There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." and the End of the Heartland

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Product Details
Price
$32.00  $29.76
Publisher
Hachette Books
Publish Date
Pages
272
Dimensions
6.3 X 9.1 X 1.1 inches | 1.0 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780306832062

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About the Author
Steven Hyden is the author of Long Road, This Isn't Happening, Twilight of the Gods, Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me, and (with Steve Gorman) Hard to Handle. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Billboard, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Grantland, The A.V. Club, Slate, and Salon. He is currently the cultural critic at UPROXX. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and two children.
Reviews
"The best music writing can make you hear an album you've listened to hundreds (or thousands) of times in a new way. Steven Hyden has done just that with There Was Nothing You Could Do, his exhaustive and highly entertaining deep dive into Bruce Springsteen's massive and often misunderstood commercial peak, Born in the U.S.A. Well-researched and thought-provoking, the book also uses that landmark album and its fallout to examine the changes we have undergone as a culture, and the price we've paid as a people and a country. Highly recommended."--Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers
"An instant classic from Steven Hyden. Definitive and elegant and essential. Hyden shows how Born in the U.S.A. changed Springsteen and us--and at what cost."--Seth Wickersham, ESPN writer and New York Times bestselling author of It's Better to Be Feared
"This book offers you the rare possibility--you can listen to Bruce Springsteen and feel like you are in his brain as he makes the music. Steven not only gets under the hood of creativity, but he separates Bruce from his contemporaries by better understanding them. It makes you want to listen to Bruce again with fresh ears. I love it!"--Benny Safdie, director and writer of Uncut Gems
"Steven Hyden could write about my least favorite band and I'd gobble it up because he's just so good at writing about music. But when he tackles one of my favorite living artists, The Boss, he sends me to heaven. This book is such a gift: Hyden contextualizes one of Bruce's biggest and least understood records by taking us back to the '80s and into the heartland and Bruce's headspace. This isn't a 'making of' book, it's a meditation on who we thought we were and how we may have lost that identity, all told through Hyden's experience with the record. It's entertaining, heartbreaking, and makes a great case for Bruce Springsteen as one the great artists of our time."--Tim Heidecker, comedian, writer, and musician
"Steven Hyden's There Was Nothing You Could Do honors and understands Bruce Springsteen and his music. It's for Springsteen fans, but even better, it's about Springsteen fans: Why he matters to us, what he represents, how every person can feel like his songs were written individually for them. Hyden's writing makes you want to tap the steering wheel right along with him and The Boss."--Will Leitch, author of How Lucky and The Time Has Come
"Hyden scores good points ...Fans of the Boss will find arguable interpretations on every page, but definitely a book worth their attention." --Kirkus
"Balancing a fan's enthusiasm with a critic's attention to detail, Hyden sheds light on Springsteen's legacy and the political moment that allowed him to occupy the cultural 'center of American life.' Fans of the Boss will want to add this to their bookshelves." --Publishers Weekly