The album Bruce Springsteen took to court to prevent its release: “Not here for the money”
In 1973, Bruce Springsteen’s debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park NJ, was released under the tagline, ‘The Next Bob Dylan’. It quickly became apparent that this was a resounding ‘bad move’.
Dylan’s last album at that point, New Morning, was only a little over two years old. There was no need for yet another ‘next’ or ‘new’ or anything in between when it came to the foremost folk singer with his voice of sand and glue. So, poor old Asbury Park floundered, peaking at 60 in the US and failing to make any chart overseas.
It’s certainly not the start that Springsteen wanted from a commercial standpoint, but he was also glad that it wasn’t the start he nearly had from an artistic point of view. Because before his beleaguered but rather brilliant debut, there were a slew of demo tapes that would later become known as Before the Fame.
These dog-eared recordings gave credence to why the famed Dylan tagline arrived in the first place. While later down the line the Boss would lament, “I became self-conscious about the Dylan comparison, so I moved away from [that style of songwriting] quickly. Looking back, I kind of had my own Dylan-Esque style,” he added. “And I kind of wish I had never moved away from it so quickly.”
Alas, it was unsurprising that a degree of imitation was woven into his sound, given that he was living hand to mouth before he secured his deal for his debut. Mike Appel, his co-manager, had been keeping him afloat and in beer with the odd handout, but times were lean and hard. The myth of the starving artist wasn’t quite working out, and Springsteen was struggling to find his groove.
But within a decade, he’d reach such bombastic heights that some fans would happily listen to an album of him simply tuning up if it meant that they could get their hands on more of his ‘material’. But, contrastingly, the Boss knew that it was nothing but honed quality that had brought him to this lucrative position, and he was determined to protect his legacy and the integrity of his discography when a pesky label threatened to release his earliest work.
Middlesex-based Masquerade Music managed to acquire some of his very first recordings in 1998, and they threatened to release them to the public. Springsteen became so determined to block the album that he swiftly ushered them to court. Therein, he claimed that they had no right to release tracks that he recorded when he was 23 that had been obtained without his permission.
The ‘Born to Run’ singer unsurprisingly won the case rather swiftly, and the oddity of Before the Fame was cast back to the ash heap of history from whence it came. He was even offered £2million in damages, but after the trial, he commented, “I am very happy. I was not here for the money but for my music.”
Adding, “The music that is released is the way that you shape your career. It is a big part of what you say and they way you say it.”
Why was Bruce Springsteen so determined to block the release?
Getting to the heights he hit was no easy jaunt for the Boss. Springsteen fought tooth and nail, sometimes literally, on the tough streets of New Jersey to be heard, and so he has always wanted to be heard on his terms thereafter. Simply put, the unlawful release of tracks that he didn’t even deem worthy for his raw debut really pissed him off.
As he proudly proclaimed outside of court, in a fashion so on-brand that it could also work as a meta-Springsteen song itself, “I came here to defend my music. It is something I have fought for since I was young.”
He might have aptly added, ‘I was cheated and I was wronged, but I got Masquerade Music on the run’.
