Bruce Springsteen on the music industry: “I wouldn’t wanna be starting now”
Bruce Springsteen has just made his first appearance on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show, in which he promoted his new soul covers album Only The Strong Survive and discussed the death of Clarence Clemons, former sax player in the E Street band, and the details of selling the rights to his back catalogue.
Springsteen also noted the current climate of the music industry and claimed that he is grateful he got his career going when he did rather than now. Springsteen told Stern, “I think music has had to share the cultural arena with video games, movies, TV, everything else, everything you can imagine. And that’s just today. I gotta say [I’m glad I’m not doing it today].”
Evidently, the path to musical stardom was startingly different back in the 1960s compared to now. Springsteen admits that it was a lot easier back then. He said: “We came up in a golden age for what we did. If you were a young guy playing the guitar in 1967, 1975, 1985, you came up just as that whole business turned into something that no one ever thought it would, so it’s a blessing. But I wouldn’t want to be starting now, no. I don’t know if you can create. It’s just a different world.”
The Boss then turned his attention to an artist who has managed to climb the ladder to success despite beginning her career in the 21st Century. Discussing Taylor Swift and his daughter’s love for her, Springsteen said: “It’s changed. I mean, my daughter is a Taylor Swift fan to the max. I picked her up at the airport, and she said, ‘Dad, Taylor Swift has got a banging new record’. So I go, ‘A banging new record? Alright.’ She plays it for me top volume all the way from Newark. Dancing in her seat. I said, ‘that’s what I like to see’. It felt good.”
Swift and Springsteen appear to have met on one or two occasions, and the Boss claimed that he enjoys her music. He said: “[The album] is good; she’s super talented. [I know her] just a little bit. She’s a tremendous writer. So hey, there are people out there that make great work, make great records, and people are still finding a lot of joy in those records. That’s gonna go on. It’s just gonna be different, you know. And that’s it.“
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