People forget how bad it was. They forget that day after day, week after week, month after month in the 1980s, the same small group of pop stars dominated radio, magazines, and TV. It was the big four: Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen. In the 1980s, the decade before the wilds of the internet, you could not escape these Goliaths. 

How one of them, Bruce Springsteen, got so huge, and what it means, is the subject of a fascinating new book, There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland. 

In the book, journalist Steven Hyden recounts the time when a rock singer could become a ubiquitous global force of nature. Hyden valorizes the unifying effect Springsteen had on Americans while wisely warning of the mass mob coercion that can happen when pop stars become gods. In short, he celebrates the time when Springsteen appreciated his entire audience and hadn’t become a more predictable left-wing mouthpiece.