Darkness on the Edge of Town is the fourth album by Bruce Springsteen, released in the late spring of 1978. The album marked the end of a three year period of forced hiatus from recording brought on by contractual obligations and legal battling with former manager Mike Appel. Although the album did not produce high charting singles it nevertheless remained on the charts for 97 weeks. In September 2010 a documentary film chronicling the making of Darkness was first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Quoting Springsteen as saying “More than rich, more than famous, more than happy – I wanted to be great”, reviewer Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger commented: "For many fans, that long journey pulled onto the Turnpike here."
Recovering from legal troubles and the stress of the breakthrough success of Born to Run, Springsteen released a somewhat less commercial album in Darkness on the Edge of Town.
In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen continued his "four corners" approach from Born to Run, as the songs beginning each side ("Badlands" and "The Promised Land") were martial rallying cries to overcome circumstances, while the songs ending each side ("Racing in the Street", "Darkness on the Edge of Town") were sad dirges of circumstances overcoming all hope. Unlike Born to Run, the songs were recorded by the full band at once, frequently soon after Springsteen had written them. Steven Van Zandt received a credit for production assistance for helping Springsteen tighten the arrangements from Born to Run's epic sound.
This collection of songs, each sung in the first person, was given unity by several recurring themes. The words “darkness” / “dark” appear in six of the tracks, while nine of them feature the words “night” / “tonight”. “They” are mentioned in eight songs as a general suggestion of nameless people who exert a negative influence. “Work” / “worked” / “working” form part of six songs, as do “dream” / “dreams”. Six songs feature Bruce or his characters “driving” / “racing” / “riding” or mentioning the names of cars. There are references to “blood”, "born", "love" / "loved" in four of the tracks. In the song "Racing in the Street," Springsteen alludes to Martha & the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street with the lyric "Summer's here and the time is right for racing in the street," similar to the Rolling Stones' appropriation of the lyric in "Street Fightin' Man".
Though the album failed to generate any substantial hit singles ("Prove It All Night" made it into the Top 40 in the U.S. at #33, and follow-up "Badlands" just missed, peaking at #42), Darkness was critically well-received and claimed the number one slot on NME album of the year ranking. In 2003, the album was ranked number 151 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The same year, the TV network VH1 named Darkness on the Edge of Town the 68th greatest album of all time.
The cover shot and inner sleeve photo were taken by photographer Frank Stefanko inside Stefanko's Haddonfield, New Jersey, home. Springsteen says, "When I saw the picture I said, 'That's the guy in the songs.' I wanted the part of me that's still that guy to be on the cover. Frank stripped away all your celebrity and left you with your essence. That's what that record was about."Darkness on the Edge of Town is the fourth album by Bruce Springsteen, released in the late spring of 1978. The album marked the end of a three year period of forced hiatus from recording brought on by contractual obligations and legal battling with former manager Mike Appel. Although the album did not produce high charting singles it nevertheless remained on the charts for 97 weeks. In September 2010 a documentary film chronicling the making of Darkness was first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Quoting Springsteen as saying “More than rich, more than famous, more than happy – I wanted to be great”, reviewer Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger commented: "For many fans, that long journey pulled onto the Turnpike here."
Recovering from legal troubles and the stress of the breakthrough success of Born to Run, Springsteen released a somewhat less commercial album in Darkness on the Edge of Town.
In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen continued his "four corners" approach from Born to Run, as the songs beginning each side ("Badlands" and "The Promised Land") were martial rallying cries to overcome circumstances, while the songs ending each side ("Racing in the Street", "Darkness on the Edge of Town") were sad dirges of circumstances overcoming all hope. Unlike Born to Run, the songs were recorded by the full band at once, frequently soon after Springsteen had written them. Steven Van Zandt received a credit for production assistance for helping Springsteen tighten the arrangements from Born to Run's epic sound.
This collection of songs, each sung in the first person, was given unity by several recurring themes. The words “darkness” / “dark” appear in six of the tracks, while nine of them feature the words “night” / “tonight”. “They” are mentioned in eight songs as a general suggestion of nameless people who exert a negative influence. “Work” / “worked” / “working” form part of six songs, as do “dream” / “dreams”. Six songs feature Bruce or his characters “driving” / “racing” / “riding” or mentioning the names of cars. There are references to “blood”, "born", "love" / "loved" in four of the tracks. In the song "Racing in the Street," Springsteen alludes to Martha & the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street with the lyric "Summer's here and the time is right for racing in the street," similar to the Rolling Stones' appropriation of the lyric in "Street Fightin' Man".
Though the album failed to generate any substantial hit singles ("Prove It All Night" made it into the Top 40 in the U.S. at #33, and follow-up "Badlands" just missed, peaking at #42), Darkness was critically well-received and claimed the number one slot on NME album of the year ranking. In 2003, the album was ranked number 151 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The same year, the TV network VH1 named Darkness on the Edge of Town the 68th greatest album of all time.
The cover shot and inner sleeve photo were taken by photographer Frank Stefanko inside Stefanko's Haddonfield, New Jersey, home. Springsteen says, "When I saw the picture I said, 'That's the guy in the songs.' I wanted the part of me that's still that guy to be on the cover. Frank stripped away all your celebrity and left you with your essence. That's what that record was about."false2024-01-19 17:12:44Darkness on the Edge of Town819781978-06-021978-06-0243Classic RockFolk RockPop RockRockRock And RollHeartland Rock1112772110218a200b019-98e5-4df7-8a6f-62db99c650c570248960-cb53-4ea4-943a-edb18f7d336fb613123b-a234-3f48-9c45-e05bf4e6b9e7/media/data/media5/Music/Bruce Springsteen/Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)/folder.jpgBruce SpringsteenAlbumArtist/config/metadata/People/B/Bruce Springsteen/folder.jpgBruce SpringsteenArtist/config/metadata/People/B/Bruce Springsteen/folder.jpgBruce SpringsteenBruce SpringsteenBruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American rock singer, songwriter and guitarist. Nicknamed "The Boss", he has released 21 studio albums during a career spanning six decades, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Springsteen is an originator of heartland rock, a genre combining mainstream rock music with poetic and socially conscious lyrics that feature narratives primarily concerning working-class American life. He is known for his descriptive lyrics and energetic concerts, with performances that can last for more than four hours.Springsteen released his first two albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, in 1973; neither earned him a large audience. He then changed his style and achieved worldwide popularity with Born to Run (1975). This was followed by Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and The River (1980), which topped the Billboard 200 chart. After the solo album Nebraska (1982), he reunited with his E Street Band for Born in the U.S.A. (1984), which became his most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums of all time. All seven of its singles reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, including the title track. Springsteen mostly hired session musicians for the recording of his next three albums, Tunnel of Love (1987), Human Touch (1992), and Lucky Town (1992). He reassembled the E Street Band for Greatest Hits (1995), then recorded the acoustic album The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) and the EP Blood Brothers (1996).
Seven years after releasing The Ghost of Tom Joad—the longest gap between any of his studio albums—Springsteen released The Rising (2002), which he dedicated to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. He released two more folk albums, Devils & Dust (2005) and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006), followed by two more albums with the E Street Band: Magic (2007) and Working on a Dream (2009). The next two albums, Wrecking Ball (2012) and High Hopes (2014), topped album charts worldwide. From 2017 to 2018, and again in 2021, Springsteen performed the critically acclaimed one-man show Springsteen on Broadway which saw him perform some of his songs and tell stories from his 2016 autobiography; the album version was released in 2018. He then released the solo album Western Stars (2019), the album Letter to You (2020) with the E Street Band, and a solo cover album Only the Strong Survive (2022). Letter to You reached number two in the U.S. and made Springsteen the first artist to score a Top 5 album across six consecutive decades.Listed among the album era's most prominent acts, Springsteen has sold more than 71 million albums in the U.S. and over 140 million worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has earned numerous awards, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award. He was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, named MusiCares person of the year in 2013, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016, and awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Joe Biden in 2023. He ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, which described him as being "the embodiment of rock & roll".