Badly Drawn Boy - Thunder Road from Uncut Magazine Bruce Springsteen Tribute Volume 1(2003)
The Knack - Don’t Look Back from Get the Knack (remastered edition) (1979/2002)
John Hiatt - Johnny 99 from One Step Up/Two Steps Back: The Songs of Bruce Springsteen (1997)
Patty Griffin - Stolen Car from 1000 Kisses (2002)
Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes - The Fever from I Don’t Want to Go Home (1976)
The Mavericks - All That Heaven Will Allow from What a Crying Shame (1994)
Deana Carter - State Trooper from Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska (2000)
Trisha Yearwood - Sad Eyes from Real Live Woman (2000)
The Smithereens - Downbound Train from One Step Up/Two Steps Back: The Songs of Bruce Springsteen (1997)
Ben E. King - 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) from One Step Up/Two Steps Back: The Songs of Bruce Springsteen (1997)
Billy Bragg - Mansion on the Hill from Uncut Magazine Bruce Springsteen Tribute Volume 2 (2003)
Sonny Burgess - Tiger Rose from Sonny Burgess (1996)
Thea Gilmore - Cover Me from Uncut Magazine Bruce Springsteen Tribute Volume 1 (2003)
John Wesley Harding - Jackson Cage from One Step Up/Two Steps Back:The Songs of Bruce Springsteen (1997)
The Reivers - Atlantic City from Cover Me: Songs by Springsteen (1984)
Johnny Cash - Highway Patrolman from Johnny 99 (1983)
Dion - Book of Dreams from Deja Nu (2000)
Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris - Across the Border from Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999)
Bruce Springsteen - I Ain’t Got No Home from Folkways: A Vision Shared (1988)

David Lifton: You couldn’t get a more perfect crossover record than this in 1986: A classic rock legend duetting with an R&B diva on a modern-sounding piece of synth pop-soul. I loved “While You See a Chance” from 1980, so it was good to hear him back on the charts, and shortly after that, I began learning about Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group.

Beau Dure: I don’t begrudge Steve Winwood his ’80s success, but “While You See a Chance” is a worthier song than this.

Ted Asregadoo: I’m not sure if it’s the buildup of toxins in my body due to overexposure to this song, but it seems that ever since “Higher Love” came out, I have not been able to escape it. It might be the fact that I spent 11 years working at an Adult Contemporary station where this song never went away, but I can’t even appreciate it for any of the reasons stated. It’s sludge to me.

Dw. Dunphy: I just had to smile when this came out. Many of Winwood’s contemporaries who were still in “the biz” were so far away from where they once were, in style, in sound, and then he just shows up as soulful, youthful and cool as ever. He did it yet again this past winter at the Clapton / Winwood shows. Clapton, brilliant though he may be, looked ancient next to Steve.

The whole Back in the High Life album is darn near perfect, especially “Freedom Overspill.” You’ll get nary a snarklette from me on this. (more…)

John: I was always appreciative of INXS for holding X back until 1990 so I could accurately say their best stuff was back in the ’80s. There are currently 272 used copies of X available on Amazon for one cent each.

Vrabel: Was this the period when INXS was dropping, like, four albums a year? I seem to remember them having a fairly ludicrous output around this time. Not a bad song, I guess. Was X the album that had “Not Enough Time”? That’s not a bad song either, I guess.

David: “Not Enough Time” was on Welcome to Wherever You Are, which was a pretty damned underrated album.

Few people loved INXS as much as I did in the ’80s, but “Suicide Blonde” just felt off to me. Every record up to that point was an expansion on the previous one, but X marked the first time that the band just tried to repeat the previous album. Loved the second single, “Disappear,” but this one feels like it’s trying too hard. I’m betting Taylor loves it, though, because her boy Dan Bejar references it in a New Pornographers song.

Zack: A while back there was a short-lived sitcom featuring Breckin Meyer called Inside Schwartz, where he played an aspiring sportscaster and the scenes were intercut with cameos from sports figures (such as Alex Karras) offering commentary on the story. I watched it with my friend Brian, who really wanted to like it, and found myself wincing each time the show’s lame jokes forced him to laugh.

In retrospect, I realize that my reaction to “Suicide Blonde” and X was very similar. I was a big INXS fan based on earlier albums like The Swing and Shabooh Shoobah, and I really wanted to like the first single from their new album, but I just couldn’t. It was terrible then, and it’s even worse now. (more…)