Word: albums
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...took several listening and a retreat to earlier albums to understand why Darkness on the Edge of Town is not the great Springsteen album. Much of the new album fails to swing, bounce, rock or ring as true as Springsteen's earlier stuff. It gets right down to a comparison of the different drummers on the albums. Max Weinberg, who handles drums on this album, plods unimaginatively compared to Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez, who lays down the beat on The Wild, the Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle. Moreover, Springsteen has given this album a very dense texture, creating...
...find there has vanished, to be replaced by desperation and bitterness. On the title track, he sings that he has lost his money and his wife and doesn't care about much anymore. Sometimes this desperation is effective, especially what is perhaps the most moving song on the album, "Racing in the Streets." In this simple melody, he explores the ultimate loneliness and failure of someone who, like himslelf, has sought freedom in the fast lane. Springsteen sings over an echoing piano and in the chorus--"Summer's here and the time is right, for racing in the streets"--does...
...vocals while drummer Weinberg turns in his best performance on a restless cymbal. Thesong is colored by skillfully manipulated dynamics as fast and slow, soft and loud roll back and forth with Springsteen's vocals. But unfortunately, this winner has an insipid and trite song like "Factory" sharing album space with...
...trouble is, simply, that Springsteen has ignored his limitations on this album. He shines when he explores the problems that confront an outsider trying to wrest women from sheltered lives with the lures of speed, passion and freedom. Springsteen is in fact one of the most attractive and believable outsider person as in rock. But when he tries to assume the stance of someone caught inside, in the work-a-day world, it's hard either to accept or be interested in it. Springsteen is a wonderful painter of the social landscape, but as a social critic he is standing...
...This album does have a tendency to grow on you, and if you like Springsteen you may like this. But you probably won't be crazy about it. Its shortcomings and its excesses are hindrances that cannot be overlooked. It could be that because of the three years off, Springsteen has lost an essential edge and been too compulsive about his album; we hope that is all it is. But when I look into the vacant eyes of the man on his album cover, and remember how many talents have burned out and gone maundering off into self-indulgence...