Springsteen, Bruce: Darkness on the Edge of Town LP

The story of Bruce Springsteen has long been etched into the firmament of rock and roll. To some, he is the poet of the Jersey shore who wrote complex characters that appealed to the young and the hopeful across the nation (and later, the world). To others, he’s a studio perfectionist who tinkered with Dylanesque folk, deep-rooted, intellectually and politically astute rock and soul, and a sense of production grandeur to rival Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound.

 

Some laud him as a brilliant bandleader, turning the sprawling E Street Band (including the outsized musical personalities of guitarist Steven Van Zandt, bassist Garry Tallent, drummer Max Weinberg, keyboardists Roy Bittan and Danny Federici and the Big Man himself, saxophonist Clarence Clemons) into one of the tightest ensembles in rock and roll history, and a recent inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s sidemen category. Still others find him a brilliant if reluctant pop star crafting taut, heavy-hitters tailor-made for FM radio - including “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “Born To Run,” “Hungry Heart,” “Dancing In The Dark,” “Born In The U.S.A.,” “Glory Days” and more.

 

Bouncing back from a series of protracted legal battles that kept him out of the studio for nearly three years - a relative eternity at the time - Springsteen delivered a decidedly different sort of album with Darkness On The Edge Of Town in 1978. If Born to Run was epic cinema, Darkness was brutal reality, its characters not dreaming of idealized escape as much as struggling against their circumstances. The grandiose production and lyrical scene-setting of previous works was now replaced by a more singular songwriting voice, more aware of himself and the world around him; from this new direction came celebrated crowd-pleasers like “Badlands” and “The Promised Land.”

 

Mastered from the original analogue masters by acclaimed engineer Bob Ludwig, working under the personal supervision of Springsteen and longtime engineer Toby Scott. Using the Plangent Process playback system, noted for its ability to correct pitch errors and other distortions in the magnetic tape, this is, hands down, the most detailed take on this Springsteen classic anywhere!