When I was growing up, back in the '80's,seemed like just about everyone in the public eye was sprouting muscles. It looked good on some people (Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford), sort of incongruous on others (Marky Mark), and just plain weird on others (I remember the days when Madonna proudly flouted her belly-dancer's round waistline. No more...).

One of the guys who got away with it nicely was Bruce Springsteen, a rock musician whose longevity, boundless creativity, and ongoing relevance are (at age 60!), in this humble blogger's opinion, unmatched. To say nothing of the fact that on the cover of his 1975-1985 Live album, Springsteen sports some pretty impressive guns. I spent many a New England summer curling and pressing to the strains of "Prove It All Night" in an attempt to build myself some equally imposing pythons.

How Bruce's legacy remains alive and well in an industry where over 30 typically means retired, Springsteen could well have coasted his entire career on the wide-eyed, exuberant logorrhea of 1975's "Born to Run," but instead chose to mature, deepening and broadening his perspective, starting with 1987's "Tunnel of Love" (my personal favorite to date), and continuing through his most recent albums, "Devils and Dust," "Magic," and "Working on a Dream." He's one of these artists who just keeps on working, keeps on touring, keeps on making music. One album will seem great; the next verging on parody; the next, great again. But it doesn't matter: he keeps coming back, doing the work, year after year, and his fans--myself among them--love him for it.