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American rock singer Bruce Springsteen has been awarded the highest culture award in the US by President Biden. Springsteen received the National Medal of Arts at the White House, along with fashion designer Vera Wang, singer Gladys Knight and actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, among others.
It was the first time in his presidency that Biden handed out the accolades. Springsteen, 73, was hailed at the ceremony as one of America’s greatest artists and storytellers.
Jokingly, another reason was mentioned to distinguish Springsteen:
‘The Boss’ receives Medal of Arts from President Biden
The National Medal of Arts was created in 1984 under President Reagan to honor exceptional contributions to the American cultural sector. The prize then made the news a number of times when it was refused by winners. Composer Leonard Bernstein, for example, declined the medal in 1989 because of the withdrawal of a government subsidy for an art show about AIDS.
Poet Adrienne Rich refused the award in 1997 because of “cynical politics” under the then Clinton administration when it came to the cultural sector.
The awards have been presented every year since 1984, until former President Trump unknown reasons didn’t. He handed out the medals in the last two years of his presidency.
The winners announced by Biden today are actually the 2021 winners; due to the corona pandemic, the award ceremony was postponed.
For Bruce Springsteen it is not the first prestigious award; in 2016 he received the highest possible civilian honor in the US (the Presidential Medal of Freedom) and in 2009 he was honored with a Kennedy Center Honor.
Springsteen is one of the most successful American artists of all time. He sold about 140 million albums worldwide, received several Grammys and Golden Globes and also won an Oscar (in 1994, for the title song of the film Philadelphia).
Born in the USA, from 1984, is by far the best-selling album in Springsteen’s catalog. The title song was an indictment of the Vietnam War, among other things, but was misinterpreted by then-President Reagan as a patriotic song:
