Live 1975–85 Explained

Live/1975–85
Type:Live album
Artist:Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Cover:Bruce Springsteen Live 75-85.jpg
Released:November 10, 1986
Recorded:October 18, 1975 – September 30, 1985
Genre:Rock
Length:216:13
Label:Columbia
Prev Title:Born in the U.S.A.
Prev Year:1984
Next Title:Tunnel of Love
Next Year:1987

Live/1975–85 is a live album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, consisting of 40 tracks recorded at various concerts between 1975 and 1985, and released as a box set by Columbia Records on November 10, 1986.[1] It broke the record for advance orders, and, according to RIAA certification, is the second-best-selling live album in the US.[2] Rolling Stone hailed it as "an embarrassment of riches", while The New York Times said it was "an unprecedented event in popular recording" and "monumental".[3] [4]

Background

Springsteen writes in the liner notes, "Jon Landau sent a four-song cassette of "Born in the U.S.A.", 'Seeds', "The River" and "War" down to my house with a note attached saying he 'thought we might have something here'. Over the following months we listened to 10 years of tapes, the music did the talkin', and this album and its story began to emerge. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did. I'd like to thank Jon for his friendship and perseverance and the E Street Band for 1,001 nights of comradeship and good rockin'. They're all about the best bunch of people you can have at your side when you're goin' on a long drive."

Release and performance

The album debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart, a then-rare occurrence that hadn't happened since Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life in 1976. Live 1975-85 also became the first five-record set to reach the Top 10, and the first to sell over a million copies. It was released as a box set of five vinyl records, three cassettes or three CDs. There was also an exclusive record club release of three 8-track cartridges.[5] Being both long-awaited and highly anticipated, the album generated advance orders of more than 1.5 million copies, making it the largest dollar-value pre-order at the time.[6] Despite some record stores opening early, they were still confronted with lines of fans. "We're selling them as fast as we can get them out of the box," said Don Bergentry, a New York retailer, adding, "This is the biggest thing I have ever seen in records."[7]

Live/1975–85 is the second-best-selling live album in US history based on RIAA certification, which puts it at 13× platinum, trailing only Garth Brooks' Double Live. The box set's sales performance attracted considerable media attention at the time, immediately for setting records during the 1986 holiday shopping period, and subsequently for the sharp drop-off in sales in early 1987, leaving many retailers overstocked.[8]

Two singles were released: "War" (a cover of the 1970 Edwin Starr hit), which reached No. 8 on the U.S. pop singles chart, and "Fire" (a Springsteen song that was a top 10 hit for The Pointer Sisters in 1979), which only reached No. 46, breaking Springsteen's string of eight consecutive Top 10 singles. Two non-album tracks — "Incident on 57th Street", recorded at Nassau Coliseum in December 1980, and "For You", taken from the July 1978 Roxy show — materialized on B-sides from the album's singles, and on a Japanese release, Live Collection. The music video for "War" was taken from the concert where it was recorded, while the video for "Fire" was from a completely unrelated 1986 acoustic performance at a Bridge School Benefit concert. A third video, for "Born to Run", was also released, which showed a melange of clips from the band's 1984–85 Born in the U.S.A. Tour.

Critical reception

Most reviews were overwhelmingly positive. The New York Times found it to be the "equivalent of an epic American novel, its story told in the ungrammatical, rough-hewn vocabulary of rock", possessing an "historical resonance that goes beyond pop culture". Rolling Stone said it was "an extraordinary demonstration of how Springsteen’s telepathic command of a concert audience has increased in direct proportion to the size of his stage."It lauded Springsteen's "raw power, lyric honesty and spiritual determination". However, the magazine was not alone in highlighting the omission of several concert highlights, including "Prove It All Night" and Springsteen's rousing cover of John Fogerty's "Who'll Stop the Rain". Nor was it the only one to note that some superior unreleased songs, such as "The Fever", were ignored in favor of recent album tracks like "Darlington County".[9] [10]

Track listing

Vinyl

Notes

CD

Disc 1

  1. "Thunder Road" – 5:46
  2. "Adam Raised a Cain" – 5:26
  3. "Spirit in the Night" – 6:25
  4. "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" – 6:34
  5. "Paradise by the "C"" – 3:54
  6. "Fire" – 2:51
  7. "Growin' Up" – 7:58
  8. "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" – 4:39
  9. "Backstreets" – 7:35
  10. "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" – 10:00
  11. "Raise Your Hand" (Cropper/Floyd/Isbell) – 5:01
  12. "Hungry Heart" – 4:30
  13. "Two Hearts" – 3:06

Disc 2

  1. "Cadillac Ranch" – 4:52
  2. "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" – 3:58
  3. "Independence Day" – 5:08
  4. "Badlands" – 5:17
  5. "Because the Night" (Springsteen/Smith) – 5:19
  6. "Candy's Room" – 3:19
  7. "Darkness on the Edge of Town" – 4:19
  8. "Racing in the Street" – 8:12
  9. "This Land Is Your Land" (Guthrie) – 4:21
  10. "Nebraska" – 4:18
  11. "Johnny 99" – 4:24
  12. "Reason to Believe" – 5:19
  13. "Born in the U.S.A." – 6:10
  14. "Seeds" – 5:14

Disc 3

  1. "The River" – 11:42
  2. "War" (Strong/Whitfield) – 4:53
  3. "Darlington County" – 5:12
  4. "Working on the Highway" – 4:04
  5. "The Promised Land" – 5:36
  6. "Cover Me" – 6:57
  7. "I'm on Fire" – 4:26
  8. "Bobby Jean" – 4:30
  9. "My Hometown" – 5:13
  10. "Born to Run" – 5:03
  11. "No Surrender" – 4:41
  12. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" – 4:21
  13. "Jersey Girl" (Waits) – 6:30

Personnel

The E Street Band

Guest musicians

Technical

Charts

Chart (1985–1987)!scope="col"
Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[11] 3
Canadian Albums (RPM)[12] 1
Irish Albums (IRMA)[13] 42
Italian Albums (Musica e Dischi)[14] 8
UK Albums Chart[15] 4
US Billboard 200[16] 1

See also

Notes and References

  1. Goodman, Fred . Bruce Springs Out Of The Box . Billboard . 1986-11-22 . 98 . 47 . 1 . 14 July 2023 . Billboard Publications, Inc. . New York, NY, USA . English . 0006-2510 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210127015406/https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/80s/1986/BB-1986-11-22.pdf . 2021-01-27 . A Billboard survey of retail outlets around the country found most stores selling out of their initial shipments on Nov. 10, the first day of the album's release.
  2. Web site: Gold & Platinum – RIAA. RIAA. 24 October 2016.
  3. Fricke . David . 10 November 1986 . Music: Live 1975-1985 . 11 November 2022 . Rolling Stone.
  4. Web site: Holden . Stephen . 9 November 1986 . RECORDINGS; Springsteen's Live/1975-1985' Is Loaded With History . 11 November 2022 . The New York Times (via Factiva).
  5. Web site: The 80s: Record-Club Only 8-tracks: N-Z. 8-Track Heaven. 30 January 2014. 24 October 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20170107063936/http://8trackheaven.com/8-track-collecting/the-80s-record-club-only-8-tracks/n-z/. 7 January 2017. dead.
  6. [Joel Selvin|Selvin, Joel]
  7. Web site: Blau . Eleanor . 11 November 1986 . THRONGS LINE UP EARLY FOR SPRINGSTEEN ALBUM . 11 November 2022 . The New York Times (via Factiva).
  8. Harrington, Richard. "Springsteen 'Live' in a Sales Coma" The Washington Post March 25, 1987: C7
  9. Pond, Steve. "Bruce's Live LP Battles Great Expectations" Los Angeles Times November 9, 1986: 5
  10. Barton, David. "It's Not That Good" Sacramento Bee December 7, 1986: EN1
  11. Web site: Hung. Steffen. australian-charts.com – Discography Bruce Springsteen. australian-charts.com. 11 November 2016.
  12. Web site: Canada. Library and Archives. RPM – Library and Archives Canada. 16 April 2013 . 11 November 2016. en.
  13. Web site: Irish Charts > Bruce Springsteen . irish-charts.com. Hung Medien. December 20, 2021.
  14. Web site: Classifiche. Musica e dischi. it. May 31, 2022. Set "Tipo" on "Album". Then, in the "Titolo" field, search "Live 1975/1985".
  15. Web site: Bruce Springsteen full Official Chart History Official Charts Company. www.theofficialcharts.com. 11 November 2016. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20120211044355/http://www.theofficialcharts.com/artist/_/bruce%20springsteen. 11 February 2012.
  16. Web site: Bruce Springsteen – Chart history Billboard. www.billboard.com. 11 November 2016.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Live 1975–85".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.