Springsteen hits Glendale in support of new album
By CHRIS HANSEN ORF
Get Out

It has been more than 30 years since a young music writer named Jon Landau wrote his now-famous line, “I have seen the future of rock ’n' roll, and his name is Bruce Springsteen.”

At the time, Springsteen was a scruffy 24-year-old with a couple of albums under his belt, playing shows with his E Street Band at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J.

Landau was so impressed with the singer/songwriter that he helped produce Springsteen's next record, “Born to Run,” and left his writing career to become Springsteen's manager later in the 1970s.

Signed to Columbia Records by legendary A&R man John Hammond (who had also signed Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin), Springsteen's first two records sold moderately well, but it was “Born to Run” that exploded the artist into the mainstream spotlight.

As Springsteen embarked on his first nationwide tour in 1975, he appeared on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week, and the epic title cut from “Born to Run,” a mythic street poem hauntingly encased in Phil Spector-esque Wall of Sound production, blasted from FM radios across the country.

“The Boss,” as he is known, had arrived.

Over the course of 13 studio albums — his latest, ‘‘Devils and Dust’’ just hit stores — Bruce Springsteen has used the American everyman as his muse and has spoken out politically and socially through his music.

Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
Springsteen's first disc shows him still firmly in his “young Bob Dylan” phase. The tunes are wordy with cadenced rhyme schemes, and the music is a complex mixture of folk, jazz and rock ’n' roll. It's a busy album and probably the least accessible for late-arriving fans, but undeniably a great record for English majors and literature freaks.
Essential listening: “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?”, “Spirit in the Night,” “It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City.”
Grade: A-

The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973)
The Boss’ second album released within a year shows a remarkable change in style. The songs are longer — four tracks clock in at more than seven minutes — and more somber, and the lyrics are pared down from the free-form beat poetry of “Greetings” to a more streamlined style. The music still has a hint of street jazz thrown in, and the 1960s folk influence is still present.
Essential listening: “The E Street Shuffle,” “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” “Rosalita.”
Grade: A-

Born to Run (1975)
Springsteen brings in his 1950s and ’60s rock influences and leaves his folk leanings in the dust. The tunes are crisp three- and four-minute blasts of unbridled, anthemic rock ’n’ roll recorded with a Phil Spector influence that bursts from the speakers. The title cut, which Springsteen reportedly hated when he wrote it, has become one of the enduring classics of the ’70s.
Essential listening: “Thunder Road,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “Born to Run,” “She's the One.”
Grade: A

Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
After a three-year period during which the singer battled management problems in court, Springsteen returns with his angriest record, a lean and mean disc that focuses on harder guitars musically and the everyman lyrically. This is the closest Springsteen ever got to making a punk album, and his blue-collar anthems fit in with the gritty sounds coming from NYC in the mid-1970s.
Essential listening: “Badlands,” “Candy's Room,” “Prove It All Night,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”
Grade: A

The River (1980)
A sprawling double album divided between upbeat, Roy Orbison-influenced rockers and the softer ballads sprinkled on “Born to Run” and “Darkness,” “The River” is perhaps The Boss’ masterpiece. The title cut distills Springsteen's themes of lost hope and broken dreams for the everyman down into one haunting five-minute acoustic guitar and harmonica-laced song.
Essential listening: “The River,” “Jackson Cage,” “Out in the Street,” “Independence Day,” “I'm a Rocker.”
Grade: A+

Nebraska (1982)
The most divisive record for Springsteen fans, with some believing it's the songwriter's best and some fans liking it the least. All would agree it is Springsteen's most sparse disc, with many tracks simply recorded on acoustic guitar as demos in the singer's home. This is Springsteen stripped bare, a record where one can imagine the singer in a small, dank coffeehouse strumming the haunting ballads within.
Essential listening: “Atlantic City,” “Johnny 99,” “State Trooper,” “Reason to Believe.”
Grade: A-

Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
If “Born to Run” gave The Boss national recognition, “Born in the U.S.A.” made Springsteen a worldwide superstar. Musically, the record could not have been more different from “Nebraska,” is Springsteen's twangy Fender Esquire mixed into the forefront, and his more-anthemic-than-ever fist-pumpers helped make this the biggest album of his career, selling a whopping 25 million copies.
Essential listening: “Born in the U.S.A.,” “I'm Going Down,” “Glory Days,” “My Hometown.”
Grade: A-

Tunnel of Love (1987)
During the hoopla of sold-out tours and massive album sales, The Boss moves from New Jersey to L.A. and marries actress Julianne Phillips, disappointing fans who thought Bruce had gone Hollywood. The short-lived marriage inspires many of the themes on this record — wrestling with one's soul, relationships, broken hearts, trust. It captures the songwriter at a difficult time in his life.
Essential listening: “Ain't Got You,” Tunnel of Love,” “Brilliant Disguise,” “One Step Up.”
Grade: A-

Human Touch/Lucky Town (1992)
After a five-year absence from the studio, Springsteen simultaneously releases “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town,” his first since the disbanding of the E Street Band. “Lucky Town” is more of a rock album, while “Human Touch” explores a more pop vein. While both records are somewhat disappointing, they prove Springsteen can still pen great material, even on lackluster albums.
Essential listening: “Human Touch,” “Better Days,” “Lucky Town.” Grade: “Human Touch,” C-; “Lucky Town,” C+

Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
Often seen as a sober, muted sister to “Nebraska,” Springsteen's “Ghost of Tom Joad” lacks the narrative focus of his legendary early acoustic album. The title track is the album's most fully realized cut, a haunting ballad based on John Steinbeck's “The Grapes of Wrath.” While an improvement over his previous two records, the album does not rate among The Boss’ best work.
Essential listening: “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” “Sinaloa Cowboys,” “My Best Was Never Good Enough.”
Grade: B

The Rising (2002)
Inspired by the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, Springsteen's concept album of anger, redemption, tragedy and hope in a forever-changed world shows Springsteen's passion is back, as is the E Street Band. The album rocks harder than anything The Boss did in the ’90s, and the production strips the music down to its essential core. Essential listening: “Lonesome Day,” “Waitin' on a Sunny Day,” “Mary's Place,” The Rising.”
Grade: A-

Bruce Springsteen
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Glendale Arena, 9400 W. Maryland Ave.
How much: $80-$90
Info:

Bruce Springsteen
‘Devils & Dust’

Despite rumors that began swirling a few months ago that Bruce Springsteen's next album would be a bare bones acoustic affair on the order of his 1982 classic “Nebraska,” and 1995's “The Ghost Of Tom Joad,” “Devils & Dust” is neither of those records, stylistically nor thematically.

The Boss mixes his moods here, delivering somber epics a la “Nebraska” and injecting the record with some upbeat tunes that resemble his work on 2002's “The Rising.” Springsteen has always possessed a keen eye and ear for character, whether it be the heartland killers of “Nebraska,” the Depression-era souls of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” or the young lovers trying to break out of the ordinary on “Born to Run,” and the people who inhabit “Devils & Dust” are some of the most fully realized, fleshed out characters The Boss has ever conjured.

The title track is a bluesy-folk song about a soldier on the front lines in Iraq, a bleak setting for a man sifting through his faith in the killing zone. Springsteen delivers the haunting “Fear's a powerful thing/It can turn your heart black you can trust/It'll take your God-filled soul/And fill it with devils and dust” in the parched voice of his character, and the drums and synth are the tip-off that this record will be more fleshed out musically than “Nebraska” and “Tom Joad.”

Thematically and geographically, much of the disc centers on the barren, dusty Southwest, a metaphor for the vast loneliness of the characters in the sad, heartbreaking “Reno,” the epic “Black Cowboys” and the haunting “Matamoros Banks.” But like a summer rain in the desert, upbeat tunes such as “Long Time Comin’,” “Maria's Bed” and “All I'm Thinkin’ About” offer Springsteen's characters hope and a chance at happiness.

The songwriter textures his songs on “Devils & Dust” with steel guitars, fiddles and flamenco guitar stylings, making this the closest The Boss has come to making a true country record on the order of Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. It proves that Springsteen still ranks as one of America's finest songwriters, a singular artist of enduring scope and power. A-