BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN : DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN : DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

Badlands
Adam Raised A Cain
Something In The Night
Candy's Room
Racing In The Street
Promised Land
Factory
Streets Of Fire
Prove It All Night
Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Label : Columbia

Length : 42:55

Released : 1978

Review (AllMusic) : Coming three years and one extended court battle after Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town was highly anticipated. Some attributed the album's embattled tone to Bruce Springsteen's legal troubles, but it carried on from Born to Run, in which Springsteen had first begun to view his colorful cast of characters as "losers." On Darkness, he began to see them as the working class: his characters, some of whom he inhabited and sang for in the first person, had little and were in danger of losing even that. Their only hope for redemption lay in working harder, and their only escape lay in driving. Springsteen presented these hard truths in hard rock settings, the tracks paced by powerful drumming and searing guitar solos. Though not as heavily produced as Born to Run, Darkness was given a full-bodied sound; Springsteen's stories were becoming less heroic, but his musical style remained grand -- the sound, and the conviction in his singing, added weight to songs like "Racing in the Street" and the title track, transforming the pathetic into the tragic. But despite the rock & roll fervor, Darkness was no easy listen, and it served notice that Springsteen was already willing to risk his popularity for his principles.

Review (Wikipedia) : Darkness on the Edge of Town is the fourth album by Bruce Springsteen, released in the late spring of 1978. The album marked the end of a three year period of forced hiatus from recording brought on by contractual obligations and legal battling with former manager Mike Appel. Although the album did not produce high charting singles it nevertheless remained on the charts for 97 weeks. In September 2010 a documentary film chronicling the making of Darkness was first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Quoting Springsteen as saying "More than rich, more than famous, more than happy - I wanted to be great", reviewer Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger commented: "For many fans, that long journey pulled onto the Turnpike here. Recovering from legal troubles and the stress of the breakthrough success of Born to Run, Springsteen released a somewhat less commercial album, Darkness on the Edge of Town. In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen continued his "four corners" approach from Born to Run, as the songs beginning each side ("Badlands" and "The Promised Land") were martial rallying cries to overcome circumstances, while the songs ending each side ("Racing in the Street", "Darkness on the Edge of Town") were sad dirges of circumstances overcoming all hope. Unlike Born to Run, the songs were recorded by the full band all at once, frequently soon after Springsteen had written them. When Springsteen sings: "Summer's here and the time is right for racing in the street," on the track "Racing in the Street," he is taking-off Martha & the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street. Steven Van Zandt received a credit for production assistance for helping Springsteen tighten the arrangements from Born to Run's epic sound. This collection of songs, each of which Springsteen sang in the first person, was given unity by several recurring themes. The words "darkness" / "dark" appear in six of the tracks, while nine of them feature the "night" / "tonight". "They" are mentioned in eight songs, with a general suggestion of nameless people who exert a negative influence. "Work" / "worked" / "working" form part of six songs, and so do the words "dream" / "dreams". Six is also the number of songs in which Bruce and his characters are found "driving" / "racing" / "riding", or mentioning the names of cars. There are references to "blood", "born", "love" / "loved" in four of the tracks. The album failed to generate any hit singles, with "Prove It All Night" barely making the Top 40 in the U.S. and follow-up "Badlands" not even doing that well. At the time, Darkness claimed the number one slot on NME album of the year ranking. In 2003, the album was ranked number 151 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The same year, the TV network VH1 named Darkness on the Edge of Town the 68th greatest album of all time. The cover shot and inner sleeve photo were taken by photographer Frank Stefanko inside Stefanko's Haddonfield, New Jersey home. Springsteen says, "...when I saw the picture I said, 'That's the guy in the songs.' I wanted the part of me that's still that guy to be on the cover. Frank stripped away all your celebrity and left you with your essence. That's what that record was about." A reissue box set was released in November 2010. This had initially been planned for 2008, to mark the 30th anniversary of the original album's release, but was delayed presumably due to Springsteen's numerous other 2008 projects. By January 2009, Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, was saying the project was still in the works: "When we can find six weeks to sit down and finish it I'm sure we will." A documentary entitled "The Promise: the Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town" has been produced for the box set. The documentary premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in the fall of 2010 and aired on HBO on October 7, 2010. During the Darkness sessions, Springsteen wrote or recorded many songs that he ended up not using on the album. This was to keep the album's thematic feel intact, even at the expense of not having hits on it. Some of the unused material became hits for other artists, such as "Because the Night" for Patti Smith, "Fire" for Robert Gordon and The Pointer Sisters, "Rendezvous" for Greg Kihn, "This Little Girl" for Gary U.S. Bonds, and several tracks for Southside Johnny (including much of the Asbury Jukes' Hearts of Stone album). Other songs such as "Independence Day", "Point Blank", "The Ties That Bind", and "Sherry Darling" would turn up on Springsteen's next album, The River, while still others became bootleg classics until surfacing on Springsteen's compilations Tracks, 18 Tracks and The Promise. The Promise features 21 tracks from the Darkness sessions and was released in November 2010 compilation (and also included in a box set). Some of these Darkness outtakes were performed by Springsteen in concert during his 1978 tour and later.