[Bruce Springsteen is] not just another good version of an old product, but a new genius in our midst, the artist we've been waiting for in these long doldrum years, who can promise us the world and then deliver it….

I think Springsteen is the most important performer to emerge since David Bowie, and maybe beyond, to the giants of the sixties….

What I see is a man who has married the spirit and musical orientations of [Phil] Spector's city rock and roll through a romantic language of street poetry, highly Latinate in its speed and flow and flash of imagery and with a balletic feel akin to [Van] Morrison's that has his words dancing tantalizingly on a thin wire inside your brain.

Michael Watts, "Hail to the New Genius," in Melody Maker (© IPC Business Press Ltd.), October 12, 1974, p. 15.