Springsteen Album-By-Album Discussion/Costume Party

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Dr. Zoom, May 31, 2019.

  1. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    This was like a rain of gold from heaven for us in HS.
    We kept hearing about it from Phila radio. the title track was played so much, it was effectively already a single.
    We had heard a lot of it when he played near me in the late winter.
    It was everywhere when I arrived weeks later at college in PA. Literally, everyone you met had a copy.
    We'd listen to it over and over, drinking beer and discussing every nuance of the stories.
    We couldn't believe this was the same guy who did The Wild The Innocent.
    Bruce had created one of the greatest driving songs ever and had somehow crafted a fantastic album around the song.
    It's hard to express how deep this album goes with boys at that age, it was in our bones; while Wild was a celebration of being young, this was about picking you up from there and moving on to things and emotions that were more mature.
    Bruce was searching for his sound and lyrical voice, as were we.
    It was like we took vows as his blood brothers.
     
  2. Dr. Zoom

    Dr. Zoom Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Monmouth County NJ
    Yup, I remember it being all over WMMR. Bruce owes a lot to Ed Sciaky.
     
    tillywilly17 and trumpet sounds like this.
  3. Mike M

    Mike M Forum Resident

    Location:
    Maplewood
    First album I ever bought at the age of 10 in the fall of 1977 after a camp counselor played it all summer long.

    Not sure enough can be said about the album design and packaging. The font, the gatefold, the photo, all worked together beautifully with the music, basically the first piece of art that ever entered my room and a classic before the plastic wrap ever came off.

    Almost every song begins with an instrument (harmonica/Road, horns/Ten Ave, drums/Born, trumpet/Meeting, violin/Jungleland) that gives me a pavlovian response from the first note.

    Random thoughts:

    Thunder Road: I think I prefer the haunting version from the 75-85 live album (Roxy?), the somber ending more fitting to the song, the exhilaration now seems too forced to me. The song you can play for every girl who doesn't like Bruce. Always amazed at his humanity expressed at women in his work. Mary is invited to the front seat, not back ( I'm looking at you Bob "way up firm and high" Seger :))

    10th: the opening horns that double as the bridge, maybe my favorite Bruce musical moment (thanks Steve?)

    Night: Funny when the breather on the first side is a speeding 124 beats per minute.

    Backstreets: Terry, boy or girl? Not that it matters, just curious. See Winterland note below, favorite version.

    Born: Classic of all time, so why do I find it too labored/forced? Almost prefer the solo version from the 92 Chimes EP. You can kill me now...

    She's The One: The Winterland 78 boot ruined this for me, I need the Mona/Preacher's daughter opening.

    Meeting: This should not work ! I'm just going to talk over open chords while some jazz trumpet guy noodles about seems the recipe for a major disaster, yet he out does Waits, Scorsese & Raymond Carver.

    Jungleland: has gone from poetry to cheese to poetry for me over my lifetime. Have heard it more that any other Bruce song, and yet the hair still stands up on my neck everytime the Magic Rat crosses the Jersey State Line.


    The last moment when he and his characters could be enthralled with just the promise of escape, and suffer none of the guilt. We would all have to pay after this...
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2019
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  4. Dr. Zoom

    Dr. Zoom Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Monmouth County NJ
    The album is an almost perfect day/night time cycle. Begins in the morning (TR), and ends at midnight (JL)
     
  5. DBMartin

    DBMartin Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Netherlands
    For me, Born to Run is quite simply the greatest studio album ever made by any artist.

    I'm not too sure about Bruce's own view of this collection of songs as Bob Dylan's lyrics meeting Roy Orbison's vocals meeting Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, but whatever the pitch for this album may be, it works!
     
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  6. Dr. Zoom

    Dr. Zoom Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Monmouth County NJ
    Kudos to Mike Appel for insisting that Meeting Across The River be included.
    Jon Landau allegedly wanted 'Lonely Night In The Park' instead (which, to me, is one of Bruce's weaker outtakes).

    @Mike M ...yes, it was Steve who arranged the horn section on 10th Ave (David Sanborn and the Brecker Brothers).
     
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  7. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I used to say that when Bruce played Jungleland live, if Clarence started the solo and then stopped suddenly, over 1000 people would have heart arrhythmia.
     
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  8. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Part One

    I'm not sure that any other summation of Born to Run can equal Greil Marcus' original Rolling Stone review of the album from 1975:

    Born To Run

    Few albums in the history of rock music have the desperate, do-or-die creation story that Born to Run has. With Bruce Springsteen in danger of being dropped by his label after two flop albums and now watching his excellent band start to splinter, as well as beginning to realize that his manager/producer wasn't providing him with the artistic guidance that he needed, his third album was pretty clearly going to be either the launching pad or the death knell for his career. As a result, Springsteen went about creating the album as if he were in pursuit of the mythical white whale. His obsessiveness and pursuit of perfection became nearly manic, by most accounts, with never-ending studio sessions in the chase of some imagined sonic ideal in his head driving his band and production team to exhaustion. In the end, Springsteen seemed almost afraid to let go of the album, talking about changes he still wanted to make even after hearing the finished product (we can thank Jon Landau for talking him off the edge).

    The odd thing is that, in contrast to Springsteen's first two albums, there was only ever a fairly small pool of songs being worked on for his third album. They just did take after take after take, and then mix after mix after mix. Only a handful of outtakes from the BTR sessions are known or even rumored. Once the album tracks were chosen, the sessions were all about figuring out how to get the recordings to match the sound that Springsteen heard in his head. Early groups of sessions were held in amongst tour dates in mid-to-late 1974 at the same low-budget studio where the first two LPs had been made, but it soon became clear that the studio wasn't sufficient to capture the sound that Springsteen was after. Conflicts with his producer Mike Appel began to rear their head and the sessions ground to a halt with only one track having been completed. Soon, Springsteen needed to find a new drummer and new pianist, which occupied part of that winter. Jon Landau entered the picture, developing a friendship and mentorship with Springsteen, who was hungry for new ideas and advice on how to move his work from conception to finished product. Landau possessed the intellectual skills that Appel, for all of his boosterism/hucksterism, lacked, and proved a tremendous asset to the continuing development of Springsteen's art in a way that Appel could never be. With touring suspended and the band, with new members Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan, and Steve Van Zandt, slaving away in the newly chosen (and far more state-of-the-art) Record Plant studio in NYC, the remainder of the album was completed over several months in the late spring and summer of 1975, with the final mixing and overdubs not being completed until 6 in the morning of the day they were due in Rhode Island to start a tour.

    Released at the end of that summer, Born to Run became the breakout hit album that Springsteen so desperately needed, hitting the US Top 10 in only its second week of release, helped no doubt by the dual twin national news magazine covers that Appel had ingeniously arranged. The album didn't contain any huge pop hits (the title track only managed to reach #23 on the US singles chart), but both word of mouth and a rapturous press reception drove the album's sales, particularly in the northeastern US (Springsteen would remain little more than a cult act in most of the rest of the country up until 1980).
     
  9. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Part Two

    Born to Run is a perfectly constructed and perfectly sequenced album. We have the four epics to begin and end each LP side, with the four interstitial scene-embellishing tracks sandwiched in between. The sound of the album is like nothing else in Springsteen's work and is the product of the obsessiveness with which he worked on the mixes. He wanted the album to sound more mono than stereo, as if it were being transmitted over a car or transistor radio set to the AM dial. It's the sound via which he had first encountered rock n' roll as a troubled child, and, if nothing else, Born to Run was to be a nostalgic album. However, it's not the sort of nostalgia that pines for the "good old days", but rather one that seeks to recover and sustain the basic truths and hopes that one fosters as a child in the harsher light of onsetting adulthood -- one that repurposes them to the requirement of present circumstances. Thus, we have this sonic murk - despite most of the LP having been recorded in a far superior studio - that is baked into the mixes and has frustrated all subsequent efforts to remaster the album. At this point, it would be hard to hear the album in any other manner.

    The change in Springsteen's writing style from his first two albums is remarkable. The lyrics are far more precise, with an economy that amplifies the meaning of each word. Whether they are in the first, second, or third person, you rarely get the feeling that it is Bruce Springsteen as the lead character in any of these songs (although we know from later comments that he did portray himself in at least two of the songs). Rather, the album is a cinematic tapestry of American urban existence circa 1975. Other than a few references ("the tunnels uptown", "Highway 9"), these songs might occur anywhere in urban America. They don't have the geographic limitations that many of the songs on his first two albums seemed to display. Although there is certainly a romantic aura to these songs, it's accompanied by a strong helping of harsh and bitter reality. The characters, in contrast to most of those on his first two albums, are vividly drawn and seem real. It's on this album that we first encounter the people that Springsteen would write about for the next 15 or so years -- here, they are just learning how to navigate the corridors of adulthood and facing demands to compromise youthful ideals, pay the rent, work a job, and negotiate friendships and romances.

    Lastly, the instrumentation is sharply different from his previous work, with the piano now taking center stage. There is barely a nod to Springsteen's folk roots, but at the same time, you don't hear much of the Jersey Shore bar band sound that had been all over his previous record. These are grandiose, almost operatic arrangements that provide a widescreen scale to the sonic canvas and, in some cases, allow the instruments to move the story along in the absence of words. Springsteen would never really write music like this again.

    Thoughts on each song:

    Thunder Road - A brilliant scene opener, with the rising music matching the lyrics thrust for thrust until the climactic moment after the final line, when the music carries us out into the freedom of the open road. One of Springsteen's finest songs.

    Tenth Avenue Freeze-out - If I have to pick a weak point on this essentially perfect album, this would be it. The music and arrangement is relatively perfunctory R&B/soul and the lyric is a bit too vague (what is a "freeze-out" anyway?), although the dramatic introduction of the "Big Man" is a high point, even if it's a bit too self-referential for the rest of the album. The horns are a nice touch.

    Night - Sheer adrenaline. This is where the "mono-ness" of the sound mix really hits you in the gut. A remarkable track that also illustrates the evolution of Bruce's singing. He's lost that mushy-mouthed delivery and has developed a much fuller vocal range, and he uses it to give us a palpable sense of the exhaustion of these characters, chasing something all night that they can't get from their day jobs.

    Backstreets - Majestic and terribly sad, this song might just be the heart of the album. A story of tarnished friendship (never clear as to whether Terry is a boy or a girl, but it doesn't matter), lost ideals, and remembrances. This is possibly a sequel to the previous LP's "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)", sung by a sadder, wiser, and older person. The repeated chant of "hidin' on the backstreets" as some sort of a mantra near the song's dramatic conclusion makes us feel how significant these memories are to the singer on a visceral level.

    Born to Run - The other song that is probably more self-referential than not, the title track was the song that encapsulated everything Springsteen wanted to achieve. The American ideal of escape to a better future has probably never been captured better in a rock song. It's a mini-opera (out on the turnpike) in 4.5 minutes. These days, I prefer hearing it performed in its 1988 acoustic arrangement, but the song itself is timeless.

    She's the One - Married to a nostalgic Bo Diddley beat, Bruce gives us his best Elvis vocal on this tale of romantic obsession and frustration. The song starts out as rambunctious but ultimately turns wistful and almost elegiac by its end.

    Meeting Across the River - A nighttime vignette much like some of those on his previous album, this track is the calm before the oncoming musical storm. Springsteen would write a lot more about desperate characters such as this one on his next few albums, but his facility for telling a story and capturing vivid images is already on full display here.

    Jungleland - Certainly on the short list for the greatest album closer in rock history, this epic song tells the tale of a doomed gang leader (or soldier). It's not the story itself, though, that is the real star here. The impeccably arranged music channels the emotion of the character in the story (told in the third person) and extrapolates it to enable it to serve as a metaphor for the entire city. You get the feeling that there are a million other stories like this one that could have been told on this one night in New York City; the significance isn't the Magic Rat or the barefoot girl, it's the city itself in all of its shambolic, disordered complexity, and "Jungleland" is a requiem for it. Springsteen's vocal performance is amazing - the wordless anguished howl he unleashes at the end does more to drive home the emotion of the entire album than any of the lyrics on any of its eight songs do. The wailing saxophone is the sound of the city crying. This is probably my second favorite Springsteen song, but unlike virtually all of my other favorites, here it's the music that I prize more than the words. Note that, at one point, this was considered as the album's title song.

    Summing up, Born to Run is, to me, Springsteen's greatest album. None of the known outtakes come close to matching the quality of the songs that were chosen for the LP, as much as I enjoy the likes of "So Young And In Love" and "Walking Down the Street". The album was a solid commercial hit (even if most of its sales wouldn't occur until several years later), securing Bruce's status at Columbia. The album cover is probably Springsteen's best, although it doesn't really reflect the lyrical content of the LP (other than "10th Ave"). It has become an iconic image, largely I think due to the respective ethnicities of the two men.
     
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  10. DavidD

    DavidD Forum Resident

    :):):):):)

    Backstreets will forever be a contender for my favourite Springsteen song, rivalled with Drive All Night and The Price You Pay.

    What I like is how albums come in and out of vogue with critics, as we see with the RS review citing The Wild, The Innocent as a flop nearly leading to his demise. I've heard other critics claim that if BITUSA wasn't a success, it may have ended Springsteen's career. And over the course of the last 5+ decades, I've watch lesser popular albums by artists gain a popularity never known in its day (think David Bowie with the album Low).

    But I have never read a review suggesting BTR was anything but iconic. Has anyone read a review at any time suggesting otherwise?

    Springsteen refines his writing craft, but does not dumb down the lyrical impact (something he is accused of later in his career). There is an epic drama running deep throughout the album, and the stories majestically unfold.

    The E Street Band is superb -- the sound is often thunderous and the potency of the crescendos are brilliant. The anthemic quality on the classic cuts brings an emotional intensity that never fails to move me.

    Ironically, this was the album to move Springsteen into the mainstream, something he felt he had to do again not even a decade later with BITUSA.

    To my ears he got it absolutely right the first time ;).

    This is likely my third or fourth most listened to Springsteen album. There are times there is no other album in the world that I want to listen to, yet I can also say that about The River (despite its meandering and epic qualities which require a more engaged audience to appreciate in depth. But at the end of the day, Born To Run must be considered Springsteen's masterpiece.
     
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  11. boe

    boe Forum Resident

    Location:
    western New York
    I’ve also read that JL wanted Linda Let Me Be The One instead of Meeting. Either way - how could you possibly hear / think that? Meeting Cross The River is essential to BTR - and really helps tie the album together. An essential piece. And I’ll second the motion for kudos to Appel.
     
  12. Dr. Zoom

    Dr. Zoom Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Monmouth County NJ
    Landau should be given proper credit for moving the BTR sessions from 914 to the Record Plant. He was a good manager.

    But he should be equally castigated for pushing those 2 lame outtakes over Meeting ATR. Landau was a mediocre record producer. Thank goodness Appel was there.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2019
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  13. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves, like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays ....
    From the moment i heard this, i knew this was going to be something a bit special.
    Thunder Road remains to this day one of my (many) favourite songs. The piano intro, through the musical surge ... and somehow, " you ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright " somehow doesn't sound like an insult.
    Springsteen may not have lived many of his songs, but I don't see an issue with that. He had a way of painting a musical picture that gave it a spirit and a character unique to him. Many tried to copy his style, some even successfully, but he was the real deal when it came to putting the street onto tape in these road songs.
    This album is full of tracks of very high quality, from start to finish. With
    She's the one, Tenth Ave Freeze Out, Night, Meeting Across The River, Backstreets, Jungleland and the legendary title track to back Thunder Road up, we get a classic album, a start to finish shot of brilliance.

    The amazing thing is he was only going to get better from here ... in my opinion.
     
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  14. bcaulf

    bcaulf Forum Resident

    Brilliant album. Jungleland...man, I have to say it might be one of the greatest songs ever written. That's saying a lot.
     
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  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    One other thing. I find it remarkable, that as good as these songs are, live they bloomed even more.
    I never got to see a concert in real life, but dvd's and blurays are a witness to the extraordinary life these songs took on, on the stage.
     
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  16. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    This is news to me. What is the source for this?

    Appel was quickly becoming a hindrance to the development of Springsteen's art and needed to be removed from the decision making process. He simply didn't have the sophistication that was needed to assist Springsteen in achieving what he wanted to achieve artistically.
     
  17. Dr. Zoom

    Dr. Zoom Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Monmouth County NJ
    I believe it was in the Carlin book.
     
  18. robcar

    robcar Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Thanks. I'll take another look at that.
     
  19. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Agreed. I mentioned this on another thread. Appel's insistence that Meeting Across The River make the final track listing elevated the album and saved it from having a clunker.

    I thought the debate was over Linda Let Me Be The One (Edit: I just noticed someone else mentioned this title as well), but either way, Appel was right.
     
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  20. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    A supreme album, perhaps one of the top five albums ever recorded in rock and roll history (at least it is to these ears). Springsteen delivered near perfection, with perhaps the only deficiency being the somewhat muddy mix, yet it is one of the album's unmistakable charms. It is an album filled with poetic romanticism and escapism, magnetic arrangements, passionate vocals, first-rate musicianship, and outstanding songs. A five-star album.
     
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  21. budwhite

    budwhite Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

    Location:
    Götaland, Sverige
    My favorite together with Wild and Darkness. Four of the songs is on my top ten list.
    Nice production, the soundmix is a bit muddy though. Great songwriting. Iconic cover art
     
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  22. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    I love "Meeting Across the River" and it's a great break in mood and sound and style on the album -- the song is almost one that would have been at home in an off-Broadway musical of the era: a theater-y character driven monologue. But to me it does feel like an aside, a break, not something that is essential or that holds the album together. It's a good song and the album would have been lesser for the inclusion of one of those lesser songs in its place, but I also think it could be removed from the album entirely without really changing or diminishing the album.
     
  23. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    I dunno, I don't think I heard a satisfying live "Born to Run" until Springsteen started playing stadiums and had like 5 guitar players and 100K people singing along. That mammoth arrangement with 20 overlayed guitar tracks and the strings and the counter melodies, and the sheer thickness of the wall of sound, is a powerful, intense part of the experience of the song to me. Every time I heard Springsteen play it it always seemed to me like a something was missing until I heard 100K people singing it simultaneously.
     
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  24. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    Possibly. My statement is probably somewhat of a generalisation. I enjoy the live versions of the songs that I have heard.
     
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  25. The Human Frame

    The Human Frame Active Member

    Location:
    Australia
    I don't know if it holds the whole album together, but I think the great thing about Meeting Across the River is how it sets the climax of the album. Being so low key and moody really makes the grandeur of Jungleland shine all the greater, more than perhaps it would coming after something loud and energetic like She's the One. It's the quintessential album track, in that while it is a good song, I rarely seek it out to play in isolation* but when I do hear it on the album I enjoy it all the more for knowing what it's building up to.

    *I don't think it's a coincidence that it only ever seems to be played live accompanied by Jungleland.
     
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