Priorities... Priorities

I feel like I’m going to develop a music analogy theme on these bean reviews that I may not be able to dig myself out of. Nonetheless for the purposes of this review it’s all too apt, but I’ll try not to overplay it. Here we go. Was there ever a band or an artist that people kept telling you to listen to, but through a mixture of either lack of effort or preconceived notions you didn’t get around to it? For me that artist was Bruce Springsteen. My impressions of Bruce Springsteen (before I really listened to him) were of a bombastic, catchy songster, occupying the same creative space as say… Garth Brooks. I , like many before me, had fallen into the trap of thinking that his best known song Born in the USA was a vulgar pro-American pop tune (not helped by Ronald Reagan using it in his 1984 campaign). Of course if you listen to the words of Born in the USA it is an indictment of the USA in Vietnam. When it comes to Ristretto coffee in Co Down, people had been suggesting it to me for some time, but I never got around to it. Also a part of me probably thought that this until then unknown (to me) roaster in Northern Ireland probably hadn’t much to offer me. Bruce Springsteen now ranks among my top 5 artists of all time. (more…)