Born To Run

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<b>100 Best Albums</b> Bruce Springsteen’s third album is as close to a perfect record as he would ever make. His first two efforts had featured epic tale, populated with wild character. But with <i>Born to Run</i>, released in 1975, he finally cracked the cipher on how to compress and tighten those long-form stories—making the songs easier for listeners to absorb, and for radio DJs to spin. Springsteen envisioned <i>Born to Run</i> as a song cycle, one that starts at daybreak and ends at dawn, with the harmonica in “Thunder Road” acting as reveille, and with “Jungleland” at the end bringing the curtain down—in more ways than one. In between, there’s plenty of drama and noir, with Springsteen’s vivid characters getting into trouble down dark alley, where they fight for freedom (or, at least, redemption). The mid-album highlight is the title track, which Springsteen would later pinpoint as the moment he learned to successfully combine power and emotion—lyrically <i>and</i> musically—in a shorter form, while still delivering the same impact his longer epics did. “Born to Run” became an anthem for FM rock radio, with stations in cities like Cleveland and New York playing it at 5 pm on Fridays to commemorate the start of the weekend. .

via Apple Music

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