Broadway. I was very familiar with it.
Familiar enough to not be surprised that the best songs, most hummable songs, are in the first act and come pretty furiously one on top of another.
The cast, the touring cast that is, is spectacular. Hilarious. Spot on. Their joy is infectious and it's hard not to tap your feet or root for them the entire show.

I should probably say that I compare all musicals to what I consider to be the greatest American musical, the pinnacle of that form, Sweeney Todd.

Sweeney also broke traditions, while using a time honored form. The score is infectious and clever but also moves the story along. That show also enjoys mocking certain tropes of the theater, most notably the ingenue. That character is at once lovely and completely ridiculous. She is impossible to root for, since she's basically an air headed idiot, made so by circumstance to be sure. You root for Sweeney, if you root for anyone. He's the most likely protagonist of the story, even though the lovers normally would be the focus. And, while Mrs. Lovett attempts to steal that focus, she is never quite successful. The show is about Sweeney.

Why bring this up beyond just to put something at the top of a scale to be compared to?

BoM has sort of the same thing going on with it's two protagonists. Who is the lead of this show? Is it Elder Price or Elder Cunningham? The show can't quite make up it's mind and toss in with one in the end so it sorts of skirts that issue and makes them both the main characters, when it certainly should have gone all in with Cunningham. But, he's a dolt and not much of a person and Price is such a narcissistic ego maniacal missionary it's hard to not just want him to be shot in the second act (Something I actually would have welcomed as it was alluded to in the first act). So, there really isn't one "lead".

Is this a bad thing? Apparently not, since audiences are queueing up across the globe.

But is that the reason they are? Certainly not. It's the irreverence. The release of a society moving ever closer to atheism. (A recent chart shows that non belief is growing in youth culture and that hardcore believers are getting older and older). In fact, the second lead of the show, in a moment that redeems his being allowed to survive his experience with the General, flat out states that what he was raised to believe was just...well....unbelievable. On the heels of the very assertive evolution episode of Cosmos, I believe that this is the core of the play's success.

That and the fact that there's a lot of good natured cursing.

The first act's show stopper (there are really two, the other being an ironic song about just "turning off" emotions, instead of dealing with hard ones, like accepting one's own homosexuality), is a song whose title is translated into, literally, "Fuck you, God." Because "God" isn't there for the people who really need him. They have AIDS. They have hunger. They are poor and sick. They are murdered by whatever gang-lord decides it's his turn to take over. God doesn't exist for them.
Why?
Because, maybe, God doesn't exist. And we are on our own.
(Trey and Matt examined another recent religion a few years ago with their Scientology episode. Which also blew apart the stupidity of that religion's genesis story)
And, that is what I think is the real message of Book of Mormon. Which makes it brilliant.
Insidious. Dangerous.
And genius.
All of this is hung on a plot that is really flimsy, but doesn't need to be better. In fact, the show-in-a-show theatrical presentation of their interpretation of the Joseph Smith story as explained to them by the other protagonist (who just made it up cuz, even though he's become a Mormon "elder", he never even read the book. I suspect this is true for a lot of religious leaders) is akin to something one would see on a cheesy sit-com.
Which is also why it works. It's familiar. And it isn't really challenging the audience. It's a trope so comfortable because we've seen it on, I dunno, Blossom, or Saved by the Bell, that we buy it. Because it's also a commentary on that kind of flimsy storytelling. Holy meta.
Ultimately the show is a cavalcade of fun tunes hung together on a string of snark and "plot".
It could use a 20 minute trim (When did second acts get so long???).
But, on the Sweeney Todd scale, I'd give it an A.

Adventures in Cord Cutting Part 7 - Money Out the Window

Money out the window. For the purposes of this blog and this subject, that's actually a good thing. Well, maybe not "good", but very telling.

See, the other day, Beth and I were upstairs watching something. I think it might have been Brooklyn 99 (Which is hilarious, btw) or the Grammys (Where our daughter's commercial was running!) or one of the Amazon Pilots (Transparent is terrific. Watch it) and I turned to her and asked, "So, when was the last time you watched anything on DirecTV downstairs?"
She took a moment and thought about it and responded, "I watched an episode of 'How I Met Your Mother', I think."
"That's network. That's CBS. What about cable?"
This pause was much longer.
"Nothing, really."

And that, my friends, was the beginnings of the next phase of the "adventures in Cord Cutting".

"Wait!", she said, "I really want to see 'The Returned'. Is that on DirecTV?"

I looked it up on canistreamit.com and saw that it was not.

"But,", I said, "once we get through some of the stuff we have backlogged, we should just buy it. That's what we said we were gonna do, anyway."

And that was a great strategy. Until....

Netflix announced that it will be airing "The Returned" starting at the end of February.

Sure. There are a couple things lingering on the Satellite. Some new "Cougar Towns" from TBS. A couple of "American Horror Stories" from...wherever that is from. But, really. What's the point?

House of Cards is coming back.

The Returned is coming.

CBS just licensed a bunch of shows to Hulu.

And, we only have a couple hours at night, at best, to watch anything!

Then there's the Olympics. I really wish I liked them more than I do because TiVo is making it super simple to record events. They've broken them down to specific events and you just pick what you want and Tivo records it. Off NBC.

So, what's the next phase?

When True Blood comes back (Beth is a big fan) we will call DirecTV, threaten to leave and get some deal that will include HBO. We'll watch those shows and then, I think, be done with Satellite.

In the interim, I think I will have to get a Tivo Mini and figure out how to turn the downstairs TV into another Tivo. Shouldn't be too hard. Gotta run an ethernet cable or something.

We are very very close to being able to say goodbye to DirecTV. Because that is the cause of the money flying out the window.

I'm sure that, as soon as we do, AT&T will slow down and jack up the price of our Internet. ;)

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Glitch Update

You will recall in article 6 (The Glitch) that there were problems with the new TiVo. Freezing images, etc. The belief of the Tivo tech support was that it was a faulty hard drive and they could replace the box since it was still under warranty.
They sent another box and charged our credit card for the price of the new box. Then included packing instructions and we sent them back the faulty one and they credited the card. No harm, no foul. We have had that box for a few weeks now and it all works great. We are still on the month to month with that box but I am getting the feeling that we are switching to the lifetime pass very very soon.
More to come.

Lucky Town - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Lucky Town - 1992

That's better.

The songs of Lucky Town are much more stripped down, less "produced" and poignant and sharp.
"Better Days" harkens back to "Ain't Got You", the themes of which are both what it's like to be successful and yet that not being the end all be all.
"Local Hero" is apparently about the time he saw a picture of himself in a storefront and went in to buy it only to be told that it was a picture of "local hero".

For my money, the best track on the album, well, one of them, is "If I Should Fall Behind". Which is actually better on the reunion concert video, and always better live, and also became one of my wedding songs.

Lucky Town is the anti Human Touch. Clocking in at just under 40 minutes it's a "record". At a time when every single album was supposed to use as much CD time available, resulting in 65 minute epics of filler, Lucky Town seems like an EP by comparison. 15 years before and 15 years later it would be the acceptable length (again). It's brevity, in comparison to the over worked predecessor, is welcome.

As are the songs. There's nothing "bad" here. When it's good, it's really good. When they aren't, you just move on.

Grade: B-
ASide: Better Days, If I Should Fall Behind
BlindSide: Local Hero, The Big Muddy, Leap of Faith
DownSide:

Human Touch - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch - 1992

Almost terrible. Not quite but juuuuuuuuust about.

The songs all sound kind of the same, imbued with that early 90's AOR sound.

Some are just dumb. "57 Channels and nothing on", for example. It should come across as some kind of indictment of pop culture and television dependence  but it doesn't. It sounds half written. Like Bruce was watching his tv and said, "Man! We've got, what? 57 channels? And NOTHING'S ON!" and then, he bolts up from the couch and pens this ditty, doesn't rewrite it, puts a production sheen on it and, bam, hit record.

Except that it wasn't.

"Loving you is a Man's Job"!?!? Are you kidding me????

And then he pulls out some ancient trope (Etta James had a song like this, I believe) and declares that when he sees the woman he lost with someone else he wishes he was blind. Extreme much? I don't buy it. Hey, Bruce, if you don't wanna see that, just close your eyes. Or man up. Turn the corner. Walk away. Something. Anything.

Human Touch was released at the same time as Lucky Town, because, hell Guns n Roses did that with Use Your Illusion 1 & 2, surely that is the new way to bilk money out of fans. It's a callous record. 50+ minutes of bad, and worse, forgettable, songs.

Grade: D
ASide:
BlindSide: Roll of the Dice
DownSide: Man's Job

Adventures in Cord Cutting - Part six - a glitch.

Not a hitch. A glitch.
As a holiday present we were given a wireless Sennheiser headphone and transmitter. The connection to the back of the tv was simple. A snap. And these things work great. With my hearing, though, I can hear every little signal change from either the network transmitter or my own devices performing operations.
No matter.
These made watching The Dark Knight Blu-Ray trilogy a lot more immersive while everyone was asleep upstairs. I just crank it and enjoy.
Or music.
I can stream Spotify on the devices and walk all over the house. These babies are strong.

So, with them working and working well, we decided to get a matching one (you can connect up to 4) so Beth and I can watch together and she can have her volume (low) and I may have mine (ear crushingly loud. It's weird that I have this incredible superhearing and yet want everything to be as loud as humanly possible....)

Sunday night I grabbed a pair, completely mixing up which one was the new one and which was the original and settled in for some Sherlock.

Then the glitch happened.

About midway through the show everything froze. Figuring it was a signal issue (KOCE is in Costa Mesa and about 35 miles away) I jumped back to rewatch and figure out what I missed.

It froze again. In a different place.

I tried another show. Hollywood Game Night, which was surprisingly funny (Thanks TIVO suggestions!) and, all was great. Until the last 10 minutes. And everything froze again.

The next day I decided to put some music on while I was getting some work done. I opened Spotify and just as it was about to load, the entire TiVo crashed and rebooted.

When it came back I now had TWO Spotifys and TWO Pandoras. The latter being two different apps with different icons.

So, I called Tivo.

Historically, Tivo has the best customer service in the biz. And this was no exception.

And no one could figure out what was wrong. The only thing everyone could agree on is that it could be a faulty hard drive.

Somehow I have convinced myself that it has something to do with the new headphones. But, they plug into the TV, so how could THAT be?

Tivo has an excellent return policy and we are still under warranty. They are shipping out a new one and we will send them back this one.

Hopefully this was just a momentary set back.

I'm not sure it was even worth a blog post.

So, to include some real "cord cutting" info

I don't miss cable.

Maybe HBO a little. Since they were smart and put each of the first three new Girls episodes on YouTube I realize just how much I miss that stuff. On the other hand, YouTube kind of sucks because, if you are in the middle of a show and you have to do something else, YouTube doesn't remember where you were and you have to go through a whole fast forwarding mess.

Other than that I actually am looking forward to getting through a bunch of stuff and sitting down and buying the first season of "The Returned". Only, I am betting that, by the time we get to it, it will be available on Netflix.

Someone asked me what I would do without CNN or Cable news?

Are MSNBC or FOX or even CNN really news networks? The Big Three have news offices all over the world and their weekend counterparts are much more informative. And, truth be told, I'm just to freaking busy to catch up.

Tunnel of Love - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love - 1987

"Ain't Got You". Man. If Bruce was confessional here and there on the last record, this song is the real deal. I don't know who it is he ain't got, but he's out there telling us all he's fucking rich, he's made a fortune but he still aches for the love that has eluded him.
Wow, Bruce. Just...wow.

Tunnel of Love is Bruce's adult record. It's where he really grew up and addressed and merged the dour sadness of, say, Nebraska and parts of The River, with a bigger production sound. If his producers had an eye on another 12 million seller, it sure doesn't sound like Bruce was interested in giving it to them. This is a big, anthemic, almost country album. (I see the bolo on the cover, Boss) It's heartland extreme.

And it works some of the time. It's a cold record. A post breakup record by a man looking inside and trying to figure out how to be whole. It's Nebraska on steroids, since he only used the band here and there. This is a man pushing 40 who has become some of the characters he's written about.

It's hard for me to love Tunnel of Love, because it's not really my kind of record, it still feels like it's written by and for adults, even though I'm older than Bruce was when he made it. But, I also love it because it brings me back to my first months in Los Angeles and it's like an orphan.

Some songs, like the first and the crackling "Spare Parts", which is a reexamining of the same characters we've heard before, the single mother who was left by an immature sperm donor to fend for herself. But, like I said, it crackles. And the heroine of the song, Janey, might lament her lot in life and try to give up her kid, but she looks at him and finds her hope and plunges on. I have hope for her.
The title track, despite it's deeply ploddy 80's sound, contains not just the most emotionally requesting lyrics since, I dunno, "I Wanna Marry You", but also the best guitar solo on a Springsteen song in a while.
Also, "Two Faces", which contains the same tone of and could be a companion piece to "I'm On Fire", but is a decidedly more honest song.

Other songs, like "Cautious Man" has its roots in Nebraska and, sadly, would be the kind of maudlin storytelling that Bruce would revisit throughout the 90s. And I know you feel guilty and like you're in the wrong relationship, Bruce, but, jeez, leave it off the MOR crap like "Walk Like a Man", with it's obnoxious heavy synths that have me reaching for the ff button.....

The album is good but not great. On first glance it appears to be a sad capstone to the era of Bruce phase 1. But, since he basically jettisoned the E Street Band, using them as special guests or session men here, this is really the beginning of Bruce Phase 2.

It's gonna be a long time in the wilderness.


Grade: B-
ASide: Ain't Got You, Tunnel of Love
BlindSide: Tougher than the Rest, Spare Parts, Two Faces,
DownSide: Cautious Man, Walk Like a Man, When You're Alone You're Alone

Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen in the Reflecting Pool

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA - 1984

11 years in the making. Ladies and Gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen, megastar.

The 80s were a time for musical acts that blew up into the stratosphere. Michael Jackson. Madonna. Bruce.

It was the time when Reagan and his ilk tried to commandeer the title track on the merits of the uplifting, bombastic sound and the proto-anthem chrous, without giving one whit about what the song was about, which was in direct contrast to the sound. Did it matter that the deadbeat character, prone to violence, was sent to kill the vietnamese? Nope. He's 'merican. He's a soldier. He was BORN IN THE U.S.A., motherfucker.

As timeless as The River sounds, as immediate while definitively "classic rock" as Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town are, Born in the USA, sounds of its time. It's 80's production, a stadium in the studio, with echoing drums and giant hall sounds, Born now sounds like a relic more than a classic.

Some of the songs don't merit the overproduction. Like, "Glory Days", for instance. And "I'm on Fire". Wrapped up in the radio friendly sounds, the characters that populate these songs are not heroes.
But, those that do deserve the epic sound, like the title track, are a punch in the gut and a fist in the air.

The relationship is crumbling in "I'm Going Down",  but because of the over the top production the song doesn't have the oomph, the power of, say, "The River".  I find myself tapping my feet during a song about a guy whose lover has left him. And the same with "Glory Days". These people are looking at the past through the rosiness of what was once great. Only in the video when Bruce was playing catch with his "son" did you get the sense that there was hope or at least acceptance of his fate. The production, hoever, just makes it a good ol's singalong. It's the "Sherry Darling" of USA. And many of the other songs just sound like hollow sketches, like "Working on the Highway". After a decade of fully realized characters and mindsets, this kind of track just feels like piffle. Like a "The River" leftover.

There's some great stuff here, though. Like the wannabes in "Darlington County" and the reflective, nostalgic love note to youth in the rocking "No Surrender" (one of the most kick ass Side Two openers in Bruce's career).

 Even the ode to his friendship with Steve Van Zandt, "Bobby Jean" is great fun.
And, if you can get past the weird, Cars like arrangement of "Cover Me", it's not bad. Really, though, it sounds like "Shake it Up". With bigger drums. (And it suffers from 80s-ism. It's over at 2:39 mark but goes one for another 40 seconds. This is actually an illness that much of the record suffers from. "Glory Days" being the most egregious offender)

It's quite possible that my appreciate for USA is marred by how ubiquitous it was in 84-85. Just about every song was a single, deserved or not. I'm a big fan of the big hit, "Dancing in the Dark". The production and arrangement ruin the song and it's notorious that it was written because Landau didn't think the album had a hit single, but that's what it's about: Writer's block. Bruce had to write a song. But he ain't got nothing to say. So he said that. And then Roy Bittan and the gang muscled up into something that flew up the charts. And it's Bruce's most blatantly confessional song, maybe ever.

Go figure. The 80s were weird, man.

If it sounds like I don't like the album, that's not true. I'm making the horrible mistake of reviewing the sound and not the mood or the songs. This album has punch. It resonates. It's strong. And, where Nebraska hit the emotional nadir, USA has more in common with The River in that, even when he's talking in the voice of a loser or the downtrodden, he has filled the album with either real hope or contrapuntal "hope". Without the deep emotions of, say, "Independence Day", "Point Blank" or "The River", the album just can't have that seminal timelessness. But, heck, it's pretty damned good for the most part.

Grade: B+
ASide: Born in the USA, Darlington County, Glory Days, Dancing in the Dark
BlindSide: No Surrender, Bobby Jean
DownSide: Downbound Train, I'm on Fire