Bruce Springsteen | ||
| Allmusic Biography : In the decades following his emergence on the national scene in 1975, Bruce Springsteen proved to be that rarity among popular musicians: an artist who maintained his status as a frontline recording and performing star, consistently selling millions of albums and selling out arenas and stadiums around the world year after year, as well as retaining widespread critical approbation with ecstatic reviews greeting those discs and shows. Although there have been a few speed bumps along the way in Springsteens career, the wonder of his nearly unbroken string of critical and commercial successes is that he achieved it while periodically challenging his listeners by going off in unexpected directions, following his muse even when that meant altering the sound of his music or the composition of his backup band, or making his lyrical message overtly political. Of course, it may have been these very sidesteps that kept his image and his music fresh, especially since he always had the fallback of returning to what his fans thought he did best, barnstorming the country with a marathon rock & roll show using his longtime bandmates. Bruce Springsteen was born September 23, 1949 in Freehold, New Jersey, the son of Douglas Springsteen, a bus driver, and Adele (Zirilli) Springsteen, a secretary. He became interested in music after seeing Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and got a guitar, but he didnt start playing seriously until 1963. In 1965, he joined his first band, the Beatles-influenced Castiles. They got as far as playing in New York City, but broke up in 1967 around the time Springsteen graduated from high school and began frequenting clubs in Asbury Park, New Jersey. From there, he briefly joined Earth, a hard rock band in the style of Cream. Also in the hard rock vein was his next group, Child (soon renamed Steel Mill), which featured keyboard player Danny Federici and drummer Vini Lopez. (Later on, guitarist Steve Van Zandt joined on bass.) Steel Mill played in California in 1969, drawing a rave review in San Francisco and even a contract offer from a record label. But they broke up in 1971, and Springsteen formed a big band, the short-lived Dr. Zoom & the Cosmic Boom, quickly superseded by the Bruce Springsteen Band. Along with Federici, Lopez, and Van Zandt (who switched back to guitar), this group also included pianist David Sancious and bassist Garry Tallent, plus a horn section that didnt last long before being replaced by a single saxophonist, Clarence Clemons. Due to a lack of work, however, Springsteen broke up the band and began playing solo shows in New York City. It was as a solo performer that he acquired a manager, Mike Appel, who arranged an audition for legendary Columbia talent scout John Hammond. Hammond signed Springsteen to Columbia in 1972. In preparing his debut LP, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen immediately rehired most of his backup band, Federici, Lopez, Sancious, Tallent, and Clemons. (Van Zandt, on tour with the Dovells, was mostly unavailable.) The album went unnoticed upon its initial release in January 1973 (although Manfred Manns Earth Band would turn its lead-off track, "Blinded by the Light," into a number one hit four years later, and the LP itself has since gone double platinum). The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (September 1973) also failed to sell despite some rave reviews. (It too has gone double platinum.) The following year, Springsteen revised his backup group -- now dubbed the E Street Band -- as Lopez and Sancious left, and Max Weinberg (drums) and Roy Bittan (piano) joined, and in 1975, Van Zandt returned to the group. With this unit he toured extensively while working on the LP that represented his last chance with Columbia. By the time Born to Run (August 1975) was released, the critics and a significant cult audience were with him, and the title song became a Top 40 hit while the album reached the Top Ten, going on to sell six million copies. Despite this breakthrough, Springsteens momentum was broken by a legal dispute, as he split from Appel and brought in Jon Landau (a rock critic who had famously called him the "rock & roll future" in a 1974 concert review) as his new manager. The legal issues werent resolved until 1977, during which time Springsteen was unable to record. (One beneficiary of this problem was Patti Smith, to whom Springsteen gave the composition "Because the Night," which, with some lyrical revisions by her, became her only Top 40 hit in the spring of 1978.) He finally returned in June 1978 with Darkness on the Edge of Town. By then, he had to rebuild his career. Record labels had recruited their own versions of the Springsteen "heartland rock" sound, in such similar artists as Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band (who actually preceded Springsteen but achieved national recognition in his wake), Johnny Cougar (aka John Mellencamp), Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Meat Loaf, Eddie Money, and even fellow Jersey Shore residents Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, to name only some of the more successful ones. At the same time, the punk/new wave trend had become the new focus of critical devotion, making Springsteen seem unfashionable. Notwithstanding these challenges, Darkness earned its share of good reviews and achieved Top Ten status, selling three million copies as the single "Prove It All Night" hit the Top 40. (In early 1979, the Pointer Sisters took Springsteens composition "Fire" into the Top Ten.) Springsteen fully consolidated his status with his next album, the two-LP set The River (October 1980), which hit number one, sold five million copies, and spawned the Top Ten hit "Hungry Heart" and the Top 40 hit "Fade Away." (In 1981-1982, Gary U.S. Bonds reached the Top 40 with two Springsteen compositions, "This Little Girl" and "Out of Work.") But having finally topped the charts, Springsteen experimented on his next album, preferring the demo recordings of the songs he had made for Nebraska (September 1982) to full-band studio versions, especially given the dark subject matter of his lyrics. The stark LP nevertheless hit the Top Ten and sold a million copies without benefit of a hit single or a promotional tour. (Van Zandt amicably left the E Street Band for a solo career at this point and was replaced by Nils Lofgren.) But then came Born in the U.S.A. (June 1984) and a two-year international tour. The album hit number one, threw off seven Top Ten hits ("Dancing in the Dark," which earned Springsteen his first Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, "Cover Me," "Born in the U.S.A.," "Im on Fire," "Glory Days," "Im Goin Down," and "My Hometown"), and sold 15 million copies, putting Springsteen in the pop heavens with Michael Jackson and Prince. For his next album, he finally exploited his reputation as a live performer by releasing the five-LP/three-CD box set Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live/1975-85 (November 1986), which topped the charts, was certified platinum 13 times, and spawned a Top Ten hit in a cover of Edwin Starrs "War." (In March 1987, "the Barbusters" -- actually Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, took Springsteens composition "Light of Day," written for the movie of the same name, into the Top 40.) Characteristically, Springsteen returned to studio work with a more introverted effort, Tunnel of Love (October 1987), which presaged his 1989 divorce from his first wife, actress Julianne Phillips. (He married a second time, to singer/songwriter/guitarist Patti Scialfa, who had joined the E Street Band as a backup vocalist in 1984.) The album was another number one hit, selling three million copies and producing two Top Ten singles, "Brilliant Disguise" and the title song, as well as the Top 40 hit "One Step Up." The album earned him a second male rock vocal Grammy. (In the spring of 1988, Natalie Cole covered the Springsteen B-side "Pink Cadillac" for a Top Ten hit.) Springsteen retreated from public view in the late 80s, breaking up the E Street Band in November 1989. He returned to action in March 1992 with a new backup band, simultaneously releasing two albums, Human Touch and Lucky Town, which entered the charts at numbers two and three, respectively, each going platinum. A double-sided single combining "Human Touch" and "Better Days" was a Top 40 hit. Of course, this was a relative fall-off from the commercial heights of the mid-80s, but Springsteen was undeterred. He next contributed the moody ballad "Streets of Philadelphia" to the soundtrack of Philadelphia, film director Jonathan Demmes 1993 depiction of a lawyer fighting an unjust termination for AIDS. The recording became a Top Ten hit, and the song went on to win Springsteen four Grammys (Song of the Year, Best Rock Song, best song written for a motion picture or television, and another for male rock vocal) and the Academy Award for best song. In early 1995, Springsteen reconvened the E Street Band to record a few new tracks for his Greatest Hits (February 1995). The album topped the charts and sold four million copies, with one of the new songs, "Secret Garden," eventually reaching the Top 40. Despite this success, Springsteen resisted the temptation to reunite with the E Street Band on an ongoing basis at this point, instead recording another low-key, downcast, near-acoustic effort in the style of Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad (November 1995), and embarking on a solo tour to promote it. The LP won a Grammy for best contemporary folk album, but it missed the Top Ten and only went gold. A much more prolific songwriter and recording artist than what was reflected in his legitimately released discography, Springsteen went into his vault of unreleased material and assembled the four-CD box set Tracks (November 1998), which went platinum. Whether inspired by the playing he heard on those recordings, bowing to constant fan pressure, or simply recognizing the musicians with whom he had made his most successful music, Springsteen finally reunited the E Street Band in 1999, beginning with a performance at his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. All the members from the 1974-1989 edition of the group returned. (Characteristically, Springsteen sidestepped the question of whether to use Van Zandt or Lofgren in the guitar position by rehiring both of them.) They embarked on a world tour that lasted until mid-2000, its final dates resulting in the album Live in New York City, which hit the Top Ten and sold a million copies. Springsteens writing process in coming up with a new rock album to be recorded with members of the E Street Band was given greater impetus in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the resulting disc, The Rising (July 2002), contained songs that reflected on the tragedy. The album hit number one and sold two million copies, winning the Grammy for rock album, and the title song won for rock song and male rock vocal. Following another lengthy tour with the E Street Band, Springsteen again returned to the style and mood of Nebraska on another solo recording, Devils & Dust (April 2005), taking to the road alone to promote it. The album hit number one and went gold, winning a Grammy for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance. One year later, Springsteen unveiled another new musical approach when he presented We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (April 2006), an album on which he played new arrangements of folk songs associated with Pete Seeger, played by a specially assembled Sessions Band. The album reached the Top Ten and went gold as Springsteen toured with the group. It also won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album. The tour led to a concert recording, Live in Dublin (June 2007), which reached the Top 40. Once again, Springsteen recorded a new rock album, Magic (October 2007), as a precursor to re-forming the E Street Band and going out on another long tour. The album hit number one and went platinum, with the song "Radio Nowhere" earning Grammys for rock song and solo rock vocal. (Another track from the album, "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," won the rock song Grammy the following year.) Sadly, longtime E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici succumbed to a three-year battle with melanoma on April 17, 2008, his death causing the first irrevocable change in the groups personnel (saxophonist Clarence Clemons would die on June 18, 2011 due to complications from a stroke). Federici was replaced by Charles Giordano, who had played with Springsteen previously in the Sessions Band. Springsteen finished the tour in 2008 and held several additional shows in support of Senator Barack Obama, whose presidential campaign had kicked into hyperdrive earlier that year. While playing an Obama rally in early November, Springsteen debuted material from his forthcoming album, Working on a Dream, whose tracks had been recorded with the E Street Band during breaks in the groups previous tour. The resulting album, which was the last to feature contributions from Federici (as well as his son, Jason), arrived on January 27, 2009, one week after Obamas historic inauguration. It immediately hit number one, Springsteens ninth album to top the charts over a period of three decades, and it went on to go gold and win him another Grammy for solo rock vocal. In February, Springsteen and the E Street Band provided the half-time entertainment at Super Bowl XLIII. The groups tour, which featured full-length performances of some of Springsteens classic albums at selected shows, ran through November 22, 2009. In December, the 60-year-old was ranked fourth among the top touring acts of the first decade of the 21st century, behind only the Rolling Stones, U2, and Madonna. The same month he was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. Springsteens 2010 was devoted to a revival of Darkness on the Edge of Town, with the 1978 masterpiece receiving an expanded box set called The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town; the set contained a feature-length documentary and a double-disc set of outtakes that was also available separately. As Springsteen began work on a studio album produced by Ron Aniello, whod previously worked with Patti Scialfa, Clarence Clemons died. Clemons last recorded solo appeared on "Land of Hope and Dreams," one of many politically charged songs on the resulting album, Wrecking Ball. Supported by a major media blitz that included a showcase week of Springsteen covers on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and the Boss delivering a keynote address at South by Southwest, Wrecking Ball appeared the first week of March 2012. Before the end of that month, he embarked on a mammoth world tour to promote the album, on which he eventually took in 26 countries over the course of 18 months. Late in 2013, it was announced that the E Street Band would receive a belated induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in early 2014. Prior to the induction ceremony came High Hopes, Springsteens 18th studio album. Inspired in part by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who had temporarily replaced Van Zandt for the last six months of the Wrecking Ball tour and also played on the album, High Hopes was a collection of covers, reinterpretations of old songs, and leftovers; it appeared in mid-January 2014 and easily reached number one on the album charts. He toured with the E Street Band through the late spring, and also issued the EP American Beauty, which consisted of four unreleased songs from the High Hopes sessions. In late 2015, Springsteen released another audio/video box set offering an in-depth look at one of his classic albums. The Ties That Bind: The River Collection offered a remastered version of Springsteens 1980 album, along with an expansive disc of outtakes, an early single-LP version of the album Springsteen pulled prior to release, an original documentary on the making of The River, and a complete concert filmed in Tempe, Arizona, in 1980. In the fall of 2016, Springsteen released a memoir entitled Born to Run, which was accompanied by a career-spanning collection called Chapter & Verse that he compiled himself. Shortly after publishing his memoir, Springsteen adapted the book for the stage in the guise of the Broadway production Springsteen on Broadway. Opening in October 2017, the show ran until December 2018. Upon its conclusion, the production was captured as a film and a double-disc album; the record debuted at 11 on Billboards Top 200. In June 2019, Springsteen returned with his first studio album of original material in five years. Titled Western Stars, the solo record was produced by Aniello and featured the lead single "Hello Sunshine." | ||
 | Album: 1 of 21 Title: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Released: 1973-01-05 Tracks: 9 Duration: 36:59 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Blinded by the Light (05:02) 2 Growin’ Up (03:05) 3 Mary Queen of Arkansas (05:20) 4 Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street? (02:05) 5 Lost in the Flood (05:14) 6 The Angel (03:23) 7 For You (04:39) 8 Spirit in the Night (04:58) 9 It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City (03:13) |
| Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. : Allmusic album Review : Bruce Springsteens debut album found him squarely in the tradition of Bob Dylan: folk-based tunes arranged for an electric band featuring piano and organ (plus, in Springsteens case, 1950s-style rock & roll tenor saxophone breaks), topped by acoustic guitar and a husky voice singing lyrics full of elaborate, even exaggerated imagery. But where Dylan had taken a world-weary, cynical tone, Springsteen was exuberant. His street scenes could be haunted and tragic, as they were in "Lost in the Flood," but they were still imbued with romanticism and a youthful energy. Asbury Park painted a portrait of teenagers cocksure of themselves, yet bowled over by their discovery of the world. It was saved from pretentiousness (if not preciousness) by its sense of humor and by the careful eye for detail that kept even the most high-flown language rooted. Like the lyrics, the arrangements were busy, but the melodies were well developed and the rhythms, pushed by drummer Vincent Lopez, were breakneck. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 21 Title: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle Released: 1973-09-11 Tracks: 7 Duration: 46:48 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The E Street Shuffle (04:29) 2 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) (05:36) 3 Kitty’s Back (07:09) 4 Wild Billy’s Circus Story (04:47) 5 Incident on 57th Street (07:45) 6 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (07:03) 7 New York City Serenade (09:56) |
| The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle : Allmusic album Review : Bruce Springsteen expanded the folk-rock approach of his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., to strains of jazz, among other styles, on its ambitious follow-up, released only eight months later. His chief musical lieutenant was keyboard player David Sancious, who lived on the E Street that gave the album and Springsteens backup group its name. With his help, Springsteen created a street-life mosaic of suburban society that owed much in its outlook to Van Morrisons romanticization of Belfast in Astral Weeks. Though Springsteen expressed endless affection and much nostalgia, his message was clear: this was a goodbye-to-all-that from a man who was moving on. The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle represented an astonishing advance even from the remarkable promise of Greetings; the unbanded three-song second side in particular was a flawless piece of music. Musically and lyrically, Springsteen had brought an unruly muse under control and used it to make a mature statement that synthesized popular musical styles into complicated, well-executed arrangements and absorbing suites; it evoked a world precisely even as that world seemed to disappear. Following the personnel changes in the E Street Band in 1974, there is a conventional wisdom that this album is marred by production lapses and performance problems, specifically the drumming of Vini Lopez. None of that is true. Lopezs busy Keith Moon style is appropriate to the arrangements in a way his replacement, Max Weinberg, never could have been. The production is fine. And the albums songs contain the best realization of Springsteens poetic vision, which soon enough would be tarnished by disillusionment. He would later make different albums, but he never made a better one. The truth is, The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is one of the greatest albums in the history of rock & roll. | ||
 | Album: 3 of 21 Title: Born to Run Released: 1975-08-25 Tracks: 8 Duration: 39:27 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Thunder Road (04:50) 2 Tenth Avenue Freeze‐Out (03:11) 3 Night (03:01) 4 Backstreets (06:30) 5 Born to Run (04:30) 6 She’s the One (04:30) 7 Meeting Across the River (03:18) 8 Jungleland (09:33) |
| Born to Run : Allmusic album Review : Bruce Springsteens make-or-break third album represented a sonic leap from his first two, which had been made for modest sums at a suburban studio; Born to Run was cut on a superstar budget, mostly at the Record Plant in New York. Springsteens backup band had changed, with his two virtuoso players, keyboardist David Sancious and drummer Vini Lopez, replaced by the professional but less flashy Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg. The result was a full, highly produced sound that contained elements of Phil Spectors melodramatic work of the 1960s. Layers of guitar, layers of echo on the vocals, lots of keyboards, thunderous drums -- Born to Run had a big sound, and Springsteen wrote big songs to match it. The overall theme of the album was similar to that of The E Street Shuffle; Springsteen was describing, and saying farewell to, a romanticized teenage street life. But where he had been affectionate, even humorous before, he was becoming increasingly bitter. If Springsteen had celebrated his dead-end kids on his first album and viewed them nostalgically on his second, on his third he seemed to despise their failure, perhaps because he was beginning to fear he was trapped himself. Nevertheless, he now felt removed, composing an updated West Side Story with spectacular music that owed more to Bernstein than to Berry. To call Born to Run overblown is to miss the point; Springsteens precise intention is to blow things up, both in the sense of expanding them to gargantuan size and of exploding them. If The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was an accidental miracle, Born to Run was an intentional masterpiece. It declared its own greatness with songs and a sound that lived up to Springsteens promise, and though some thought it took itself too seriously, many found that exalting. | ||
 | Album: 4 of 21 Title: Darkness on the Edge of Town Released: 1978-06-02 Tracks: 10 Duration: 42:59 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Badlands (04:03) 2 Adam Raised a Cain (04:34) 3 Something in the Night (05:14) 4 Candy’s Room (02:48) 5 Racing in the Street (06:55) 6 The Promised Land (04:29) 7 Factory (02:19) 8 Streets of Fire (04:03) 9 Prove It All Night (04:00) 10 Darkness on the Edge of Town (04:30) |
| Darkness on the Edge of Town : Allmusic album Review : Coming three years, and one extended court battle, after the commercial breakthrough of Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town was highly anticipated. Some attributed the albums embattled tone to Springsteens legal troubles, but it carried on from Born to Run, in which Springsteen had first begun to view his colorful cast of characters as "losers." On Darkness, he began to see them as the working class. One song was called "Factory," and in another, "Badlands," "you" work "neath the wheel / Till you get your facts learned." Those "facts" are that "Poor man wanna be rich / Rich man wanna be king / And a king aint satisfied / Till he rules everything." But Springsteens characters, some of whom he inhabited and sang for in the first person, had little and were in danger of losing even that. Their only hope for redemption lay in working harder -- "You gotta live it everyday," he sang in "Badlands," but you also, as another song noted, have to "Prove It All Night." And their only escape lay in driving. Springsteen presented these hard truths in hard rock settings, the tracks paced by powerful drumming and searing guitar solos. Though not as heavily produced as Born to Run, Darkness was given a full-bodied sound, with prominent keyboards and double-tracked vocals. Springsteens stories were becoming less heroic, but his musical style remained grand. Yet the sound, and the conviction in his singing, added weight to songs like "Racing in the Street" and the title track, transforming the pathetic into the tragic. But despite the rock & roll fervor, Darkness was no easy listen, and it served notice that Springsteen was already willing to risk his popularity for his principles. Indeed, Darkness was not as big a seller as Born to Run. And it presaged even starker efforts, such as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 21 Title: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. / The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle / Born to Run Released: 1980 Tracks: 24 Duration: 2:03:15 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Blinded by the Light (05:02) 2 Growin’ Up (03:05) 3 Mary Queen of Arkansas (05:20) 4 Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street? (02:05) 5 Lost in the Flood (05:14) 6 The Angel (03:23) 7 For You (04:39) 8 Spirit in the Night (04:58) 9 It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City (03:13) 1 The E Street Shuffle (04:29) 2 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) (05:36) 3 Kitty’s Back (07:09) 4 Wild Billy’s Circus Story (04:47) 5 Incident on 57th Street (07:45) 6 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (07:03) 7 New York City Serenade (09:56) 1 Thunder Road (04:50) 2 Tenth Avenue Freeze‐Out (03:11) 3 Night (03:01) 4 Backstreets (06:30) 5 Born to Run (04:30) 6 She’s the One (04:30) 7 Meeting Across the River (03:18) 8 Jungleland (09:33) |
 | Album: 6 of 21 Title: The River Released: 1980-10-10 Tracks: 20 Duration: 1:23:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Ties That Bind (03:34) 2 Sherry Darling (04:03) 3 Jackson Cage (03:04) 4 Two Hearts (02:45) 5 Independence Day (04:50) 6 Hungry Heart (03:19) 7 Out in the Street (04:18) 8 Crush on You (03:10) 9 You Can Look (but You Better Not Touch) (02:37) 10 I Wanna Marry You (03:30) 11 The River (05:00) 1 Point Blank (06:06) 2 Cadillac Ranch (03:03) 3 I’m a Rocker (03:36) 4 Fade Away (04:46) 5 Stolen Car (03:54) 6 Ramrod (04:05) 7 The Price You Pay (05:29) 8 Drive All Night (08:33) 9 Wreck on the Highway (03:54) |
| The River : Allmusic album Review : After taking his early urban folk tales of cars and girls as far as he could on Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen took a long, hard look at the lives of those same Jersey street kids a few years down the line, now saddled with adult responsibilities and realizing that the American Dream was increasingly out of their grasp, on 1978s Darkness on the Edge of Town, an album that dramatically broadened Springsteens musical range and lyrical scope. With 1980s The River, Springsteen sought to expand on those themes while also offering more of the tough, bar-band rock that was his trademark (and often conspicuous in its absence on Darkness), and by the time it was released it had swelled into Springsteens first two-LP set. The River was Springsteens most ambitious work to date, even as the music sounded leaner and more strongly rooted in rock & roll tradition than anything on Darkness or Born to Run, and though the album wasnt the least bit short on good times, the fun in songs like "Two Hearts," "Out in the Street," and "Cadillac Ranch" is rarely without some weightier subtext. As the romantic rush of "Two Hearts" fades into the final break with family on "Independence Day" and the sentimentality of "I Wanna Marry You" is followed by the grim truths of the title tune, nothing is easy or without consequence in Springsteens world, and the albums themes of youthful ideals buckling under the weight of crushing reality are neatly summed up as Springsteen asks the essential question of his career, "Is a dream a lie if it dont come true?" Like many double albums, The River doesnt always balance well, and while the first half is consistently strong, part two is full of songs that work individually but dont cohere into a satisfying whole (and "Wreck on the Highway" is beautiful but fails to resolve the albums essential themes). But if the sequencing is somewhat flawed, Springsteen rises to his own challenges as a songwriter, penning a set of tunes that are heartfelt and literate but unpretentious while rocking hard, and the E Street Band were never used to better advantage, capturing the taut, swaggering force of their live shows in the studio with superb accuracy (and if the very 80s snare crack dates this album, Neil Dorfsmans engineering makes this one of Springsteens best-sounding works). The River wasnt Springsteens first attempt to make a truly adult rock & roll album, but its certainly a major step forward from Darkness on the Edge of Town, and he rarely made an album as compelling as this, or one that rewards repeat listening as well. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 21 Title: Nebraska Released: 1982-09-20 Tracks: 10 Duration: 40:44 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Nebraska (04:32) 2 Atlantic City (03:58) 3 Mansion on the Hill (04:08) 4 Johnny 99 (03:43) 5 Highway Patrolman (05:40) 6 State Trooper (03:17) 7 Used Cars (03:10) 8 Open All Night (02:58) 9 My Father’s House (05:07) 10 Reason to Believe (04:08) |
| Nebraska : Allmusic album Review : There is an adage in the record business that a recording artists demos of new songs often come off better than the more polished versions later worked up in a studio. But Bruce Springsteen was the first person to act on that theory, when he opted to release the demo versions of his latest songs, recorded with only acoustic or electric guitar, harmonica, and vocals, as his sixth album, Nebraska. It was really the content that dictated the approach, however. Nebraskas ten songs marked a departure for Springsteen, even as they took him farther down a road hed already been traveling. Gradually, his songs became darker and more pessimistic, and those on Nebraska marked a new low. They also found him branching out into better developed stories. The title track was a first-person account of the killing spree of mass murderer Charlie Starkweather. (It cant have been coincidental that the same story was told in director Terrence Malicks 1973 film Badlands, also used as a Springsteen song title.) That song set the tone for a series of portraits of small-time criminals, desperate people, and those who loved them. Just as the recordings were unpolished, the songs themselves didnt seem quite finished; sometimes the same line turned up in two songs. But that only served to unify the album. Within the difficult times, however, there was hope, especially as the album went on. "Open All Night" was a Chuck Berry-style rocker, and the album closed with "Reason to Believe," a song whose hard-luck verses were belied by the chorus -- even if the singer couldnt understand what it was, "people find some reason to believe." Still, Nebraska was one of the most challenging albums ever released by a major star on a major record label. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 21 Title: Born in the U.S.A. Released: 1984-06-04 Tracks: 12 Duration: 46:51 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Born in the U.S.A. (04:39) 2 Cover Me (03:28) 3 Darlington County (04:50) 4 Working on the Highway (03:15) 5 Downbound Train (03:37) 6 I’m on Fire (02:39) 7 No Surrender (04:02) 8 Bobby Jean (03:48) 9 I’m Goin’ Down (03:31) 10 Glory Days (04:18) 11 Dancing in the Dark (04:03) 12 My Hometown (04:36) |
| Born in the U.S.A. : Allmusic album Review : Bruce Springsteen had become increasingly downcast as a songwriter during his recording career, and his pessimism bottomed out with Nebraska. But Born in the U.S.A., his popular triumph, which threw off seven Top Ten hits and became one of the best-selling albums of all time, trafficked in much the same struggle, albeit set to galloping rhythms and set off by chiming guitars. That the witless wonders of the Reagan regime attempted to co-opt the title track as an election-year campaign song wasnt so surprising: the verses described the disenfranchisement of a lower-class Vietnam vet, and the chorus was intended to be angry, but it came off as anthemic. Then, too, Springsteen had softened his message with nostalgia and sentimentality, and those are always crowd-pleasers. "Glory Days" may have employed Springsteens trademark disaffection, yet it came across as a couch potatos drunken lament. But more than anything else, Born in the U.S.A. marked the first time that Springsteens characters really seemed to relish the fight and to have something to fight for. They were not defeated ("No Surrender"), and they had friendship ("Bobby Jean") and family ("My Hometown") to defend. The restless hero of "Dancing in the Dark" even pledged himself in the face of futility, and for Springsteen, that was a step. The "romantic young boys" of his first two albums, chastened by "the working life" encountered on his third, fourth, and fifth albums and having faced the despair of his sixth, were still alive on this, his seventh, with their sense of humor and their determination intact. Born in the U.S.A. was their apotheosis, the place where they renewed their commitment and where Springsteen remembered that he was a rock & roll star, which is how a vastly increased public was happy to treat him. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 21 Title: The Born in the U.S.A. 12" Single Collection Released: 1985 Tracks: 15 Duration: 1:10:23 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Dancing in the Dark (extended remix) (06:00) 2 Pink Cadillac (03:33) 1 Cover Me (undercover mix) (06:05) 2 Cover Me (dub I) (04:09) 3 Shut Out the Light (03:52) 4 Dancing in the Dark (dub) (04:57) 5 Jersey Girl (live) (05:50) 1 I’m on Fire (02:36) 2 Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (07:02) 3 Born in the U.S.A. (freedom mix) (07:20) 4 Johnny Bye Bye (01:20) 1 Glory Days (04:15) 2 Stand on It (02:30) 3 Sherry Darling (04:02) 4 Racing in the Street (06:52) |
 | Album: 10 of 21 Title: Tunnel of Love Released: 1987-09-30 Tracks: 12 Duration: 46:23 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Ain’t Got You (02:11) 2 Tougher Than the Rest (04:35) 3 All That Heaven Will Allow (02:39) 4 Spare Parts (03:44) 5 Cautious Man (03:58) 6 Walk Like a Man (03:45) 7 Tunnel of Love (05:12) 8 Two Faces (03:03) 9 Brilliant Disguise (04:15) 10 One Step Up (04:22) 11 When You’re Alone (03:24) 12 Valentine’s Day (05:10) |
| Tunnel of Love : Allmusic album Review : Just as he had followed his 1980 commercial breakthrough The River with the challenging Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen followed the most popular album of his career, Born in the U.S.A., with another low-key, anguished effort, Tunnel of Love. Especially in their sound, several of the songs, "Cautious Man" and "Two Faces," for example, could have fit seamlessly onto Nebraska, though the arrangements overall were not as stripped-down and acoustic as on the earlier album. While Nebraska was filled with songs of economic desperation, however, Tunnel of Love, as its title suggested, was an album of romantic exploration. But the lovers were just as desperate in their way as Nebraskas small-time criminals. In song after song, Springsteen questioned the trust and honesty on both sides in a romantic relationship, specifically a married relationship. Since Springsteen sounded more autobiographical than ever before ("Aint Got You" referred to his popular success, while "Walk Like a Man" seemed another explicit message to his father), it was hard not to wonder about the state of his own two-and-a-half-year marriage, and it wasnt surprising when that marriage collapsed the following year. Tunnel of Love was not the album that the ten million fans who had bought Born in the U.S.A. as of 1987 were waiting for, and though it topped the charts, sold three million copies, and spawned three Top 40 hits, much of this was on career momentum. Springsteen was as much at a crossroads with his audience as he seemed to be in his work and in his personal life, though this was not immediately apparent. | ||
 | Album: 11 of 21 Title: Human Touch Released: 1992-03-26 Tracks: 14 Duration: 58:48 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Human Touch (06:31) 2 Soul Driver (04:39) 3 57 Channels (and Nothin’ On) (02:28) 4 Cross My Heart (03:51) 5 Gloria’s Eyes (03:46) 6 With Every Wish (04:39) 7 Roll of the Dice (04:18) 8 Real World (05:26) 9 All or Nothin’ at All (03:23) 10 Man’s Job (04:38) 11 I Wish I Were Blind (04:48) 12 The Long Goodbye (03:30) 13 Real Man (04:33) 14 Pony Boy (02:14) |
| Human Touch : Allmusic album Review : Bruce Springsteen has always been steeped in mainstream pop/rock music, using it as a vocabulary for what he wanted to say about weightier matters. And he has always written generic pop as well, though hes usually given the results away to performers like Southside Johnny and Gary "U.S." Bonds. Sometimes, those songs have been hits -- think of the Pointer Sisters "Fire" or Bonds "This Little Girl Is Mine." Occasionally, Springsteen has used such material here and there on his own albums; some of it can be found on The River, for example. But Human Touch was the first Bruce Springsteen album to consist entirely of this kind of minor genre material, material he seems capable of turning out endlessly and effortlessly -- the point of "I Wish I Were Blind" is that the singer doesnt want to see, now that his baby has left him; "57 Channels (And Nothin On)" is about TV; "Real Man" finds the singer declaring that, while he may not be an action hero like Rambo, he feels like a real man in his babys arms. And Springsteen, having largely jettisoned the E Street Band (keyboardist Roy Bittan remained), enlisted some sturdy minor talent to play and sing, among them ace studio drummer Jeff Porcaro (on one of his final recording sessions), Sam Moore of Sam & Dave, and Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers. Its pleasant enough stuff, and easy to listen to, but it is not the kind of record Springsteen had conditioned his audience to expect, and its release brought considerable disappointment. The reaction was exacerbated by the drawn-out release schedule that by 1992 had become common to superstars: this simply wasnt the record Springsteen fans had waited four and a half years to hear. Though at nearly 59 minutes it was the longest single-disc album of his career (which is not even counting the fact that a second whole album was released simultaneously), and though it contained several songs that could have been big hits -- the "Tunnel of Love" sound-alike title track, which actually made the Top 40, "Roll of the Dice," an AOR radio favorite, "Mans Job," and even "Soul Driver," which belonged on the next Southside album -- Human Touch was an uninspired Bruce Springsteen album, his first that didnt at least aspire to greatness. Springsteen may have put out the more substantial Lucky Town at the same time in recognition of the relatively slight nature of the material here. | ||
 | Album: 12 of 21 Title: Lucky Town Released: 1992-03-26 Tracks: 10 Duration: 39:37 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Better Days (04:08) 2 Lucky Town (03:27) 3 Local Hero (04:04) 4 If I Should Fall Behind (02:57) 5 Leap of Faith (03:27) 6 The Big Muddy (04:06) 7 Living Proof (04:48) 8 Book of Dreams (04:24) 9 Souls of the Departed (04:18) 10 My Beautiful Reward (03:55) |
| Lucky Town : Allmusic album Review : Reportedly, Bruce Springsteen recorded most of Human Touch in 1990, but left it unreleased. He returned to work in the fall of 1991, intending to add a song, but ended up recording a whole new album, Lucky Town, and then decided to release both records at the same time in the spring of 1992. He might have been better off pulling a couple of the stronger songs from the earlier album, adding them to the later one (which runs less than 40 minutes), and shelving the rest. While Human Touch was a disappointing album of second-rate material, Lucky Town is an ambitious collection addressing many of Springsteens major concerns and moving them forward. Here was the rage and the humor, the sense of compassion, the loyalty and commitment that had been the stuff of Springsteens best music from the beginning. Songs like "Better Days" and "Local Hero" commented on and deflated the commercial success with which Springsteen clearly felt uncomfortable; "If I Should Fall Behind" and "Book of Dreams" expressed romantic fidelity and generosity; "Souls of the Departed" contained scathing social commentary; and "My Beautiful Reward" was a meditative epilogue. The lyrics were better, the arrangements tighter, the performances more powerful than those on the companion release. If Lucky Town, like Tunnel of Love and Human Touch before it, sounded a little under-produced, it nevertheless had the mark of the major artist Springsteen is, and if he had released it alone, it might have had a more significant impact. | ||
 | Album: 13 of 21 Title: The Ghost of Tom Joad Released: 1995-11-21 Tracks: 12 Duration: 50:14 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Ghost of Tom Joad (04:23) 2 Straight Time (03:30) 3 Highway 29 (03:44) 4 Youngstown (03:57) 5 Sinaloa Cowboys (03:52) 6 The Line (05:19) 7 Balboa Park (03:21) 8 Dry Lightning (03:37) 9 The New Timer (05:49) 10 Across the Border (05:29) 11 Galveston Bay (05:07) 12 My Best Was Never Good Enough (02:00) |
| The Ghost of Tom Joad : Allmusic album Review : In 1982, with Ronald Reagan in the White House and much of America torn between a newly fierce patriotism and the dispassionate conservatism of the dawning "Greed Is Good" era, a number of roots-oriented rock musicians began examining the State of the Union in song, and one of the most powerful albums to come out of this movement was Bruce Springsteens stark, home-recorded masterpiece Nebraska. In 1995, Bill Clinton was president, America was congratulating itself for a new era of high-tech peace and prosperity, and Springsteen returned to the themes and approach of Nebraska with The Ghost of Tom Joad, an album that suggested little had changed in the past 13 years -- except Americans had gotten better at ignoring the increasingly sharp divide between the rich and the poor, and that illegal aliens who had come to America looking for the fabled Land of Milk and Honey were being forced to shoulder a heavy and dangerous burden in Americas underground economy. With several of its songs drawn directly from news stories, The Ghost of Tom Joad is more explicitly political than Nebraska (more so than anything in Springsteens catalog, for that matter), and while the arrangements are more full-bodied than those on Nebraska (five cuts feature a full band), the production and the overall tone is, if anything, even starker and more low-key, with the lyrics all the more powerful for their spare backdrops. While theres an undertow of bitterness in this albums tales of an America that has turned its back on the working class and the foreign-born, theres also a tremendous compassion in songs like "The Line," "Sinaloa Cowboys," "Balboa Park," and the title cut, which lend their subjects a dignity fate failed to give them. Individually, these songs, either angry or plaintive, are clean and expertly drawn tales of life along this nations margins, and their cumulative effect is nothing short of heartbreaking; anyone who pegged Springsteen as a zealously patriotic conservative in the wake of the widely misunderstood Born in the U.S.A. needs to hear this disc. The Ghost of Tom Joad failed to find the same audience (or the same wealth of media attention) that embraced Nebraska, but on its own terms its a striking and powerful album, and certainly one of Springsteens most deeply personal works. | ||
 | Album: 14 of 21 Title: The Rising Released: 2002-07-29 Tracks: 15 Duration: 1:12:55 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Lonesome Day (04:07) 2 Into the Fire (05:04) 3 Waitin’ on a Sunny Day (04:18) 4 Nothing Man (04:23) 5 Countin’ on a Miracle (04:44) 6 Empty Sky (03:34) 7 Worlds Apart (06:07) 8 Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin) (04:21) 9 Further on (Up the Road) (03:52) 10 The Fuse (05:37) 11 Mary’s Place (06:03) 12 You’re Missing (05:10) 13 The Rising (04:49) 14 Paradise (05:39) 15 My City of Ruins (05:00) |
| The Rising : Allmusic album Review : The many voices that come out of the ether on Bruce Springsteens The Rising all seem to have two things in common: the first is that they are writing from the other side, from the day after September 11, 2001, the day when life began anew, more uncertain than ever before. The other commonality that these voices share is the determination that life, however fraught with tragedy and confusion, is precious and should be lived as such. On this reunion with the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen offers 15 meditations -- in grand rock & roll style -- on his own way of making sense of the senseless. The band is in fine form, though with Brendan OBriens uncanny production, they play with an urgency and rawness theyve seldom shown. This may not have been the ideal occasion for a reunion after 15 years, but its one they got, and they go for broke. The individual tracks offer various glimpses of loss, confusion, hope, faith, resolve, and a good will that can only be shown by those who have been tested by fire. The music and production is messy, greasy; a lot of the mixes bleed tracks onto one another, giving it a more homemade feel than any previous E Street Band outing. And yes, thats a very good thing. The set opens with "Lonesome Day," a midtempo rocker with country-ish roots. Springsteens protagonist admits to his or her shortcomings in caring for the now-absent beloved. But despite the grief and emptiness, there is a wisdom that emerges in questioning what remains: "Better ask questions before you shoot/Deceit and betrayals bitter fruit/Its hard to swallow come time to pay/That taste on your tongue dont easily slip away/Let kingdom come/Im gonna find my way/ Through this lonesome day." Brendan OBriens hurdy-gurdy cuts through the mix like a ghost, offering a view of an innocent past that has been forever canceled because it never was anyway; the instrument, like the glockenspiels that trim Bruce Springsteens songs, offers not only texture, but a kind of formalist hint that possibilities dont always lie in the future. Lest anyone mistakenly perceive this recording as a somber evocation of loss and despair, it should also be stated that this is very much an E Street Band recording. Clarence Clemons is everywhere, and the R&B swing and slip of the days of yore is in the house -- especially on "Waitin for a Sunny Day," "Countin on a Miracle," "Marys Place" (with a full horn section), and the souled-out "Lets Be Friends (Skin to Skin)." These tracks echo the past with their loose good-time feel, but "echo" is the key word. Brendan OBriens guitar-accented production offers us an E Street Band coming out of the ether and stepping in to fill a void. The songs themselves are, without exception, rooted in loss, but flower with the possibility of moving into what comes next, with a hard-won swagger and busted-up grace. They offer balance and a shifting perspective, as well as a depth that is often deceptive. The title track is one of Springsteens greatest songs. It is an anthem, but not in the sense you usually reference in regard to his work. This anthem is an invitation to share everything, to accept everything, to move through everything individually and together. Power-chorded guitars and pianos entwine in the choruses with a choir, and Clemons wails on a part with a stinging solo. With The Rising, Springsteen has found a way to be inclusive and instructive without giving up his particular vision as a songwriter, nor his considerable strength as a rock & roll artist. In fact, if anything, The Rising is one of the very best examples in recent history of how popular art can evoke a time period and all of its confusing and often contradictory notions, feelings, and impulses. There are tales of great suffering in The Rising to be sure, but there is joy, hope, and possibility, too. Above all, there is a celebration and reverence for everyday life. And if we need anything from rock & roll, its that. It would be unfair to lay on Bruce Springsteen the responsibility of guiding people through the aftermath of a tragedy and getting on with the business of living, but rock & roll as impure, messy, and edifying as this helps. | ||
 | Album: 15 of 21 Title: Devils & Dust Released: 2005-04-25 Tracks: 16 Duration: 1:11:20 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Devils & Dust (04:58) 2 All the Way Home (03:38) 3 Reno (04:08) 4 Long Time Comin’ (04:15) 5 Black Cowboys (04:08) 6 Maria’s Bed (05:35) 7 Silver Palomino (03:22) 8 Jesus Was an Only Son (02:54) 9 Leah (03:31) 10 The Hitter (05:53) 11 All I’m Thinkin’ About (04:22) 12 Matamoros Banks (04:00) 13 Murder Incorporated (06:07) 14 Mansion on the Hill (04:16) 15 My Love Will Not Let You Down (05:37) 16 Two Hearts (04:28) |
| Devils & Dust : Allmusic album Review : Every decade or so, Bruce Springsteen releases a somber album of narrative songs, character sketches, and folk tunes -- records that play not like rock & roll, but rather as a collection of short stories. Nebraska, released in the fall of 1982 during the rise of Reagans America, was the first of these, with the brooding The Ghost of Tom Joad following in 1995, in the thick of the Clinton administration but before the heady boom days of the late 90s. At the midpoint of George W. Bushs administration, Springsteen released Devils & Dust, another collection of story songs that would seem on the surface to be a companion to Nebraska and Ghost, but in actuality is quite a different record than either. While the characters that roam through Devils & Dust are similarly heartbroken, desperate, and downtrodden, theyre far removed from the criminals and renegades of Nebraska, and the album doesnt have the political immediacy of Ghosts latter-day Woody Guthrie-styled tales -- themes that tied together those two albums. Here, the songs and stories are loosely connected. Several are set in the West, some are despairing, some have signs of hope, a couple are even sweet and light. Springsteens writing is similarly varied, occasionally hearkening back to the spare, dusty prose of Nebraska, but often its densely composed, assured, and evocative, written as if the songs were meant to be read aloud, not sung. But the key to Devils & Dust, and why its his strongest record in a long time, is that the music is as vivid and varied as the words. Unlike the meditative, monochromatic The Ghost of Tom Joad, this has different shades of color, so somber epics like "The Hitter" or the sad, lonely "Reno" are balanced by the lighter "Long Time Comin," "Marias Bed," and "All Im Thinkin About," while the moodier "Black Cowboys" and "Devils & Dust" are enhanced by subtly cinematic productions. It results in a record thats far removed in feel from the stark, haunting Nebraska, but on a song-for-song level, its nearly as strong, since its stories linger in the imagination as long as the ones from that 1982 masterpiece (and they stick around longer than those from Ghost, as well). Devils & Dust is also concise and precisely constructed, two things the otherwise excellent 2002 comeback The Rising was not, and that sharp focus helps make this the leanest, artiest, and simply best Springsteen record in many years. [Devils & Dust was released only as a DualDisc, a disc that contains a CD on one side and a DVD on the flip. The DVD contains a 5.1 mix of the album, plus a 30-minute film containing interviews with Springsteen and footage of him performing five songs live in the upstairs of a house; in other words, its a staged performance, not a concert. The interviews are enjoyable, if not particularly interesting, while the live acoustic performances are not strictly unadorned -- "Reno" has pianos and synthesizers discreetly murmuring in the background, "All Im Thinkin About" has synths and backing vocals. Its a fine little film, but not something that merits frequent repeat viewings. The CD side appears to be copy-protected -- it did not read in either a PC with Windows XP or a Mac with OSX, so it cannot easily be ripped as MP3s.] | ||
 | Album: 16 of 21 Title: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions Released: 2006-04-24 Tracks: 13 Duration: 1:00:34 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Old Dan Tucker (02:31) 2 Jesse James (03:47) 3 Mrs. McGrath (04:19) 4 O Mary Don’t You Weep (06:04) 5 John Henry (05:07) 6 Erie Canal (04:03) 7 Jacob’s Ladder (04:28) 8 My Oklahoma Home (06:03) 9 Eyes on the Prize (05:16) 10 Shenandoah (04:52) 11 Pay Me My Money Down (04:32) 12 We Shall Overcome (04:53) 13 Froggie Went a Courtin’ (04:32) |
| We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions : Allmusic album Review : We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is an unusual Bruce Springsteen album in a number of ways. First, its the first covers album Springsteen has recorded in his three-decade career, which is a noteworthy event in itself, but thats not the only thing different about We Shall Overcome. Springsteen, a notorious perfectionist who has been known to tweak and rework albums numerous times before releasing them (or scrapping them, as the case may be), pulled together the album quickly, putting aside a planned second volume of the rarities collection Tracks after discovering a set of recordings he made in 1997 for a Pete Seeger tribute album called Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger. Enthralled by this handful of tracks -- one of which, "We Shall Overcome," appeared on the tribute -- Springsteen decided to cut a whole album of folk tunes popularized by Pete Seeger. He rounded up 13 musicians, including some who played on those 1997 sessions, and did two one-day sessions in late 2005 and early 2006, swiftly releasing the resulting album that April. As Bruce stresses in his introductory liner notes, these were live recordings, done with no rehearsals, and We Shall Overcome does indeed have an unmistakably loose feel, and not just because you can hear the Boss call out chord changes in a handful of songs. This music is rowdy and rambling, as the group barrels head-first into songs that theyre playing together as a band for the first time, and its hard not to get swept up along in their excitement. Springsteen has made plenty of great records, but We Shall Overcome is unique in its sheer kinetic energy; he has never made a record that feels as alive as this. Not only does We Shall Overcome feel different than Bruces work; it also feels different than Seegers music. Most of Seegers recordings were spare and simple, featuring just him and his banjo; his most elaborately produced records were with the Weavers, whose recordings of the 50s did feature orchestration, yet thats a far cry from the big folk band that Springsteen uses here. Bruces combo for the Seeger sessions has a careening, ramshackle feel thats equal parts early-60s hootenanny and Bob Dylan and the Bands Americana; at times, its ragged human qualities also recall latter-day Tom Waits, although the music here is nowhere near as self-consciously arty as that. Springsteen has truly used Seegers music as inspiration, using it as the starting point to take him someplace that is uniquely his own in sheer musical terms. Given that, it should be no great surprise that Bruce also picks through Seegers songbook in a similar fashion, leaving many (if not most) of Petes well-known songs behind in favor of a selection of folk standards Springsteen learned through Seegers recordings. (Author/critic Dave Marsh researched the origins of each song here; there are brief introductions within the albums liner notes and thorough histories presented on the official Springsteen site.) While the songs featured here adhere to no one specific theme -- there are work songs, spirituals, narratives, and protest songs -- it is possible to see this collection of tunes as Springsteens subtle commentary on the political state of America, especially given Seegers reputation as an outspoken political activist, but this record should hardly be judged as merely an old-fashioned folk record. We Shall Overcome is many things, but a creaky relic is not one of them. Springsteen has drawn from Seegers songbook -- which he assembled in the 40s, 50s, and 60s from traditional folk songs -- and turned it into something fresh and contemporary. And even if you have no patience for (or interest in) the history of the songs, or their possible meanings, its easy to enjoy We Shall Overcome on pure musical terms: its a rambunctious, freewheeling, positively joyous record unlike any other in Springsteens admittedly rich catalog. [We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was released in the U.S. as a DualDisc, containing a CD on one side and a DVD on the other. The CD side merely contains the album. The DVD contains the album in PCM stereo (theres no 5.1 mix, although given the big-band nature of this session, this album would have sounded great in Surround Sound), along with two bonus tracks, the rollicking "Buffalo Gals" and the moody, soulful "How Can I Keep from Singing." Both bonus cuts are excellent and should have been on the album proper. There is also a 30-minute video program that chronicles some of the recording of the album, but its not a documentary: its more of a performance film with commentary, and while it could have been longer or had more commentary, its still quite enjoyable. Finally, We Shall Overcome also was released separately as a vinyl LP.] | ||
 | Album: 17 of 21 Title: Magic Released: 2007-10-01 Tracks: 12 Duration: 47:51 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Radio Nowhere (03:19) 2 You’ll Be Comin’ Down (03:45) 3 Livin’ in the Future (03:56) 4 Your Own Worst Enemy (03:18) 5 Gypsy Biker (04:31) 6 Girls in Their Summer Clothes (04:19) 7 I’ll Work for Your Love (03:34) 8 Magic (02:45) 9 Last to Die (04:16) 10 Long Walk Home (04:34) 11 Devil’s Arcade (05:20) 12 Terry’s Song (04:11) |
| Magic : Allmusic album Review : Hailed as Bruce Springsteens return to rock upon its release in fall 2007, Magic isnt quite as straightforward as that description would have it seem. True, this does mark another reunion with the E Street Band, only his second studio album with the group since 1984s Born in the U.S.A., giving this a rock & roll heft missing from his two previous albums -- the dusty, literary Devils & Dust and the raucous We Shall Overcome: The Pete Seeger Sessions -- and unlike The Rising, the first E Street Band album of the new millennium, there is no overarching theme here. Its just a collection of songs, something that Bruce hasnt done since Human Touch, or maybe even The River. All the ingredients are in place for a simple, straight-ahead rock album, except for two things: Springsteen didnt write a lot of flat-out rock songs, and with his producer Brendan OBrien, he didnt make an album that sounds much like a rock & roll album, either. Magic is bright and punchy, a digital-age production through and through, right down to how each track feels as if it were crafted according to its own needs instead of the record as a whole. Underneath this shiny veneer, the E Street Band can still lift this music toward great heights, infusing it with a sense of majesty, but this is an E Street Band that was recorded piecemeal in the studio, pasted together track by track as the group fit sessions into their busy schedules. This approach gives the album a bit of a mannered, meticulous sound not unlike The Rising, but such careful construction was appropriate for Springsteens cautious, caring 9/11 rumination; on Magic it tends to keep the music from reaching full flight. Then again, the songs here dont quite lend themselves to either the transcendent sweep of Born to Run or the down-n-dirty roadhouse rockers that cluttered The River. Theres a quiet melancholy underpinning this album. Its evident even on the hard-driving "Radio Nowhere," whose charging guitars mask a sense of desperation, or the deceptively breezy "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," which grows more wistful with each passing chorus. "Girls" is also indicative of how Magic doesnt quite feel like classic E Street Band, even when it offers reminders of their classic sound: like "Born to Run," it trades upon Phil Spector, but here the band doesnt absorb the Wall of Sound; they evoke it, giving the song a nostalgic bent that emphasizes the soft sadness in his melody. This oddly bittersweet vibe that is shared by "Your Own Worst Enemy," whose baroque harpsichords -- uncannily reminiscent of the Left Banke -- are the biggest curveball here. That is, its the biggest specific curveball outside of the overall feel of Magic, which is far too somber to be called just another rock & roll album. The solemn, sepia-toned picture of the Boss on the cover is a pretty big tip-off that there may not be a whole lot of good times coming on Magic, but its a surprise that this is not only not as joyous as We Shall Overcome, it doesnt have as many moments of sunny relief as The Rising, which had "Waitin on a Sunny Day" and "Marys Place" among its quiet, artful grief. Here, the joy and the sadness are fused, skewing such otherwise lively numbers as "Livin in the Future" -- which otherwise sounds like it could sneak onto the second side of Born in the U.S.A. -- toward the sober side. Springsteen also targets war and politics throughout the album, either through metaphors (the title track, where the audience is suckered by a con man) or blunt declarations ("Last to Die"). All this toil and tension doesnt make for a very fun album, but 2007 isnt a very fun time, so its an appropriate reflection of the time. The thing of it is, despite some fine moments of craft -- both musical and lyrical, whether on "Gypsy Biker" or "Long Walk Home" -- the songs arent written with the keen literary eye that made Devils & Dust play like a collection of short stories. Like the music, the words just feel a shade too deliberate, rendering Magic just a bit too overthought -- hardly enough to make for a bad record, but one that isnt quite grabbing, even if it is helped immeasurably by the E Street Band in old pro mode. And whats missing comes into sharp relief as the album draws to a close with "Terrys Song," a quickly written and recorded tribute to Terry Magovern, Springsteens longtime friend and assistant. Compared to the rest of the album, this simple tune is a bit ragged, but its soulful, moving, and indelible, immediate where the rest of the album is a shade distant. After hearing it, its hard not to wish that Bruce would record this way all the time. | ||
 | Album: 18 of 21 Title: Working on a Dream Released: 2009-01-23 Tracks: 13 Duration: 51:38 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Outlaw Pete (08:00) 2 My Lucky Day (04:00) 3 Working on a Dream (03:30) 4 Queen of the Supermarket (04:39) 5 What Love Can Do (02:56) 1 This Life (04:30) 2 Good Eye (03:00) 3 Tomorrow Never Knows (02:13) 4 Life Itself (04:00) 5 Kingdom of Days (04:02) 6 Surprise, Surprise (03:24) 7 The Last Carnival (03:29) 8 The Wrestler (03:50) |
| Working on a Dream : Allmusic album Review : From its bright, brittle production to its tossed-off postage stamp cover art, Working on a Dream is in every respect a companion piece to Magic, an album thats merely a set of songs, both sprawling and deliberately small, songs that dont necessarily tackle any one major theme but all add up to a portrait of their time. Magic chronicled the dog days of Bush where Working on a Dream is designed as a keynote to the Obama age, released just a week after the inauguration of the U.S.s 44th president and not coincidentally containing not a little optimism within its 13 tracks. This sense of hope is a tonic to the despair that crept into the margins of Magic but its easy to posit Working on a Dream as pure positivity, which isnt exactly true: a hangover from W lingers, most vividly in the broken spirit of "The Wrestler," and Bruce mourning departed E Street Band member Danny Federici with "The Last Carnival." Springsteen peppers his tribute with images recalling the early days of the E Street Band but saves a revival of their wild, woolly sound for the opening "Outlaw Pete," a cavernous, circular, comical epic reminiscent of Springsteens unwieldy portraits of rats on the Jersey Shore. "Outlaw Pete" is Working on a Dream at its best, playing like nothing less than The E Street Shuffle as reflected and refracted through Arcade Fires naked hero worship, casually highlighting how producer Brendan OBrien has gently nudged the Boss toward new musical avenues. Many of these new sounds are drawn from the past, often feeling informed by Little Stevens Underground Garage -- Van Zandt and Nils Lofgrens guitars chime like the Byrds; the band knocks out a tough little blues number on "Good Eye"; and Springsteen shows a knack for pure pop on "Surprise, Surprise" and indulges his ever-increasing Brian Wilson fascination on "This Life," whose percolating organs and harmonies rival the High Llamas. All this rests nicely alongside the Boss trademarks -- galloping rockers that fill a stadium ("My Lucky Day") and their polar opposite, his intimate acoustic tunes ("Tomorrow Never Knows") -- which all make Working on a Dream read like a rich, inventive, musical album...which it is, to an extent. The ideas and intent are there, but the album is hampered slightly by the overall modesty of Springsteens writing -- by and large, these are small-scale songs and feel that way -- and hurt significantly by the precise, digital production that muffles the musics imagination and impact. A large part of Springsteens appeal has always been how the E Street Band has sounded as big and open as his heart, but Working on a Dream, like Magic before it, has a production that feels tiny and constrained even as it is layered with extraneous details. Its possible to listen around this production and hear the modest charms of the songs, but the album would be better if the sound matched the sentiment. | ||
 | Album: 19 of 21 Title: Wrecking Ball Released: 2012-03-02 Tracks: 13 Duration: 1:01:44 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 We Take Care of Our Own (03:53) 2 Easy Money (03:36) 3 Shackled and Drawn (03:46) 4 Jack of All Trades (05:59) 5 Death to My Hometown (03:28) 6 This Depression (04:07) 7 Wrecking Ball (05:49) 8 You’ve Got It (03:48) 9 Rocky Ground (04:40) 10 Land of Hope and Dreams (06:58) 11 We Are Alive (05:36) 12 Swallowed Up (In the Belly of the Whale) (05:35) 13 American Land (04:23) |
| Wrecking Ball : Allmusic album Review : Heavy lies the crown on Bruce Springsteens head. Alone among his generation -- or any subsequent generation, actually -- he has shouldered the burden of telling the stories of the downtrodden in the new millennium, a class whose numbers increase by the year, a fact that weighs on Springsteen throughout 2012s Wrecking Ball. Such heavy-hearted rumination is not unusual for the Boss. Ever since The Rising, his 2002 return to action, a record deliberately tailored to address the lingering anger and sorrow from 9/11, Springsteen has eschewed the frivolous in favor of the weighty, escalating his dry, dusty folk and operatic rock in tandem, all in hopes of pushing the plight of the forgotten into public consciousness. Each of his five albums since The Rising have been tailored for the specific political moment -- Devils & Dust ruminated over forgotten Americans in the wake of the Iraq war; We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was an election year rallying call; Magic struggled to find meaning in these hard times; Working on a Dream saw hope in the dawning days of Obama -- and it’s no mistake that Wrecking Ball fuses elements of all four into an election year state of the union: Bruce is taking stock of where we are and how we’ve gotten here, urging us to push forward. If that sounds a bit haughty, it also plays that way. Springsteen has systematically removed any element of fun -- "Mary’s Place" is the only original in the past decade that could be called a party song -- along with all the romance or any element of confessional songwriting. He has adopted the mantle of the troubadour and oral historian, telling tales of the forgotten and punctuating them with rallying calls to action. Wrecking Ball contains more of the latter than any of its predecessors, summoning the masses to rise up against fatcat bankers set to singalongs lifted from Seeger. Theres an unshakable collectivist hootenanny feel on Wrecking Ball, not to mention allusions to gospel including a borrowed refrain from "This Train," but Springsteen takes pains to have the music feel modern, inviting Tom Morello to do aural paintings with his guitar, threading some trip-hop rhythms into the mix, and finding space for a guest rap on "Rocky Ground." As admirable as the intent is, the splices between old-fashioned folk protests and dour modernity become too apparent, possibly because theres so little room to breathe on the album -- the last recorded appearance of Clarence Clemons helps lift "Land of Hope and Dreams" above the rest -- possibly because the message has been placed before the music. Springsteen is so focused on preaching against creeping inequality in the U.S. that hes wound up honing his words and not his music, letting the big-footed stomps and melancholy strumming play second fiddle to the stories. Consequently, Wrecking Ball feels cumbersome and top heavy, Springsteen sacrificing impassioned rage in favor of explaining his intentions too clearly. | ||
 | Album: 20 of 21 Title: High Hopes Released: 2013 Tracks: 12 Duration: 56:26 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 High Hopes (04:57) 2 Harry’s Place (04:04) 3 American Skin (41 Shots) (07:23) 4 Just Like Fire Would (03:56) 5 Down in the Hole (04:59) 6 Heaven’s Wall (03:50) 7 Frankie Fell in Love (02:48) 8 This Is Your Sword (02:52) 9 Hunter of Invisible Game (04:42) 10 The Ghost of Tom Joad (07:33) 11 The Wall (04:20) 12 Dream Baby Dream (05:02) |
| High Hopes : Allmusic album Review : There isnt another Bruce Springsteen album like High Hopes. Cobbled together from covers -- of other songwriters along with the Boss himself ("American Skin [41 Shots]" and "The Ghost of Tom Joad" are both revived) -- and outtakes from the last decade, High Hopes doesnt have the cohesion or gilded surfaces of Wrecking Ball, but neither is it quite a clearinghouse of leftovers. Inspired in part by Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who has proven to be a brother in arms to Springsteen, as well as a substitute for Steven Van Zandt in the E-Street Band, High Hopes certainly bears the proud stamp of Morello, both in its workingmans politics and in its cinematic sound. Much of this record oscillates between the moody and militant, particularly in the politically charged numbers, which are often colored by percussive guitar squalls. Here, the RATM guitarist often resembles a Nils Lofgren stripped of blues or lyricism -- think of the gusts of noise on "Tunnel of Love" without any melodicism -- and thats a bracing change for Springsteen, who has shown interest in atmospherics but usually when theyre coming from keyboards, not six strings. Such sociological talk suggests High Hopes is nothing but rallying cries and downhearted laments, but the fascinating thing about this unkempt collection is how these protest songs and workingmans anthems are surrounded by intimate tunes, ranging from a cover of the Saints latter-day "Just Like Fire Would" to a strangely soothing interpretation of Suicides "Dream Baby Dream." Morello reportedly had as much to do with the inclusion of these covers as he did with the records set pieces -- a stirring "The Ghost of Tom Joad," "American Skin" (which cant help but seem like a reference to the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin in this context), and "High Hopes," a Tim Scott McConnell song first recorded in the 90s -- and theres a certain sober passion that ties all these songs together but, in turn, it makes the rest of the record all the more compelling because the pieces simply dont fit. Theres the rousing Gaelic rock of "This Is Your Sword," sounding a bit like a rejected closing credit theme for The Wire; "Down in the Hole," which rides the same train-track rhythm as "Im on Fire;" the complicated waltz of "Hunter of Invisible Game," softer and stranger than much of the rest here; "Harrys Place," a bit of synthesized Sopranos noir that sounds much older than its ten years; and the absolutely glorious "Frankie Fell in Love," as open-hearted and romantic a song as Springsteen has ever written. Strictly speaking, these 12 songs dont cohere into a mood or narrative but after two decades of deliberate, purposeful albums, its rather thrilling to hear Springsteen revel in a mess of contradictions. | ||
 | Album: 21 of 21 Title: Western Stars Released: 2019-06-14 Tracks: 13 Duration: 50:54 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Hitch Hikin’ (03:38) 2 The Wayfarer (04:18) 3 Tucson Train (03:31) 4 Western Stars (04:41) 5 Sleepy Joe’s Café (03:14) 6 Drive Fast (The Stuntman) (04:16) 7 Chasin’ Wild Horses (05:03) 8 Sundown (03:17) 9 Somewhere North of Nashville (01:53) 10 Stones (04:44) 11 There Goes My Miracle (04:05) 12 Hello Sunshine (03:56) 13 Moonlight Motel (04:18) |