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Slate Culture Feed

Hit Parade: Tramps Like Us, Part 2

Slate Culture Feed

Slate Podcasts

Music, Tv & Film, Arts

4.22K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2021

⏱️ 72 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Part 2 of this episode of Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy continues his analysis of the career and legacy of the legendary and sometimes-misunderstood Bruce Springsteen. In his second decade, Springsteen wasn’t just a hitmaker—he was the archetype: the symbol of flag-waving American rock, even when the song was less patriotism than protest. Advertisers, other pop stars, President Ronald Reagan—everybody glommed onto Bruce, and virtually all of them got him wrong. Just in time for summer, Hit Parade takes on the Boss, pop star. How did Bruce Springsteen invent his persona and find his truth? Podcast production by Asha Saluja. Hit Parade episodes are now split into two parts, released two weeks apart. For the full episode right now, sign up for Slate Plus and you'll also get The Bridge, our Trivia show and bonus deep dive. Click here for more info.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is meant to be an ad for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

0:03.8

How it stands up perfectly on a desk for business calls

0:07.0

and has a larger cover screen for emails.

0:09.3

But we've got one in the studio, so our sound engineer Brian is distracted.

0:13.5

He's not even listening, look.

0:15.0

Flannel, pomegranate, weasel.

0:18.1

The new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 for business, unfold the wonder.

0:22.4

Available now at Samsung Business Shop.

0:25.4

Uh, yeah, very good.

0:28.4

Uh, perfect take.

0:35.2

Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine

0:41.2

about the hits from Coast to Coast.

0:43.6

I'm Chris Malampi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song No. 1 series.

0:50.3

On our last episode,

0:52.0

we talked about Bruce Springsteen's long evolution from Bard of Asbury Park to Rockstar.

0:58.9

By the turn of the 80s, Springsteen finally scored his first major pop hit,

1:04.8

but his transformation into an MTV era icon was yet to come.

1:11.9

In essence, in 1982, Bruce Springsteen had laid the groundwork for two albums at once,

1:19.4

and the differences between the songs on 1982's Nebraska,

1:25.4

and the ones he held for his next LP, which would be a full E Street band rocker,

1:32.0

were largely cosmetic.

1:34.4

Some songs on Nebraska, apart from their naked production,

...

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