Hate It or Love It? Springsteen In Philly. The Boss is back in Philadelphia, at least for two nights. The singer-songwriter-performer is playing the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia both tonight and tomorrow, and both shows are sold out (unless you turn to Stubhub, where tickets start at $115). Everyone most certainly knows someone going to the shows, and if you don’t, there are plenty of folks around town talking about it.

Interestingly, Springsteen’s return to Philadelphia was met with two separate “Bruce Springsteen sucks” arguments, one from The20’s @VictorFiorillo at Philadelphia Magazine called “Why I Hate Bruce Springsteen,” and the other from John Sharkey at Philadelphia Weekly, titled “A Dissenting View on the Mythicization of Bruce Springsteen.”

In Fiorillo’s piece, he lists ten reasons, along with videos, describing why he hates Springsteen. Among them, Bruce’s earring, Max Weinberg, the fans and more.

“My friends, knowing I’m a music lover, keep asking me if I’m going. No. I’m not. I’d rather watch the entire first season of Cupcake Wars while being trapped on an elevator with a diarrhetic mule. (No offense to diarrhetic mules.) Yes, I am one of those (apparently few) Bruce Springsteen haters.”

Sharkey’s cover story is very clearly a dig at Springsteen’s working class mystique. In it, he compares Springsteen to Tim Tebow and says:

“Springsteen isn’t terrible enough to demonize, but he isn’t great enough to canonize, either. He’s the Tim Tebow of music: not very good, but different enough from the rest to stand out. He’s a piece of toilet paper clinging to the bottom of American culture’s shoe. And because he’s remained stuck there so long, we’ve attached undeserved meaning to him. He’s a rock musician, not The Boss.”

These opinions both appear to be unpopular, as there are plenty of Springsteen lovers in our area. So hate it or love: Bruce Springsteen?

-LD

[@VictorFiorillo, Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Weekly]

Photo: Getty Images