While he had great releases before this record, he truly became The Boss with Born In The USA. RtBE came to Springsteen later in life so while we were obviously aware of him growing up, we could listen to his albums at a distance, without the built in hype.
Born In The U.S.A. deserves all of it's hype. It is a phenomenal record from the pure sound, to the performance, to the songwriting.
Born In The U.S.A. was everywhere in the 80's, even though Reagan never listened to the actual lyrics and used it as a campaign song...but RtBE digresses...
From those huge drum beats and electro-keys the album is pop rock protest music for the masses. It sounds so good that people miss the messages in the lyrics as they rebel and strain at the edges. A track like "Cover Me" is a fairly standard Springsteen song, but the production and level to detail is exquisite, in fact none of Springsteen's records sound better than BitUSA upon re-listen.
There are so many god damn great songs as well, "I'm On Fire", "No Surrender" and "I'm Going Down" that the simply good ones can seem lesser like "Bobby Jean" or "Downbound Train" but they are damn fine on their own. The pairing of "Darlington County" a great get away song and the prison line "Working on the Highway" is just fantastic, juxtaposing the party and the punishment phases of a wild life.
We haven't even reached the heights with the hits yet as "Glory Days" and "Dancing In the Dark" are positioned later on the album to get the listener up and moving yet again before the somber "My Hometown" wraps up the fantastic record on reflective note. Whichever Born is your top choice, there is no doubting both are in the upper echelon of great rock and roll records and in re-visiting all of Springsteen's albums Born In The USA only got stronger to these ears..
Feel free to check that series out for our installment on Springsteen and more.
For now let's just put the record on, turn back the clock to 1984 and rock on out.
No comments:
Post a Comment