Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Marty Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has frequently recorded and toured with The E Street Band. Springsteen is most widely known for his brand of heartland rock, rock and roll infused with Americana sentiments. His eloquence in expressing ordinary, every-day problems has earned him a huge fan base. His most famous albums, Born to Run and Born in the USA, epitomize his penchant for writing about the struggles of a young man growing up in the streets of New Jersey. Comparisons are inevitably made between him and Bob Dylan http://home.theboots.net/theboots/articles/bangs_btr_review.html because of his folk rock roots. Springsteen, however has become popular in his own right because of the appeal of his songs.

Commercial success

In Boston's The Real Paper May 22, 1974, music critic Jon Landau wrote, "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time" http://home.theboots.net/theboots/articles/future.html (Landau subsequently became Springsteen's manager and producer). With the release of Born to Run in 1975, Springsteen made the covers of both Time Magazine and Newsweek the same week, on October 27 of that year. This was Springsteen's last ditch effort to make a commercially viable album; its wall of sound production had an enormous budget. It succeeded: while there were no real hit singles, the title track, "Thunder Road", and "Jungleland" all received massive FM radio airplay and remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations to this day.

Related Topics:
Boston - The Real Paper - May 22 - 1974 - Jon Landau - Rock and roll - Manager - Producer - Born to Run - 1975 - Time Magazine - Newsweek - October 27 - Wall of sound - Title track - FM radio - Classic rock

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A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for a while, and probably also contributed to the much more somber tone of his 1978 album, Darkness on the Edge of Town. Musically, this album was the turning point of Springsteen's career. Gone were the rapid-fire lyrics, out-sized characters, and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first three albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen's growing intellectual and political awareness.

Related Topics:
Mike Appel - Studio - 1978 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

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Many fans consider Darkness Springsteen's most consistent and best record; tracks such as "Badlands" and "The Promised Land" became concert staples for decades to come. Other fans would always like the adventurous early Springsteen best. http://slate.msn.com/id/2117845/nav/ais/nav/ais/

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Springsteen continued to consolidate his thematic focus on working-class life with the double album The River in 1980, which yielded his first hit single, "Hungry Heart".

Related Topics:
Working-class - Double album - The River - 1980

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He followed this with the stark solo acoustic Nebraska in 1982. According to the Marsh biographies, Springsteen was in a depressed state when he wrote this material, and the result is a brutal depiction of American life. While this album did not sell especially well, it garnered him widespread critical praise. Springsteen did not go on tour with the release of this album.

Related Topics:
Acoustic - Nebraska - 1982 - Marsh - Depressed - American

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Springsteen is probably best known for the multi-million selling Born in the U.S.A.(1984), and the massively successful world tour that followed it. The title track was a tribute to Springsteen's buddies that had experienced the Vietnam War, some of whom did not come back. The song was widely mis-interpreted on release as nationalistic. In later years Springsteen performed the song accompanied only with acoustic guitar to restore the song's original meaning. "Dancing in the Dark" was the biggest of seven hit singles from Born in the U.S.A., peaking at number two on the Billboard music charts. The music video for the song featured a young Courteney Cox dancing on stage with Springsteen. This famous appearance helped launch Cox's career.

Related Topics:
Born in the U.S.A. - 1984 - Vietnam War - Nationalistic - Billboard - Music video - Courteney Cox

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The Born in the U.S.A. period represented the height of Springsteen's visibility in popular culture and the broadest audience demographic he would ever reach (this was further helped by releasing dance mixes of three of the singles). The three-disc Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live/1975-85 summed up Springsteen's career to this point, and displayed some of the elements that made Springsteen shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long emotionally intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen's difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to "Racing in the Street". Some felt the song selection on this album could have been better, but in any case, Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.

Related Topics:
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band Live/1975-85 - Coda - Bootleg recording

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After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered. It coincided with the breakup of his first marriage to actress Julianne Phillips.

Related Topics:
Tunnel of Love - 1987 - Julianne Phillips

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Reflecting the challenges of love, on Tunnel of Love's title song, Springsteen famously sang:

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"Ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough. Man meets woman, and they fall in love. But the house is haunted, and the ride gets rough. You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above."

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