BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: "Born To Run"

Original released on LP Columbia JC 33795

(US 1975, August 25)

Bruce Springsteen's 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. Springsteen's 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 Spector's 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; Springsteen's 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 Springsteen's promise, and though some thought it took itself too seriously, many found that exalting. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

A loosely operatic tale of life on the streets of New Jersey...... and one of the very best LPs of the album rock era. Bruce Springsteen had before and would continue to build his legacy on Dylan-esque tales of human folly and frustration, but they were never as well realised anywhere else as on "Born to Run". Of great assistance to Springsteen's epic songwriting is that the E-Street Band were in the form of their careers at the very same time, creating a perfect storm of well woven lyrics and stunning musical proficiency. The album's title track will continue to resurface as long as audio and visual entertainment exists, but the real jaw-dropper here is the closing 'Jungleland', with its incredible Clarence Clemons sax solo and anguished Bruce vocals bringing the blue collar theatrics to a fitting conclusion. It took Britain a few years to 'get' Bruce Springsteen. The late and lamented Roger Scott was playing him on London's Capital Radio, but almost nobody else. I bought "The River" largely on the strength of a five star review in Record Mirror, and decided to work backwards, going next to "Darkness" and then this. At that point, like most people I only knew the title track. I was blown away. I think it's a sign of a great album when different songs take it in turn to be your favourite - the barnstorming opener "Thunder Road", the epic "Jungleland" and the desperate last chance story of "Meeting Across the River." I guess most people who only own one Springsteen album have either "Born in the USA"; or one of the hits compilations; but it really, truly, ought to be this one. (in AllMusic)