Orel Family

Bruce Springsteen has made national headlines many times over the past 30 years. But he's never really been an internet sensation. His website is modest with few interactive features beyond links to order products. His  official videos on youtube , especially of more recent vintage, typically generate fewer than a million views. His first twitter post was just a few months ago. That changed Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, Bruce's latest studio album, High Hopes, was officially released. That didn't make a dent. But that evening, he appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon . And by Wednesday morning, seemingly the whole world knew about it. My facebook wall exploded with links. Not just from my Bruce friends, either: From my old high school friends from New Jersey. From college friends in the diaspora. From conservatives. Bruce's appearance on Late Night came as no surprise; after all in 2010 he went in the show and spoofed his own '70's look  for a c...

Jay-Z, Barrack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. Columbus, November 5, 2012.  A few days ago, I read an article posted on the  Rolling Stone  website. Springsteen producer Ron Aniello was talking about Bruce's latest album,  High Hopes . Talking about how the project began, Aniello said, "I remember that Bruce called me on my birthday, so it was December 9th, 2012. He said to me, 'I have some songs. I want to get together.'" Aniello went on to talk about how Bruce tends to work, and how the process unfolded. I keyed in on the date. On November 4, 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term as President of the United States. The next evening, Bruce introduced  Badlands  by saying, "I don't know what you guys think about what happened last night but I think it's pretty frightening. You guys are young, there's gonna be a lot of people depending on you coming up so this is for you." The song performance, without the spoken introduction...