I spent a lot of the past weekend listening to Bruce Springsteen's new music. His 17th album, Wrecking Ball, will come out in March, and the lead single, "We Take Care of Our Own" is good. It's about America, and the belief in the country's better ideals. Knowing Bruce's politics, as he's let us (forced us?) to be more and more aware of over the past decade, I first thought that the this song was ripe for the same kind of misappropriation that "Born in the U.S.A." suffered when it came out in 1984—when Ronald Reagan ignored the bitter irony in its lyrics and quoted it in some rah-rah-U.S.A.!!!-U.S.A.!!! campaign speeches. But it's different from that. READ MORE

Bruce Springsteen geeks take note! This is a video of the first-ever (solo) performance of "Incident On 57th Street," from the 1973 album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. It happened Friday night, during a concert the Boss was playing his old friend, Joe Grusheky in Grusheky's hometown, Pittsburgh. God, it sounds great, doesn't it?

"Bruce Springsteen, like Sly Stone but for so much longer, dared to present America in the 1970s and beyond through the faces of a band that actually looked like America: people of color, ethnic, rough around the edges, and always ready to bust the chops of self-righteousness with a great sense of humor. Kissing the Boss on the lips or embracing him in a giant bear hug at a peak moment in almost every show, Clemons was, in Springsteen's words, 'King of the World, Master of the Universe, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall refineries in a single bound; it's a bird, it's a plane, it's the Big Man.'" READ MORE

Sad news yesterday from Florida, where saxophonist Clarence Clemons, the big man who made all the little pretties raise their hands when he joined the E-Street Band in 1972, was left partially paralyzed after suffering a stroke at his home. He's had two brain surgeries, but is reportedly now in stable condition. Clemons, 69, plays on Lady Gaga's new album, on a song called "The Edge of Glory," and performed it with her on American Idol last month. READ MORE

Welcome to June. The month when it's already too hot. READ MORE

Remember the movie Garden State from a few years ago that was supposed to be about New Jersey, and was for a while, and was pretty good for like an hour or so, but then it got so bad and fake and sappy at the end that it ended up being more about somewhere else? Hollywood, I guess? Of course you remember. The soundtrack changed your life. READ MORE

Okay. Just two weeks to go. Everybody's sniffling and coughing and more regularly and severely hungover than usual. And feeling guilty about all the extra baked good they're eating. And too busy with planning and shopping and going to holiday parties to even really enjoy any of it. And it's so cold. (Will winter never end??!! Oh, right it hasn't even started yet.) Worst of all, perhaps, the music. Which, if the world made any sense, we'd only be just starting to hear on the radio and TV commercials and piped into in the aisles of our corporate convenience stores, but instead have already been subjected to for three weeks. So much Christmas music sucks. READ MORE

Bruce Springsteen appeared on the Jimmy Fallon show last night, and played "Because the Night" with who-woulda-thunk-it backing from a supergroup combo of the E-Street Band the Roots. It was a little tepid in the beginning, but at the end, it got very rocking! READ MORE