The Bruce Springsteen song Phil Collins said was fantastic

Many musicians who achieved fame in the 70s became even more successful in the 80s, and two of them were Bruce Springsteen and Phil Collins. With albums like The River (1980), Nebraska (1982), and Born in the U.S.A. (1984), the American artist established himself as one of the most important songwriters of all time.

The same thing happened with Phil Collins, who not only helped Genesis achieve greater commercial success as their vocalist, but also launched an extremely successful solo career. Around that time, he spoke about many of his peers, including Springsteen, and mentioned one song by the American artist that he thought was fantastic.

The Bruce Springsteen song Phil Collins said was fantastic

By the time Phil Collins launched his solo career in 1981 with his debut album “Face Value”, Sprinsteen already had many hit songs and was a respected artist, but obviously, things really went to a different level with the release of “Born In The U.S.A.”, which sold an estimated amount of more than 30 million copies and remains as his best-selling record.

In an interview with David Sheff in 1986, Collins praised the title-track of the album. “I’ve always liked the idea of Springsteen. (It is) everyman’s music for everyman, you know. It captures the imagination of the working man. Chuck Berry did the same thing. I don’t know that much about Springsteen’s older songs, but I like what he stands for. ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ is just fantastic. It has a great atmosphere and it’s a great song.”

Collins said the same when talking with Rolling Stone back in 1985, he said: “To me, everything Bruce Springsteen does is very typical of him. Maybe people think the same thing about me. But I think I have too many styles to single one out.”

Still in that conversation with David Sheff he used Springsteen as an example when talking about a music critic who didn’t like his music. He was asked about how he reacted to bad reviews. His answer was: “If you don’t want to believe the bad ones, then you can’t believe the good ones, but I don’t have to accept the critics who obviously just don’t like me.”

He continued:

“Robert Hilburn (Los Angeles Times) just doesn’t like me. He wrote a review of One More Night, complaining about how many times I use the line ‘One more night’ in the song. How many times does Bruce Springsteen say ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ in Born in the U.S.A.? Well, Hilburn is a huge Springsteen fan. And the point is irrelevant.”

“There was a whole page of letters in the paper from his own readers angry with him. Anyway, some critics just respond to ballads and love songs. They think it’s a little soppy to write about those things,” Phil Collins said.