Springsteen and Obama doing a podcast together (Opinion)

Is this what America needed when it needed it? Mmm, I’d say it’s more like what Spotify needed when it’s trying to compete with the likes of Amazon and Apple. The podcasting biz has grown huge, and Jersey’s own poet laureate of a blue collar generation, Bruce Springsteen, pairing with a former president, Barack Obama, should be a draw.

“On the surface, Bruce and I don’t have a lot in common. But over the years, what we’ve found is that we’ve got a shared sensibility — about work, about family and about America. In our own ways, Bruce and I have been on parallel journeys trying to understand this country that’s given us both so much,” Obama said in Monday’s first released episode.

There will be a total of eight. Spotify is offering them for free. It’s sold as two guys sitting together having a very intimate conversation about women, race, the division in America, and where they see the country going. A bit of many things.

Is there any chemistry? Not sure. Check out this promotional video. It sounds like there’s some chemistry but seems highly structured and formulaic. Or it could just be that the promotional video is highly stylized.

Both men are great storytellers. If this podcast has anything going for it it will start from that. Both men come from humble beginnings and worked to claw their way up, one in music and the other in public service.

They slowly developed a friendship starting with their meeting on the campaign trail in 2008. By 2016 Obama was hanging the Presidential Medal of Freedom around Springsteen’s neck. At that time he called the rock artist “New Jersey’s greatest ambassador.”

Springsteen could use the distraction of a well-received podcast. He was charged with driving while intoxicated for an incident at Sandy Hook in November. Once it came out in the news the Jeep ad he did, which many complained about to begin with, preaching compromise and meeting “in the middle” was pulled.

Maybe the podcast’s theme song could be "Tequila" by The Champs.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski. Any opinions expressed are Jeff Deminski's own.