Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 39:26 minutes | 851 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover | Source: HDTracks | @ Columbia
Born to Run was Bruce Springsteen’s third studio album and his commercial breakthrough success. Released in 1975, the album featured two singles: “Born to Run” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”. The songs “Thunder Road” and “Jungleland” also became hits and are staples of Springsteen’s live show to this day. The album was almost universally praised by critics, and peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1975. It has been certified triple-platinum by the RIAA as of 1986, and Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at #18 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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.
Tracklist:
01 – Thunder Road
02 – Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
03 – Night
04 – Backstreets
05 – Born To Run
06 – She’s The One
07 – Meeting Across The River
08 – Jungleland
The E Street Band:
Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitars, harmonica, percussion
Roy Bittan – piano, Fender Rhodes, organ, harpsichord, glockenspiel, background vocals on all tracks except “Born to Run”
Clarence Clemons – saxophones, tambourine, background vocals
Danny Federici – organ and glockenspiel on “Born to Run”
Garry W. Tallent – bass guitar
Max Weinberg – drums on all tracks except “Born to Run”
Ernest “Boom” Carter – drums on “Born to Run”
Suki Lahav – violin on “Jungleland”
David Sancious – piano, organ on “Born to Run”
Steven Van Zandt – background vocals on “Thunder Road”, horn arrangements
Additional musicians:
Wayne Andre – trombone
Mike Appel – background vocals
Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
Richard Davis – double bass on “Meeting Across The River”
David Sanborn – baritone saxophone
Production:
Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, and Mike Appel – record producers (except “Born To Run”, produced by Springsteen and Appel)
John Berg – album design
Greg Calbi – mastering
Charles Calello – conductor, string arrangements
Andy Engel – album design
Bob Ludwig – remastering
This 30th Anniversary Edition of Born to Run was remastered by acclaimed engineer Bob Ludwig, working directly with Springsteen and longtime engineer Toby Scott, newly transferred from the original analogue masters using the Plangent Process playback system.
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