Last week's contest of Bruce versus Patty Griffin with Stolen Car went one way and then the other.
In the end it was the first draw of the series so the score remains The Boss 7 The Rest 3 and which means you get another week's worth of Bruce.
This week we re-visit Born in the U.S.A with Dancing in the Dark one of the seventy three top ten singles from that album. It was his biggest selling single ever and the first one from the album..It originally reached number 28 in the UK singles chart upon release in May 1984 before re-entering the chart in January 1985 on the back of the success of the album this time reaching number 4 and winning him his first Grammy award.
Bruce is up against Ted Leo this week.I'm not sure if this is a solo performance or whether he is appearing with his band the Pharmacists.
Ted wins it for me given that he is the only one of the two ever to have written a song about drinking Buckfast in Govanhill..Also he has never been fortune enough to pluck out Courtney Cox at random from the audience of a Pharmacist gig for an impromptu boogie on stage
Others, of course may choose to disagree
Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark
Ted Leo - Dancing in the Dark
My vote goes to Ted Leo. Then again, my vote would go a dog farting its own version of DITD. Unfortunately, neither of our dogs are capable of doing this.
ReplyDeleteI find myself quite liking this Ted Leo cover.
DeleteIs it a "first to ten" series?
ReplyDeleteThis song has some kind of comedy value in my mind. Ted's version wins though, because it isn't sung by Bruce and doesn't involve Courtney Cox.
ReplyDeleteI only can agree to Adamm's words
ReplyDeleteBig fan of much of Ted Leo & the Pharmacists' material so Ted's cover here def gets my vote. Oh Bruce, it's not look good for you this week!
ReplyDeleteThere I was, all ready to give the vote to Ted (I kid you not), then I listened to his version of the song. Blimey. Bruce for me, somewhat unexpectedly.
ReplyDeleteNever thought I'd see the words Courtney Cox, Buckfast and Govanhill in the same paragraph - only in the music blogosphere!
ReplyDeleteIt's actually Bruce for me too this week - more intense somehow which suits the song (for me).
The fightback starts now!
ReplyDeleteMy comment from earlier seems to not have saved or deleted by your good self, unperturbed I will try to replicate it.
ReplyDeleteNot one of Bruce's best by a long chalk. Got something to do with that horrible mid 80s synth sound, so Ted Leo for me but I could live without either quite happily.
Whilst on the subject of the "Tonic" have you heard the Just Joan's Lanarkshire concept album Buckfast Bottles In The Rain? Great stuff and have decided to do a repost of one of my posts featuring it from 2012 tomorrow.
I'll go Ted. A hated song by most, but I feel somewhat indifferent and don't rank it the worst of the singles from that album. One million copies of this single sold in America alone. Gave a quick look in my Billboard Top 40 book just now to find there were seven singles off of Born in the USA. The worst showing of the seven here in America still made it No. 9. To think there were seven top 10 hits from that one album is ridiculous. The span from the first single to the last was almost two years. All Bruce, all of the time.
ReplyDelete+1 for Ted because it's...ironic or something. The beginning the end of Bruce's fabulousness.
ReplyDeleteThere's also, for your consideration, a rather fine version by electro-nerds Hot Chip, which segues rather magnificently into LCD Soundsytem's "All My Friends". Jez
ReplyDeleteGhastly.
ReplyDeleteThe first time Mrs Jc saw this video she commented that Broooooce looked like and danced like a window cleaner, a moniker by which he is still referred to in this household.
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