In the 1980s, a brand of “heartland rock” by artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp took over American pop culture.
But as music journalist Erin Osmon explains to Here & Now‘s Indira Lakshmanan, many of their most famous songs, from “Born in the U.S.A” to “Pink Houses,” became commercialized and misunderstood. It’s the subject of Osmon’s new book, “Won’t Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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