Bruce Springsteen, The #27 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Two

 

(Continued from Part One)

 Springsteen's new album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, did not come out until nearly three years after Born to Run.  Despite the delay, the music reflected Bruce's perfection of his songwriting and deeper themes.  "Badlands" stalled at #42 but is another song popular at concerts for years.

 Darkness reached the Top 15 on Album charts in every major country in the world except Ireland and West Germany.  The album is built around the theme that Bruce had finally tasted success but because of the legal problems could not do what he loved to do, record songs.  Like Springsteen, the subject of the title song has been beaten down but resilient.

 

A tour that year firmly established Springsteen as a major concert draw, as it was readily apparent that here was a performer who put 110% of his energy and soul into each show.  "Racing In The Street" is one of several songs Bruce wrote about cars.

Springsteen was something of a perfectionist in recording sessions for this album, according to those who helped out.  He recorded well into the night and insisted on getting everything right. 

Also that year, another Springsteen composition, "Because The Night", was partially rewritten by Patti Smith and recorded in 1978.  With "Fire", the Pointer Sisters took another Springsteen song high into the Top 10 in 1979.

Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden.  The live album and the documentary of the event finally put Springsteen's famous live performances on media the public could consume.

 Similar to John Mellencamp, Springsteen became one of the heroes of working class people.  In 1980, he released the double album The River and posted his first Top 10 hit, 'Hungry Heart".

Springsteen's medley of "Devil With The Blue Dress"/"Good Golly Miss Molly"/"Jenny Take A Ride" was nominated for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male at the Grammy Awards. 

Bruce's work paid off in the form of his first #1 album in the U.S., Canada and Norway; it hit the Top 2 in every major country except Ireland and West Germany.  The River has now sold over five million copies and the entire album was cited in Springsteen's 1982 nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male at the Grammy Awards.  Once again, he and the band toured extensively, playing major arenas in the United States and Europe.  Here is the title song.

 Springsteen ventured to acoustic music with the 1982 album Nebraska.  Depressed when he wrote the material for the album, Nebraska is a dark outlook of American life.  It was Bruce's sixth consecutive Platinum release.

 "Atlantic City" is about the very poor city in New Jersey where there is a stark contrast between the bright casinos on the boardwalk and the city itself.  Atlantic City is also a magnet for organized crime, and it against that background that the narrator struggles to pay the bills and takes a job as a hit man.  

 Springsteen recorded "State Trooper" on a four-track deck.  He liked the sound so much that he kept it.

To this point, Springsteen had a large contingent of very loyal fans, and of course, the critics on his side.  Word had gotten out about his tremendous live shows, and those who made it to those concerts soon became believers.  But to the public at large, Springsteen was mostly known second-hand.

 

That changed with the release of the 1984 album Born in the U.S.A.  It not only made Springsteen a superstar but made music history in several ways.  "Dancing In The Dark" moved to #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #2 overall in the U.S. and also topped the chart in the Netherlands.  It is another of Springsteen's in The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era*.

 Springsteen won his first Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male and he was nominated for Record of the Year for "Dancing In The Dark".  He also won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Overall Performance.  "Cover Me" was a strong follow-up, #2 on the MR chart and #7 Popular.  Originally written for Donna Summer, Springsteen decided to keep the song for himself.

 

The title song (#1 in Ireland and New Zealand, #9 in the U.S.) is a scathing attack on the treatment of Vietnam veterans by the United States government.  Springsteen told the story of how some politicians are gung-ho to send the nation's young into battle and sing their praises while wars are going on, but those same politicians turn a deaf ear when those that survive come home, sporting wounds of the body that are easily seen as well as mental problems, which often went undetected and untreated for years.

What's especially galling to Springsteen and anyone who listens to him is that the song which sharply criticizes those politicians is used by those same politicians and their ilk as a patriotic song of the United States, when nothing could be further from the truth.  

To attempt to make the meaning explicitly clear to those who are so ignorant in so many ways, Springsteen performed only acoustic versions of the song.  This was in line with how the song was originally written, recorded but not included on the Nebraska album.  The album Tracks in 1998 contains the acoustic version of "Born In The U.S.A." as originally recorded.

"Born In The U.S.A." was nominated for Record of the Year and Springsteen was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards.  Bruce also won American Music Awards for Favorite Pop/Rock Album, Favorite Pop/Rock Single (for "Dancing In The Dark") and Favorite Pop/Rock Male Video ("Born In The U.S.A.") and he was nominated for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist and Favorite Pop/Rock Male Video (both for "Dancing In The Dark").

 

The album reached #1 everywhere in the world except Ireland, where it peaked at #11. "I'm On Fire" sizzled to #1 in Ireland and the Netherlands, while in the United States, it peaked at #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #6 overall.

 Springsteen just kept pulling hits from the album, as "Glory Days" went to #5.  The video won for Best Overall Performance and Best Stage Performance Video and was nominated for Best Male Video at the MTV VMA's.

Springsteen originally wrote this song for the Nebraska album but it was not recorded until this one.  The single "I'm Goin' Down" gave Bruce six Top 10 hits from Born in the U.S.A.

 Then, Bruce scored a seventh with "My Hometown", a story of growing up in Freehold.  He paints a bleak picture of life for the working man during the years when Ronald Reagan was president.  As millions could identify with him, Springsteen became a voice for the common person.

 Springsteen's album contained more Top 10 hits (7) than the rest of his career combined (5).  Born in the U.S.A. has now sold over 15 million.  "Shut Out The Light", a non-album single, was originally on the flip side of the title song, which was a good pairing.  It too is about the despair felt by Vietnam veterans, about the disconnect between what life used to be and what it is like after returning from the war.

While touring to promote the album, Springsteen met actress Julianne Phillips, whom he married the next year.

The sales of albums referred to earlier occurred after the huge success of Born in the U.S.A.; at one point in 1985, all seven of Springsteen's albums appeared on the Album chart in the United Kingdom, the first time in history that all albums in an artist's catalog were ranked at the same time.

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