Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ - Springsteen, Bruce (CD 1984)

Maybe it's the Jersey thing. Like most artists worth their salt, Bruce Springsteen is as maligned as he is revered. Like Pearl Jam, Springsteen and his E Street Band put on an absolutely religious live show, and he's got the grapes to put his political stances out there pretty plainly (not coincidentally, Pearl Jam and Springsteen shared a few dates on the anti-Bush Vote For Change tour, a valiantly-minded set of concerts that should have been enough catalyst for youngin's to get out and push a pro-Kerry ticket, not to mention all the political reasons); like Aerosmith, another of my...

Bruce Springsteen had become a club legend on the East Coast when he landed an early record contract. The result was this first album, "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.", a harbinger of the future. Dense, complicated lyrics combined with muddy engineering and occasionally thin production made this a disc that looked a bit to the future but was an amazing work for somebody in his early 20's. The album can rock, but the things wouldn't blaze up until Springsteen had a solid band and better production. Despite its flaws, "Greetings" has a few tunes that would become Springsteen concert and rock..

I could write an entire article about the musical, critical, and commercial success of one Bruce Springsteen. Quite honestly, an introductory paragraph about the man and what he's known for seems redundant. Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ is Springsteen's 1973 debut, and it stands almost thirty-one years later as a solid and enjoyable debut record. While his storytelling style of songwriting would evolve and branch out, musically this is a bit sparser than later efforts. Many would compare this album to Dylan, but I don't know if that's quite a fair comparison for the at the time 23 year old...

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Bruce Springsteen's first album, was released in 1973. The album is not one of Springsteen's best, but that doesn't mean that its not a great album. The style of writing in many of the songs on this album is much different than any of the following writing that Bruce did in his career. In many songs on this album, especially the opening track, "Blinded by the Light," Springsteen sounds like a poor man's Dylan. In fact, he was labeled as the "next Dylan" by his record company, much to his dismay. In fact, this appellation may be why he stopped writing in this..