A moldy oldie from the vaults!

Born to Run and the Decline of the American Dream
Bruce Springsteen’s breakout album embodied the lost ‘70s—the tense, political, working-class rejection of an increasingly unequal society.

Don't you just miss that simpler time?

Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this way, but I never bought into the idea that Bruce was a hero of the working class, even though his music was all about that. I grew up in a small Illinois town and saw the shoe factory close down in the early 70s and 400 jobs left a town of 6000. But in the 70s, Bruce's fans were the critics and music nerds. He was somebody your friend's big brother listened to. Even in college in the early 80s it was the English and Philosophy Majors who listened to Bruce. The working class guys, the ones in high school who were hoping to get a factory job and a Camaro, they liked REO Speedwagon, Aerosmith and Foreigner. If they had a favorite blue-collar rocker, it was Bob Seger. Maybe it was different in Cleveland, Buffalo and Newark. Maybe the article rings true there. I love Bruce, but never really started listening until The River, by which time I was in college and getting exposed to music that was a little less mainstream than Styx and Boston. To this day, I don't know of a single blue collar friend of mine who likes Springsteen. Am I the only one?