Imagine five little English Bruce Springsteens in check shirts, jeans and T-shirts, fists aloft, roaring declarations of lusty young love in the back of an open top car driving through the American heartland.
That rather strange image popped into my head whilst listening to Steal My Girl, the opening track on the X Factor quintet’s latest offering. Something about the driving piano, the rock and roll drums, the denseness of the mix, the surging uplift of the chorus, all bring to mind a mini-pops version of the E Street Band.
Springsteen fashioned his epic rock from the joyous pop of the Sixties, with Phil Spector drums, girl group harmonies and the kind of big, dense production that slammed you in the chest and left you gasping for air. Perhaps One Direction are taking it full circle, back to cheesy pop with the modern sheen.
All those who doubted their soon to be arena rock classics couldn't see they were aiming (and clearly succeeded) for Bruce Springsteen touring status and quality music that would live on forever.
1D is far more known WW than Bruce Springsteen tho.
Uh, no.
Among record buyers under the age of 22 who are completely ignorant to anything that ever happened before 2008? Sure. To anyone else in the word? No way in hell. Bruce is a LEGEND continuing to sell out tours and send records to #1. Take yourself to wikipedia and read up on his insanely long and insanely successful career.
All those who doubted their soon to be arena rock classics couldn't see they were aiming (and clearly succeeded) for Bruce Springsteen touring status and quality music that would live on forever.
There's a lot of influence on this album - as Rolling Stone made evident in their review of Fireproof all but confirming it's direct influence from Fleetwood Mac's tight pop production and lush harmonies.