Being raised by parents from New Jersey comes with a variety of unique side effects: a love for the Jersey Shore, an obsession with Wawa, and above all, an unequivocal reverence for Bruce Springsteen. My first concert was a Springsteen concert, and as I grew and matured, I went from internally groaning whenever my mom switched on E Street Radio to listening to Bruce on my own.
My music taste could be characterized as hectic, with “Spotify Wrapped” playlists that are, without fail, deeply chaotic. However, one factor generally stays consistent: my most played artists are Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen. While I typically enjoy popular contemporary artists, I recently reflected on what attributes are common to the artists I love most, as aptly exemplified by Springsteen himself.
My favorite musical artists aren’t just singers, but storytellers. A myriad of pop songs today, while catchy and lively, can feel robotic and repetitive, clearly having been produced with mass consumption in mind. Artists such as Bruce don’t just sing, but recount the tale of a small part of their lives as they do. If you attend a Springsteen show, you’re bound to hear not just music, but the tales of growing up, financial and familial struggles, and love that accompany life in the small town New Jersey.
When listening to a storyteller, music isn’t just a stress relieving escape, but a transportation to another world which rivals those of books and movies. When I listen to music, I daydream and imagine a scene in which the lyrics are played out (the more obscure, the better). You can become exposed to loss, heartache, and joy which you have not yet experienced, and feel as though you are there in the moment.
The best artists have the ability to take their own experiences or seemingly mundane subject matter and turn it into a musical world which impacts every listener. When I would listen to “The River” or “Atlantic City,” I was overcome with the stories that the songs convey, despite not directly relating to the subject matter.
With a storyteller, you almost feel like you’re listening to the experiences of a close friend, or as though you are living through a memory with them. You can learn to sympathize with struggles that you had never considered, and gain fresh perspectives on world situations. For me, listening to Bruce’s music is a way to connect to the earlier lives of family members (such as my parents), and to even learn about events that I wasn’t alive for (as exemplified by “The Rising,” which documents the heroism of firefighters who risked their own lives to save people trapped in the World Trade Center during 9/11). Though I didn’t grow up in New Jersey, I felt a sense of camaraderie and connection with those who also grew up listening to Bruce and Billy Joel.
By extension, I realized that this affinity for storytellers influenced my taste in modern singers as well. Like many teenage girls, I consider Taylor Swift to be my favorite musical artist (for good reason). Beyond having cohesive albums with catchy and fun songs, her lyrics are modernly unparalleled in complexity and emotional impact. Like Bruce, Taylor is a prolific writer who seems to want to create, rather than simply be as successful and well known as possible. For both artists, that feeling is deeply conveyed in their songs, as they are clearly concerned with relaying a story rather than manufacturing an image of themselves. From their voracious writing to their deep rooted genuineness, storytellers are by far my favorite brand of musician.