Darkness on the Edge of Town Springsteen 1978

[Budi]

1978 Rolling Stone review

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/darkness-on-the-edge-of-town-197342/amp/

ALBUM REVIEWS
Darkness On The Edge of Town
DAVE MARSH
JULY 27, 1978 4:00AM EDT




Occasionally, a record appears that changes fundamentally the way we hear rock & roll, the way it’s recorded, the way it’s played. Such records — Jimi Hendrix’ Are You Experienced, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Who’s Next, The Band — force response, both from the musical community and the audience.
To me, these are the records justifiably called classics, and I have no doubt that Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town will someday fit as naturally within that list as the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” or Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music.”

One ought to be wary of making such claims, but in this case, they’re justified at every level.

** In the area of production, Darkness on the Edge of Town is nothing less than a breakthrough.
Springsteen — with coproducer Jon Landau, engineer Jimmy Iovine and Charles Plotkin, who helped Iovine mix the LP — is the first artist to fuse the spacious clarity of Los Angeles record making and the raw density of English productions. That’s the major reason why the result is so different from Born to Run‘s Phil Spector wall of sound.

On the earlier album, for instance, the individual instruments were deliberately obscured to create the sense of one huge instrument. Here, the same power is achieved more naturally.
Most obviously, Max Weinberg’s drumming has enormous size, a heartbeat with the same kind of space it occupies onstage (the only other place I’ve heard a bass drum sound this big).

Now that it can be heard, the E Street Band is clearly one of the finest rock & roll groups ever assembled.
Weinberg, bassist Garry Tallent and guitarist Steve Van Zandt are a perfect rhythm section, capable of both power and groove. Pianist Roy Bittan is as virtuosic as on Born to Run, and saxophonist Clarence Clemons, though he has fewer solos, evokes more than ever the spirit of King Curtis.
But the revelation is organist Danny Federici, who barely appeared on the last L.P. Federici’s style is utterly singular, focusing on wailing, trebly chords that sing (and in the marvelous solo at the end of “Racing in the Street,” truly cry).

..Yet the dominant instrumental focus of Darkness on the Edge of Town is Bruce Springsteen’s guitar.

Like his songwriting and singing, Springsteen’s guitar playing gains much of its distinctiveness through pastiche. There are echoes of a dozen influences — Duane Eddy, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Roy Buchanan, even Ennio Morricone’s Sergio Leone soundtracks — but the synthesis is completely Springsteen’s own.

[BluesRunTheGame]

1. I saw one of the shows on that tour - incredible stuff!

[Delarage]

2. I agree with the review

I love The Boss