Modern Culture02 Oct 2008 08:25 am
A new edition of The Intellectual Devotional, this time with a focus on Modern Culture, will be available in stores on October 14. (Click here to pre-order your copy.) As well as continuing to expand on posts from the General Edition, “The Devoted Intellect” blog will introduce and expand on material from the Modern Culture devotional. Today’s entry on Bruce Springsteen is from the “” section.
Bruce Springsteen’s breakthrough third album, Born to Run, was released in 1975 to critical acclaim and catapulted him into superstardom. The album was a Hail Mary pass for the then twenty-five year old Springsteen, who was in imminent danger of losing his record contract if he did not deliver a hit record. Springsteen had inked a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972, with the help of the legendary talent scout John Hammond, who is credited with signing Bob Dylan to the record label a decade earlier. Springsteen’s first two albums, Greeting from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973) and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973), made him a critical darling, but commercial success remained elusive. Columbia executives were growing impatient, and Springsteen knew that his next album would make or break his career. Taking the biggest gamble of his life, Springsteen began to work on a soaring epic concept album worthy of sealing his fate. The final result was a searing, bombastic masterpiece, with Rolling Stone’s Dave Marsh declaring, “[B]orn to Run is the definitive American rock LP. Wanna fight?”
In a move almost unheard of in today’s fickle music industry, Columbia offered Springsteen a superstar recording budget and a final shot at producing a commercially profitable record. Springsteen had become fascinated with the lush melodramatic work of the legendary 1960’s music producer Phil Spector. Spector famously developed the “Wall of Sound” production technique, most famously employed in producing The Beatles,’ Let It Be (1970) album. Spector created his distinctive sound by gathering large groups of musicians together and having them play orchestrated parts- frequently doubling and tripling many instruments playing in unison, and then recorded the sound in an echo chamber. He also included instruments unusual for ensemble playing, such as electric and acoustic guitars. Spector himself described his technique as, “a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll.”
Springsteen self-consciously imitated Spector’s production technique in arranging and producing Born to Run, even declaring that he wanted the album to sound like “Roy Orbison singing Bob Dylan, produced by Spector.” Springsteen co-produced the album with Rolling Stone contributing editor Jon Landau and his then-manager Mike Appel and revamped his backup band. He cut it at the legendary Record Plant Studios in New York, made famous for recording Jimmy Hendrix’s, Electric Landlady (1968) and John Lennon’s, Imagine (1971). During the recording of Born to Run, Springsteen cemented his reputation as a perfectionist, battling crippling anger and frustration at his inability to articulate the “sound(s) in his head” to others in the studio. Just recording the title track alone, which has a dozen guitar overdubs, took six months. Still dissatisfied after fourteen brutal months of recording, Springsteen almost scrapped it altogether in favor of releasing a concert album. Luckily, the plan was dropped, and Born To Run became Springsteen’s first definitive masterpiece, paving the way for his massive success in the 1980’s.
