u/jim25y

Previous Albums Ratings:

Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ: 9/10

The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle: 8/10

Born to Run: 10/10

Darkness on the Edge of Town

My rating: 10/10

Favorite Songs: Badlands, Racing in the Streets, Streets of Fire

Least Favorite Songs: Factory

Another great album where all of the sings are top notch. Even my least favorite song, Factory, is a very good song.

Something that occurs to me about the four albums Ive listened to thus far is that each one has a somewhat different feel. Not completely different; we're not talking about a David Bowie level of reinvention. But each album thus far has had a different level of musical focus or texture thus far. The first album had a bit of a folk texture to it, feeling Dylan-esque. The second album was more soulful and atmospheric. Then Born to Run was a shot of adrenaline; a more uptempo and operatic rock album.

Darkness at the Edge of Town lives up to its name. There's a cynical edge to the lyrics and harsh vibe to the music. I would never consider Springsteen a hard rock artist, but of these first four albums, this one rocks the hardest.

I feel like the band is really tight at this point. The guitars, drums, etc, are all working in sync, and every instrument gets its time to shine. There are a couple of guitar solos that I particularly liked. Candy's Room, Prove it All Night, and The Promised Land comes to mind.

I also think that Springsteen's vocals shine on this album. They were very good before, but I feel like he's taken them to another level here.

I'm also struck by the darkness in the lyrics. Even something mike Candy's Room, which us mostly just a love song, the titular Candy has some sort of trauma or depression. And that's one of the happier songs on the album!

Someone in the comments for my review for Born to Run described the band as "young and hungry", and the Born to Run album feels young and hungry as well. This albums feels like Springsteen got the success he was striving for, but that it didn't bring him happiness or relief. I'm not trying to psycho analyze anyone here, I don't much about Springsteen as a person. But that's what this album feels like to me.

Anyways, amazing album. The lyrics are great, the instrumentation is top notch, everyone is firing on all cylinders here. Also, we finally left the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, so that's nice too haha.

Bonus Tracks

So Young and In Love (I missed this from Born to Run)

Give That Girl a Kiss

Iceman

Hearts of Stone

Don't Look Back

I missed another bonus tracks. To try and avoid doing so in the future, I made a spreadsheet. Hopefully that will fix the issue.

The song itself is a fun song. I wouldn't have placed it over any song on Born to Run, but I liked the song itself.

The other four songs are the Outtakes from Tracks. I will be reviewing The Promise album next, so those songs aren't included here.

Give the Girl a Kiss would not have fit well on this album at all, but I still liked it.

Iceland, on the other hand, is an incredible song (imo) and should have made the album over Factory. Did Springsteen think it was too similar to Racing in the Street?

Hearts of Stone and Don't Look Back would both have fit on the album, and they're both solid singers, but I wouldn't have put them on the album over any that are actually on there.

ok, question. The Promise is a 22 track album of outtakes from Darkness on the Edge of Town, right? So, why did only six songs from this album make it onto Tracks? Was Springsteen planning something like The Promise, so he held most of the Outtakes back? Or were the six that were included chosen because Springsteen thought that were the best?

Just curious.

Favorite Quote:

- Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything

- For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside, that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive

- You're born into this life paying for the sins of somebody else's past. Well Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain. Now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame. But you inherit the sins, you inherit the flames

- Well you're born with nothing, and better off that way. Soon as you've got something they send someone to try and take it away

- Woah nothing is forgotten or forgiven, when it's your last time around, hm. And I got stuff running 'round my head that I just can't live down

- Now some guys they just give up living and start dying little by little, piece by piece. Some guys come home from work and wash up and go racing in the street

- She sits on the porch of her daddy's house but all her pretty dreams are torn. She stares off alone into the night with the eyes of one who hates for just being born

- But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold. Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode

- Blow away the dreams that tear you apart, blow away the dreams that break your heart, blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

- And when you realize how they tricked you this time and it's all lies, but I'm strung out on the wire in these streets of fire.

- But if dreams came true, ah wouldn't that be nice. But this ain't no dream we're living out through tonight. Ah girl you want it, you take it, you pay the price to prove it all night.

- Well everybody's got a secret, Sonny. Something that they just can't face. Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it. They carry it with them every step that they take

- Sleepy town ain't got the guts to budge. Baby, this emptiness has already been judged. I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got

- We'll take the midnight road right to the devil's door, and even the white angels of Eden with their flaming swords won't be able to stop us from hitting town in this dirty old Ford

- And you cry because things ain't like before. Well don't you know they can't be that way anymore

Next: The Promise

Hello. Im watching Person of Interest for the first time, and I'm on the 3rd episode. All I know is that it starts out as a procedural but becomes more serialized later on.

I just watched episode 3, where Reese infiltrate an ex-military gang of criminals. My question is this: why did the machine only give them the one number, and not the number for all four guys in the group? All four were gonna be killed by their leader, so I don't understand why the machine only knew about one of them.

I don't want any big spoilers, just wanted to know if I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something. Is this even a question I should be asking?

Previous Albums Ratings:

Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ: 9/10

The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle: 8/10

Born to Run

My rating: 10/10

Favorite Songs: Jungleland, Born to Run, Back Streets

Least Favorite Songs: Meeting Across the River (still a great song, though)

This is a beloved album, and its easy to see why. Every song is incredible. I had trouble picking a least favorite song because they're all so good.

For this album, it feels like Springsteen took all the things that worked for his first two albums and combined them here, to great effect. This album has such great energy and passion, and the song arrangements/production is immaculate.

This album almost feels like a concept album in the sense that all the songs (except She's the One) seem to be about people on the run, in someway or another. Maybe it's more if a common theme than a concept album, but just something noticed.

Idk, I don't have much to add about one of the best loved albums of all time. Its great.

Also, is Backstreets a sequel to Zero and Blind Terry?

Bonus Tracks

Linda, Let Me Be the One

Thundercrack

So, I missed Thundercrack for The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, so I'll include it here. It occurs to me that The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Band had at least 30 minutes of outtakes, many of which are fantastic. It easily could have been a double album (not that the studio would have allowed that for an artist that, as of yet, had no commercial success).

Anyways, Thundercrack is great. It's a really fun song.

Linda, Let Me Be the One, on the other hand, isn't my favorite. It's not a bad song, its fine. But Springsteen made the right choice leaving that sing off in favor of every song that made it onto Born to Run.

Favorite Lyrics:

- And I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken, tonight we'll be free, all the promises will be broken. There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away

- And the world is busting at its seams, and you're just a prisoner of your dream. Holding on for your life, 'cause you work all day to blow 'em away in the night.

- Remember all the movies, Terry, we'd go see. Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be. Well after all this time to find we're just like all the rest, stranded in the park and forced to confess

- Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness, I'll love you with all the madness in my soul

- With her killer graces and her secret places that no boy can fill

- In the tunnels uptown, the Rat's own dream guns him down as shots echo down them hallways in the night. No one watches when the ambulance pulls away or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light

Next up: Darkness at the Edge of Town

Previous Albums Ratings:

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Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ: 9/10

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The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle

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My Rating: 8/10

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Favorite Songs: Incident on 57th Street, Kitty's Back, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

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Least Favorite Songs: Wild Billy's Circus Story

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The music and arrangements are a lot more dynamic for Springsteen's sophomore album. From the very first moments of the album, he catches your attention and lets you know that you're in for something a little bit different than the debut album. I love that Springsteen is pushing himself and further developing his style, instead of just trying to run back what he did on Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ.

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Of course, the album isn't completely different from the debut. The lyrical style and content is still fairly similar (even if you can see him developing it a bit here), and its not that the musical style is completely different from the first album, it's just a lot more intricate and doing different things. You also have some great pace changes and having times when the music gets amped up and other times when the music gets stripped back. A great example is in Incident on 57th Street, when the music paused, and only the bass and drums come back in, allowing Springsteen to draw you back into the song during a particularly pivotal part of the story of the song, and allow him to build the song back up into the dramatic ending and outro.

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Despite the fact that I find this album an improvement over the previous one in my respects, there is one reason that it got rated lower. That reason is Wild Billy's Circus Story. I apologize to anyone who loves the song, but it just doesn't do it for me. Maybe if, instead if being a more folky number, it was a big production (along the lines of Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite) I'd like it better.And when there's only 7 songs, and I want to skip one of them, it knocks it down on my arbitrary rating scale.

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I love the album title here, and it sums up the album's lyrical content fairly well. He is still writing songs about his past and New Jersey, but he's also writing songs about seedy and taboo people/subjects, which is a nice wrinkle to he added to his lyrical repertoire.

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Bonus Tracks:

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Santa Ana

Seaside Bar Song

Zero and Blind Terry

The Fever

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Some great outtakes this time around. Frankly, I thought that Zero and Blind Terry is an incredible song and its weird that it took 25 years to get released! (I definitely feel like it should have made the album over Wikd Bill's Circus Story.)

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I always think its interesting when a fanbase loves a song and the artist dislikes it, as is the case with The Fever (if my understanding about the song is correct). It's a good song, though, so I'm not sure why Springsteen was so reluctant to include it. I also liked Seaside Bar Song a lot, too, a fun song about being young and spontaneous and chasing women. Is Santa Ana a glimpse of the political song writing that Soringsteen had become infamous for? It's an interesting song either way.

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Listening to the bonus tracks, they largely feel like they could have been on Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. Which, I suspect, is why they didn't make the cut. While I liked the outtakes better than some of the songs that made the album, I think the songs that were chosen were largely the right ones for the cohesion of the album.

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Favorite quotes:

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- Sandy, that waitress I was seeing lost her desire for me. I spoke with her last night, she said she won't set herself on fire for me anymore

- Now, Cat knows his Kitty's been untrue, And that she left him for a city dude. But she's so soft, she's so blue, When he looks into her eyes, He just sits back and sighs, Ooh, ooh, ooh, what can I do?

- Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night. With bruised arms and broken rhythm in a beat-up old Buick but dressed just like dynamite

- So Rosie, come out tonight, oh, baby, come out tonight. Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor. Oh, closets are for hangers, winners use the door. So use it Rosie, that's what it's there for

- Hey, vibes man, hey, jazz man, ah, play me a serenade. Any deeper blue, you'll be playing in your grave. Save your notes: don't spend 'em on the blues boy

- No more colleges, no more coronations, some punk's idea of a teenage nation has forced Santa Ana to change his station from soldier to cartoon

- The highway is alive tonight so baby do not be frightened. There's something about a pretty girl on a sweet summer night that gets this boy excited. The radio man finally understands and plays you something you can move to. You lay back easy, cut loose your drive power, your girl leans over, says, "Daddy can you turn that radio up any louder?"

- And the Pythons are down from old Englishtown and they're looking to do some living. Well the leader of the Pythons is a kid they just call Zero. Now Terry's pop says, "These kids are some kind of monsters." But Terry says, "No pop they're just plain heroes"

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Next album: Born to Run

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Hello! I've recently decided to do a deep dive into Bruce Springsteen's music. (I even made a topic about it a couple of days ago - you all were very helpful!)

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Some background on me, I'm in my mid-30s and I am a fan of classic rock, alt rock, folk, and singer-song writer types. I love to do a deep dive into artists, assuming that I vibe with their stuff enough to where I actually want to listen to all of their stuff. Some of the bigger discographies that have worked my way through are Bob Dylan, David Bowie, The Beatles and their post break up work (yes, even Ringo), Tom Waits, and The Rolling Stones (to name a few). I think its fun to the whole work of an artist, high points and low points, because it helps you understand and appreciate what they have to say and what they've gone through. I also find that when I really like an artist, I usually find something to like from even their worst period. (Dylan still made Dark Eyes and Brownsville Girl during his worst stretch, for instance.)

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So, this brings me to Springsteen. I'm actually not all that familiar with Springsteen's work. I mean, I'm alive and have been listening to classic rick radio for most of my life, so I know a bunch of his big hits. I also know the albums Born to Run and Born in the USA are supposed to be great (though I've never listened to them), and that his stretch of albums in the late half of the 70s are supposed to be great. But that's it. I'm really not all that familiar with him or his work.

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So why I have I decided to do this? Because I love his radio hits, and I just listened to his first two albums and I'm confident that I'm going to love his work.

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I thought it would be fun to do small reviews of his albums as I go. I expect this to be a slow process and to take a while, but I hope you all enjoy.

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With the release of Tracks II, I thought it would be fun to listen to the 7 lost albums in "order". Here's the order I've come up with (with the help of Wikipedia). Please let me know if anything is in the wrong place or if anything should be added:

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1. Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

2. The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

3. Born to Run

4. Darkness on the Edge of Town

** The Promise

5. The River

6. Nebraska

** L.A. Garage Sessions '83

7. Born in the U.S.A.

8. Tunnel of Lov

9. Human Touch

10. Lucky Town

** Streets of Philadelphia Sessions

11. The Ghost of Tom Joad

** Somewhere North of Nashville

** Inyo

12. The Rising

13. Devils & Dust

14. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

** Faithless

15. Magic

16. Working on a Dream

** Perfect World

17. Wrecking Ball

18. High Hopes

19. Western Stars

** Twilight Hours

20. Letter to You

21. Only the Strong Survive

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Also, I plan on listening to the bonus tracks or relevant songs from Tracks as I go as well, and I'll try to listen to any non-album stuff as it goes. Hopefully I don't miss any.

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So, what makes me qualified to make these topics reviewing Bruce Springsteen's music? Absolutely nothing! I can't play an instrument and I don't know music theory. I just love music and I thought this would be fun.

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Without further ado...

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Greetings from Ashbury Park, NJ

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My rating: 9/10

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Favorite Songs: Blinded By the Light, For You, It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City

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Least favorite songs: The Angel

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This is a great debut album, no question about it. There's not a bad song on here, and there's several incredible songs. I think the production is very good as well. It's produced in a way that highlights the vocals and lyrics but still has some good instrumentation behind supposedBut obviously its the lyrics that are the main thing here, and they're great.

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There's a Dylan-esque feel to the album, and I can't quite say why. It definitely feels like a debut album, like Springsteen is still finding his own voice and style, and so his influences are seeping into the album.

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On a side note, I don't know if I'm on the minority here, but I think that this is a poor title for an album, and ai kinda hate the album art. I get what it's going for, because so many of the songs are about Springsteen's past and people from the area, but I just don't think the album title catches your attention the way it should.

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All in all, a great album and great start to a storied career.

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Bonus tracks:

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Mary Queen if Arkansas (Demo)

Hard to be a Saint in the City (Demo)

Growin' Up (Demo)

Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street (Demo)

Bishop Danced (live)

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The demos were interesting, but none of them really hold a candle to the album version, imo. I still like that. I actually really like Bishop Danced, crazy that Springsteen didn't make a studio version of it.

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Favorite Lyrics:

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- Some silicone sister with her manager's mister told me I got what it takes. She said, "I'll turn you on sonny, to something strong if you'll play that song with the funky break"

- I stayed in the clouded warmth of the crowd. But when they said "come down" I threw up. Oh, oh, growin' up

- We were both hitchhikers but you had your ears tuned to the roar. Of some metal-tempered engine on an alien distant shore. So you left to find a better reason than the one we were living for. And it's not that nursery mouth I came back for. It's not the way you're stretched out on the floor. 'Cause I've broken all your windows and I've rammed through all your doors. And who am I to ask you to lick my sores? And you should know that's true, I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency. I came for you, for you, I came for you, your life was one long emergency

- Mama knows arithmetic, knows how to take a fall

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Next up: The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle + bonus songs from Tracks

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Any compilation or live albums I should add to lidtening to Springsteen's work?

Hello. I don't know much by Yes, just mostly whatever I've heard on the radio and such. I decided to give them a try and I listened to Fragile. What a wonderful album. I loved the mix of r&b with classical influences, all the while still being that late 60s/early 70s rock that I love. (Also, I had no idea thay Chris Strife was so great.)

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I chose Fragile mostly because it has Roundabout on it and it seemed to be well regarded. What should I listen to next? Or should I just start with the first album and listen chronologically?

Ive been listening through Rod Stewart's albums for the first time when I came across this gem. McCartney wrote this song for Stewart's and it was released as a single (only charted at 91 on the Billboards, however). Still, I think its a lovely little song, very Paul McCartney. Stewart's does a great job on it. Not the best song by either artist, but a worthy one.

What do you all think?