Born To Run: 30th Anniversary 3-Disc Set (CD/2DVD) [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] [SPECIAL EDITION]

Bruce Springsteen

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 15, 2005)
• Original Release Date: November 15, 2005
• Number of Discs: 3
• Format: Original recording remastered, Special Edition
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000BJS4OY
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,236 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The first retooling of any album in the mighty Springsteen catalog is an exemplary labor of love by Columbia. The original 1975 release was the make-or-break record of Bruce's career and arguably still his best collection of material. It is presented here on one disc unsullied by outtakes or inferior versions--just pristine digital remasters of those eight grittily romantic songs of street life that defined the artist's signature styles. The substantial bonuses are two new DVD programs, one featuring a full concert performance by Bruce and the E Street Band on their first date outside the U.S. at London's Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975, and the other a "making of" documentary including band interviews and contemporary concert footage. The whole handsome box truly honors a legendary recording while providing generous value for fans.

The meat of the bonus material is the London show. A mythology has built around it that the band were so disorientated by travel and culture shock and Bruce so enraged by label-generated hype that they gave one of the worst performances of their career. Primitively shot by today's standards, the footage captures the brilliance of the relatively new band's ensemble playing. Highlights include a "Thunder Road" accompanied only by keyboards that opens the show, fiery solos on "Kitty's Back," a dynamic "Saint in the City," and a number of songs that have long since been retired. It's certainly notable how pensive and joyless Springsteen appears when compared to his later, animated stadium persona, but it's also fun to see the far greater role as foil played by Clarence Clemons. As he now testifies in the sleeve notes, putting lie to the myth, on that night they had "gone for broke," and as this writer can bear witness, the British audience exalted the show as the arrival of the greatest live performer of his generation. --Rob Stewart

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The Best of Bruce
by guest editor Steve Perry
Steve is the editor-in-chief of City Pages newspaper in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (1973)
After a folk-rockish debut album that bubbled with ideas and dense lyrical play, this is where Springsteen began to find his voice as a rocker and as a songwriter. The prisoner-of-love romanticism of "Rosalita" and "Incident on 57th Street" hinted at what was coming, and this early version of the E Street Band--jazzier and more spare than later versions, thanks largely to David Sancious's piano--sounds great, if a little ragged, these many years later.

Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
These two records, which belong on any compilation of the top 100 rock albums of all time, sketched the themes that he would spend his whole career chasing, and defined the expectations fans would bring to his records ever after. The first chords of "Born to Run" sounded like freedom itself the first time I heard them on the radio, and the album lived up to them. "Thunder Road" is still the greatest rock & roll love song anyone's ever written. The record sounded so big and impassioned and propulsive it was easy to miss the dread running underneath it. Darkness... put the dread front and center. There are more of his best songs here than anywhere else, even if the sound is muddy and leaden at times.

Nebraska (1982)
After The River (the best record that didn't make this list) and the ensuing tour answered his rock & roll prayers--he was a big star now, not just a perennial critics' favorite--Springsteen holed up in a rented house on the Jersey shore, where he wrote these songs and sang them into a four-track recorder in his living room. The tape was supposed to be a demo for the band, but after several false tries he concluded that the tape he'd been carrying around in his pocket was the record. Quiet and bleak, Nebraska nonetheless grabbed you by the collar and made you listen as surely as his rock & roll records ever had.

Tunnel of Love (1987)
The glare and hubbub surrounding the Born in the USA tour (the tour was great--the record itself overrated) made him pull back again, this time to write a cycle of songs about love and fear and self-doubt. After this, Springsteen's first marriage broke up, and he started a family with Patti Scialfa, disappearing for the better part of 10 years, notwithstanding the pair of not-bad, just-disappointing albums he released in 1992, Human Touch and Lucky Town.

The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
Some call it Nebraska II, but his second acoustic album was not a repeat of his first--the characters and settings had changed, and their circumstances were more expressly desperate, and social--though it did share the same interest in what happens to people whose isolation or marginal status renders them invisible.

The Rising (2002)
Everybody, including Springsteen, seemed to think it was a record about 9/11, but the subject was broader--death and loss as seen from more than halfway down life's road. Dave Marsh nailed it: "A middle-aged man confronts death and chooses life" Brendan O'Brien's production sounds great.

Product Description
30th ANNIVERSARY 3 DISC SET

CONCERT DVD Never-before-seen 1975 concert from Hammersmith Odeon, London featuring over 2 hours of music.

DOCUMENTARY DVD Definitive story of "Wings For Wheels: The Making of Born to Run" with new interviews & rare archival footage.

BORN TO RUN CD First time in newly-remastered digital sound. Includes 48 page booklet of rare and unpublished photos.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 30 Years & Still Running, November 15, 2005

By	Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Born To Run is the album that took Bruce Springsteen from a struggling recording artist who was almost dropped by his label to simultaneous covers of Time & Newsweek. All the hype surrounding the album is justified as it is a brilliant collection of songs. From the opening harmonica on "Thunder Road" to the closing of the mini-opera "Jungleland", Bruce tells us about Wendy, Terry, Mary, The Magic Rat & Barefoot girl and we hear their stories. Most of the songs deal with escaping one's dull and dreary life for something better. The means of escape are the highways and backstreets. "Born To Run" is an all time classic and I get chills up my spine every time I hear the opening riffs. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" tells of the origins of the E Street Band. "Meeting Across The River" is underrated and when Bruce played it on his recent tour, it got huge applauses. The production has a big sound to it. On some songs it sounds like a hundred instruments are playing. Bruce wanted a Phil Spector Wall of Sound feel and the album achieves that goal. Jon Landau, his future manager, said after seeing Bruce in concert in 1974 that "he just saw the future of rock 'n' roll". Born To Run helped fulfill that prophecy. Finally, Sony offers a remastered version of the album which one of first to be released on cd in the late 80's. The sound quality is superb and the big sound of the album comes through beautifully. It would have been enough to just have a remastered cd, but this set ups the ante with two DVDs. The first is a full concert from the Hammersmith Odeon in London and it shows a skinny, bearded Boss showing off why his live shows from that era are legendary. The second DVD is a documentary detailing the making of the album and it contains all the key players including Ernest "Boom" Carter who drummed on the title track as well as an integral part of the early E Street Band, keyboardist David Sancious. On top of all that, you get a great booklet that contains unreleased photos. It would be great if Sony takes this approach with other albums in Mr. Springsteen's catalog as this treatment is long overdue for an artist of his stature.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incomparable! It does not get better than this. Raw, magnificent passion!, November 15, 2005

By	M. Zabaroff (London, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you like Bruce then you already have this, know what it means and understand. If you're thinking about getting this then don't think twice it's alright. If you are not interested then how comes you've read this much already!? The album easily stands the test of time. It is quite simply the essence of what rock'n'roll music is all about. The passion, innocence and power of the songs still have an enormous effect on me 30 years later. I had tears in my eyes by the end of Thunder Road and was walking on air at the end of Jungleland. In 1975 rock music had lost it's spark and passion. It was treading water. What most people don't understand is that this album woke the whole industry and record buying public up. The hype that followed was incredible but not Springsteen's doing. The fact that 30 years later he is still such a major important artist says everything about his character and talent. The Hammersmith show? I WAS THERE! It changed my life. I had never understood how powerful music could be. I was 21. Had seen the Beatles at the same venue! But this was unbelievable stuff. Nobody in those days moved around the stage like he did, orchestrated a band like he did and wrote the songs he was writing. The interaction between band members was fantastic and noone else had it. To be able to see the show 30 years later means so much. I ask any fan of rock music to buy this set. If you're not sure what to expect then great. You will be amazed. I haven't even had time to watch the Wings For Wheels doc. That's for tonight. This is what it is all about. 5 stars is nowhere near enough!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even long time fans will find new discoveries, November 28, 2005

By	30-year Technology Consumer "8-tracks to 802.11" (Central Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

First, a technical issue:
Another reviewer was incorrect. This release DOES NOT contain the Sony DRM/rootkit software. Don't take my word for it, look at Sony's official list:
Amazon doesn't like URL's but you can Google "Sony DRM albums" and find many resources...icluding Sony's own...that list the offending albums. This one is not one of them.

Now:
I am fortunate enough to have grown up on the Jersey shore, and knew who Bruce Springsteen was before 1975. I've followed his growth since then, and have seen him in a number of his tours over the year. I'm an unabashed, unapologetic fan, and he is the only artist of whom I own every title in their discography.

So do this: watch the "Making of Born to Run" DVD first, and then listen to BTR again. In the car --where this album was meant to be played-- or by yourself. The eight songs on this album are damned near each one a home run. Collectively they are an amazing piece of American music making that have stood the test of time.

Then watch the Hammersmith concert video. And if you've been a fan for as long as I have, you'll certainly wonder where the last 30 years when and why Bruce and the band look so old:-)

Just a fine piece of Springsteen and E Street history. You won't be sorry.