Meandering Thoughts On Music and Hypocrisy

Just so you all know, one thing that I absolutely cannot stand is hypocrisy. It really pisses me off when someone says one thing and then goes straight on and contradicts themselves. That being said, I'm not really "pissed off" about what I'm about to write about, but it's still kind of hypocritical and, therefore, annoys me.

I was recently reading a music magazine who's feature article was about Bruce Springsteen playing at Glastonbury festival this year. The article went on to talk about the songs that have been in the set of Springsteen's current tour, how they have been chosen to resonate with the current economical climate. But it seems to me that someone who is as rich and famous as Bruce Springsteen doesn't have any place singing about how hard life is. I'm not saying that Springsteen is lying or anything as extreme as that, I just think that any recent songs he has written about hardship cannot really come from recent experience. And I'm not saying that I don't like Bruce Springsteen, because I do, I'm just saying that I think it's weird that people who are having trouble in their lives turn to someone like him, thinking "Now here's someone who understands what I'm going through" when really he's a high-paid celebrity, flying between gigs in his own private jet.

And the people who are willing to shell out the money for a Bruce Springsteen concert (I just looked up ticket prices and they are exorbitantly expensive. $976! WTF!!!) obviously aren't having that many economical issues. So the whole process is surrounded by an aura of hypocrisy.

Now, I realize that this makes me sound like an insufferable critic, not happy with anything if there is any kind of hypocrisy or falseness about it, which isn't true. Not all music can be entirely sincere (acutally, most of it isn't), and that's ok. A little fantasy and imagination is a great thing. I'm just saying that I think that the kind of people that listen to music like Bruce Springsteen (especially live in concert) and think "This guy really understands my misfortune" are kind of missing the point.