The Hold Steady "Boys and Girls in America" [2006]

Got a much better title for this: "Dad and His Alcoholic Buddies Are Making a Huge Mistake Taking All Those Springsteen Albums to Heart." The Hold Steady are like college profs who pretend to be the E Street Band on the occasional Friday night at the local watering hole; their students show up and everyone has a harmless laugh... that is, until the group starts taking itself way too seriously and writes its own tunes, at which time the kids realize the joke's over and things have gotten very sad very fast. For The Hold Steady, though, it was just the beginning; "Boys and Girls in America" isn't even their first album -- yes, somebody for some reason let them make more than one of these. Having a better sense of humor than Graham Parker (hey -- call The Hold Steady "Graham Parker & the Humour"!) means about as much as saying you dress better than Jack Johnson. And just because your vocal delivery is overtly verbose and you dabbled in some drugs once upon a time, that doesn't make you Phil Lynott (and honestly, how much of a compliment would it be if you were?). These guys sound like Bill Cosby on mushrooms fronting the Counting Crows, writing endless vignettes about outdoor rock festivals for some reason. In a suitably hokey Weird Al context it might even have worked, but these guys' E Street pretense is a dead end with a brick wall.