It started as all playlists do, an occasion that justified music for entertainment. In this case, it was a couples weekend getaway back in February. Super Dave proposed that he and I provide the tunes and we started a Spotify playlist: three songs at a time, no song repeats, no artist repeats. Dave would add his three, then text me that it was my turn. I would then add my three text him back. This cycle repeated until three hundred songs were compiled, and we drove off to Mammoth with our wives. A funny thing happened, though, it turned out we both enjoyed the challenge of trying to surprise or outdo the other so much that we continued building the playlist. We made a new rule of just three songs each a day and still no artist repeats. Soon, we came up with amendments to allow duets (The Emmylou Exception), multiple songs by the same band if said band had multiple lead singers (The Beatles Exception), or if there was a lead singer replacement that changed the artistic direction of
Column 4, Row 20: Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A. This past June marked the 40th Anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. It was Springsteen’s seventh LP, and the commercial breakthrough that propelled him to superstardom. While some critics and fans bristle at Born in the U.S.A. as a calculated move to make mainstream Springsteen a star, the album was the result of a great deal of soul searching and could have been much darker. Springsteen began writing many of the songs for this album soon after he and the E Street Band completed their world tour for his 1981 double album, The River . Confused about his place in the world, and dealing with serious depression, Springsteen secluded himself in a remote Jersey house and recorded a series of brooding demos that were a harsh reflection of his mind and America at that time. The intent of those demos was to bring them to the E Stre