"People often paint the suits at Columbia Records as the doubters, even though they didn't really put up much of a fight. But there also must have been a lot of Bruce Springsteen fans who hated Nebraska when the album came out in 1982. Here was a rock star who'd been gathering up believers for a decade with his sprawling social narratives, a larger-than-life rock-and-soul band, and his epic stage shows."
"Then he put out a warbly tape he literally made in his New Jersey bedroom, of what sounded like prewar acoustic country-blues songs about gamblers, killers, vagrants, and other lost losers. Recordings he hadn't originally intended to be an album. And the rollout strategy? No singles, no tours, no press. His face wasn't even on the cover. A good-size minority of Bruce-heads must have grumbled, as Rolling Stone's Greil Marcus famously did of Bob Dylan's 1970 Self-Portrait, " What is this shit? ""
"In fact, I bet there still are lots of Springsteen fans who dislike Nebraska. People who understandably prefer the bright, rousing " Born" records-the earlier Born to Run, the soon-to-come Born in the U.S.A.-over this bad-sounding bummer so shadowed by death. They won't say it in public now because Nebraska has become too much a part of the myth. It's perhaps Springsteen's most critically adored album and in some senses his most influential."
Columbia Records executives were often portrayed as doubters though they offered little resistance. Many Springsteen fans initially hated Nebraska in 1982 because it followed a decade of grand, band-driven rock and the radio-friendly hit "Hungry Heart" with a stark, home-recorded set of acoustic, country-blues songs about gamblers, killers, vagrants, and other outsiders. The album featured no singles, no tour, no press, and no photo on the cover. Over time Nebraska became critically adored and highly influential, serving as an emblem of an artistic left turn, even as a minority of listeners remained resistant to its bleak sound and themes.
Read at Slate Magazine
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