So Much For Being A Working-Class Hero: Springsteen Manager’s Response To Ticket Price Outrage
Bruce Springsteen has been a wealthy man for a very long time. In 1973 he released his second album, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle which featured the classic song, Rosalita. Toward the end of the song’s tale about budding romance and the reluctance of a young woman’s father to accept her suitor, Springsteen explains, “And the record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance!” We bet they did Bruce.
Just two years later, Springsteen burst into superstardom in 1975 with his blockbuster album Born to Run, which resulted in him being one of the first entertainers ever to be featured on the covers of both Time and Newsweek simultaneously. Bruce never looked back and has been raking in cash by the truckload ever since.
Good for him. Bruce Springsteen was blessed with incredible talent, and he made much of his fortune by singing about the plight of America’s working class: “Early in the morning, factory whistle blows; Man rises from the bed and puts on his clothes.” Such were the themes throughout his earlier music, and his lyrics struck a chord with millions.
But Bruce has lost his way. As Springsteen’s bank account bulged, he modified his lifestyle accordingly. He no longer lived in a blue-collar town like Freehold, New Jersey where he grew up. He moved 30 minutes away to a sprawling mansion in Rumson. Instead of telling stories about chasing girls underneath the boardwalk, he began lecturing about the ideals of leftism. The more money Springsteen made, the more he became separated from the common man he had previously represented.
Today, almost forty years after telling us about his newfound success and Rosalita’s skeptical “daddy,” Springsteen extols the virtues of socialism while he appears on podcasts with Barack Obama, and then he charges up to $5,500 for tickets to his shows next year. Fans are outraged, and rightfully so. Talk about hypocrisy.
Now Springsteen’s manager has jumped in to try and spin the bad publicity he’s receiving for his 2023 concert tour. According to the New York Times, Bruce’s manager Jon Landau explained the following:
“In pricing tickets for this tour, we looked carefully at what our peers have been doing. We chose prices that are lower than some and on par with others.”
“Regardless of the commentary about a modest number of tickets costing $1,000 or more, our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range. I believe that in today’s environment, that is a fair price to see someone universally regarded as among the very greatest artists of his generation.”
See how this works? The other guys are doing it, and so are we. Get over it.
But there’s a big difference between Bruce Springsteen and the “others,” Mr. Landau. Acts such as Maroon Five, Ed Sheeran, or even Elton John didn’t make their names by marketing themselves as the working-class hero. They didn’t sing about topics such as, “You get up every morning at the sound of the bell; You get to work late and the boss man’s giving you hell.” They never pretended to be one of us. But Bruce did.
There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Springsteen taking advantage of supply and demand. That’s the American way, and it’s perfectly acceptable for any entertainer to maximize their earnings. But it’s also OK for his fans to feel betrayed. Bruce Springsteen is one of the most successful musicians of all time and is likely worth over a billion dollars. So, Bruce, is it really worth the extra $100 million or so you’re going earn on this tour at the expense of those same commoners you once embraced? Those same people from whom you seek to maximize revenue are struggling to make ends meet thanks to a failing economy brought about by far-left Democrats whom you support.
Well done, sir. We hope you enjoy your price-gouging plunder.
Original Here |
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