BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN/MICHAEL JACKSON:

Just Between You And Me Obviously, this is a cynical ploy to sell magazines—what else could have possessed the editors of CREEM when they commissioned this “think piece,” the thrust, overview and delineation of which was to be "sumpthin’ about Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen”? Such a retro spasm of greed, just when the mag was re-fashioning itself as a journal that mod young things could buy with a minimum of embarrassment. Tsk, tsk. But then, you really didn’t think this was a hobby, did you? I must resort to Moliere, not quoted in CREEM for at least 10 years, who said that writing is like prostitution—first you do it for pleasure, then for a few friends, and finally for money. Just between you and me, I’ve been in the latter stages of that progression longer than most of you have been able to read.

Still, there’s the challenge which is, as I see it, to fulfill the commission without writing another damn boring feature article whose function is to fill the spaces between the groovy color snaps. Critics, said Gautier (another froggy not much quoted here), are like eunuchs in a harem, and, though there are periods of exception (the late ’80s isn’t one of them), most music mag writing is tedious asskissing crap. The idea is to avoid that without tipping too far the other way, into screed for screed’s sake. Let’s give it a go.