Description
SLEEVE: NM- MEDIA: NM- YEAR: 1980 ORIGIN: Japan EXTRAS: Has both Inserts, still in original store sleeve.
After taking his early urban folk tales of cars and girls as far as he could on Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen took a long, hard look at the lives of those same Jersey street kids a few years down the line, now saddled with adult responsibilities and realizing that the American Dream was increasingly out of their grasp, on 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town, an album that dramatically broadened Springsteen's musical range and lyrical scope.
The River was Springsteen's most ambitious work to date, even as the music sounded leaner and more strongly rooted in rock & roll tradition than anything on Darkness or Born to Run, and though the album wasn't the least bit short on good times, the fun in songs like "Two Hearts," "Out in the Street," and "Cadillac Ranch" is rarely without some weightier subtext.
The River wasn't Springsteen's first attempt to make a truly adult rock & roll album, but it's certainly a major step forward from Darkness on the Edge of Town, and he rarely made an album as compelling as this, or one that rewards repeat listening as well.