Product Description

Only Springsteen could have got away with releasing a double album with 19 tracks of what was basically the same song. Such was his standing that he did, and it worked like a dream. Almost all the tracks hit you in the stomach, with burning saxophone from Clarence Clemons and piercing wurlitzer organ. Bruce, meanwhile, sings of cars and girls and girls and cars, but at no stage does he forget that this is rock 'n' roll. With this release Springsteen completed a rite of passage. Described as the "new Dylan" early in his career, the singer proved this tag a fallacy, drawing on Dansette pop - Phil Spector, Gary US Bonds, Mitch Ryder - rather than the folk tradition. The singer articulated the dilemmas of America's blue-collar workforce, encapsulating a generation trapped in a post-60s malaise. He does so with sumptuous melodies which draw in, rather than confront, the listener and show Springsteen not just as a magnetic showman, but as a pensive, literate songwriter.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Ties That Bind
2. Sherry Darling
3. Jackson Cage
4. Two Hearts
5. Independence Day
6. Hungry Heart
7. Out In The Street
8. Crush On You
9. You Can Look (But You'd Better Not Touch)
10. I Wanna Marry You
11. River

Disc 2:

1. Point Blank
2. Cadillac Ranch
3. I'm A Rocker
4. Fade Away
5. Stolen Car
6. Ramrod
7. Price You Pay
8. Drive All Night
9. Wreck On The Highway

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4827 in Music
• Released on: 2003-05-05
• Number of discs: 2

Amazon.co.uk Review
Despite the acclaim accorded Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, this is the album that broke Springsteen into the big leagues, thanks to "Hungry Heart", then his most pointedly commercial song; it had new fans swooning but some old ones grumbling for the "poetic" Springsteen of days gone by. Not to worry--though more economical lyrically, The River had something to offer nearly everyone: There's old-time bar-room rock ("Sherry Darling"), empathetic character studies ("The River", "Stolen Car", "Independence Day"), passionate rockers ("Out in the Street"), dramatic ballads ("Point Blank"), and even a couple of good-natured goofs ("Cadillac Ranch", "Crush on You", "Ramrod"). A sprawling double-disc set, The River offers proof that Springsteen could do it all and could do it better than virtually anyone else. --Daniel Durchholz

Customer Reviews

The flood
1980's 'The River' can probably be regarded as Bruce Springsteen's first move toward a more commercial sound. After years of sober epics punctuated by the occasional radio-friendly song, he turned out a stack of uptempo three-minute songs. Eight of the first nine tracks on this album are in that style. Far from being routine love songs, however, they feature Springsteen's vivid turn of phrase and odd storylines. On 'Sherry Darling', for instance, the subject threatens to throw his girlfriend's mother out of his car. The impassioned 'Jackson Cage' (well, his songs usually are impassioned) is a highlight, while 'Hungry Heart' is an obvious single, if a relatively unsuccessful one. Fans might balk at the gooey 'I Wanna Marry You', but the plaintive title track is a triumph.

The second disc features some meatier subject matter among the rockers and is generally slower. Both 'Point Blank' and 'Wreck On The Highway' are Springsteen at his nerve-probing best. 'The Price You Pay' is bland, however, while 'Drive All Night', at eight minutes, is simply too long.
Nevertheless, over three-quarters of the album is high quality rock music and it's one of Springsteen's most listenable.

the standard comment on the greats' double albums...
Like the Beatles' White Album and Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, should it have been a single album? I'd like to give some songs 5 stars but others - and, unfortunately, therefore the overall album - a bit less.
It has a lot of 'typical Bruce' uptempo songs and several slower, more reflective ones. Among the former, Cadillac Ranch is the most fun (especially when you realise he didn't mean it that seriously!); Hungry Heart ranks near Born To Run as a classic blue-collar rock ballad; The River is another essential which moved Bruce towards his next album, the acoustic Nebraska. Bracketing disc 2 are 2 of my Springsteen favorites that his singing is perfect for - moving ballads Point Blank and Wreck on the Highway, a great downtempo album closer to bring us down with a nightcap after the album's earlier partying.

(Given some of the great tracks - both fast and slow - I don't know why Columbia released the less memorable Fade Away as the follow-up single to Hungry heart in the USA.)

However, rehearing it I wonder if it needs so many songs (esp. on disc 1) of such a similar tempo: Sherri Darling, Jackson Cage, 2 hearts, You Can Look, Out on the streets, I'm a rocker, Ramrod... After seeing The Boss live for the first time, I wondered whether it would have been better to have released a 'pruned' 10/12-track studio album followed by a double live album with all 20 tracks on (maybe + a handful of the earlier classics - to make it an abridged version of the 3 CD / 5 LP 1975-85 album).

So, certainly a lot of good tracks - but too many similar ones in some ways. I'd advise the more concentrated classics (Born To Run and Darkness) if you want an introduction to the man's greatness (tho I shamefully admit I haven't got those yet!).

Bruce walks in another mans shoes
This is my favourite Springsteen album, my coma album if anyone saw fit to wake me up, never mind a desert island disc. Yes like most of his back catalogue the cd pressing is in dire need of a remaster to warm it up but the songs are bountiful and great.

The first disc is the E Street band sound that most people recognise, the jangling guitar, the big mans sax - the wall of sound reinterpreted. Apparently uplifting songs such as The Ties that Bind, Jackson Cage and Hungry Heart have at their heart a deceptive lyrical bleakness, which are precursors to the darker second disc. Sherry Darling is the Boss's take on "Frat Rock" and the only genuinely light track on this disc. The title track is loosely biographical and remains a great ballad. I remember the excitement of seeing it premiered on the Old Grey Whistle test and being blown away by Bruces look and the song. It still sends chills nearly 30 years on, this was his lyrical coming of age.

The second side opens with a criminally underrated classic of the Springsteen canon. Point Blank is simply beautiful; a 3/4 time ballad that could be a Johnny Cash song. For reasons I could never quite elucidate this remains my favourite Springsteen song, I was thrilled to see it given a rare live dusting off at Parken in Copenhagen a few years ago. The crowd just stopped dead mouths agape - I guess I am not alone.

There follows a couple of rockers in the form of live favourite goof-fest Cadillac Ranch and the imaginatively titled rocker "I'm a Rocker". But for the intrusion of the excellent more imaginatively titled rocker Ramrod the remainder of the album points towards the bleak masterpiece that is Nebraska, which was to be his next album and the bravest artistic decision of any major artist.

This is the start of Bruce's "walking in another man's shoes" songs. I constantly marvel at the economy of his lyrics while conveying the most vivid of pictures. Stolen Car and Wreck on the Highway are positively haunting, the lyrics, the anguished vocals, the spare instrumentation are all ingredients that set the Boss apart.

Like chosing a favourite child - you know you shouldn't - but this is my favourite and I think it needs to step out of the shadows of the more commercially and critically successful stablemates. A classic.