Greetings from Asbury Park/Wild Innocent & the E S [Box set]

Greetings From Asbury Park served notice that there was a new musical force on the scene. On his debut, Bruce showed he was the best songwriter to come along since Bob Dylan. The album kicks off with the musical tongue twister "Blinded By The Light" that showed Bruce wasn't a typical singer-songwriter. The song has a funky riff and is replete with horns. "Spirit In The Night" introduced the E Street sound and is a precursor to the character oriented songs that would appear later on Born To Run & Wild. "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd St?" is fun and "For You" is a rare rock song about suicide. "Growin' Up" & It's So Hard To Be A Saint In The City" show early signs of Bruce's "Tramp" persona. "Lost In The Flood" is the great forgotten Bruce song and is as good a song as he has ever recorded. While Greetings is uneven at points ("Mary, Queen of Arkansas' & "The Angel"), it shows an artist who had a very original sound and huge potential. It is great to throw it in the CD player and hear a young, raw and hungry Bruce Springsteen and listen to where it all started.

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street shuffle may only contain 7 songs, but they pack a punch and are among the finest of Bruce's career. The album opens with the funky guitar riff of "The E Street Shuffle". "4th Of July" is the song that made Asbury Park famous and Madame Marie's a mecca for Bruce fans. "Kitty's Back" is a blazing rock 'n' soul workout and is followed by the comical "Wild Billy's Circus Story". On the original album, the last three songs constituted side two and it is about as perfect of an album side as there is in history. "Incident on 57th Street", "Rosalita" and "New York City Serenade" is a three part musical suite and they flow seamlessly into one another. The stories they tell are so vivid that they are almost like musical literature. Bruce has released albums that were musically superior to Wild, but never one that was this much fun.

In Darkness On The Edge Of Town, Springsteen's characters are no longer looking to escape their problems, they've giving up escape a long time ago. They are searching for answers to the situations they find themselves in. Optimism has been replaced by despair and cynicism. "Badlands" is an angry anthem about never being satisfied with where you are in life. "Adam Raised A Cain" is about the struggles between a father and his angry son and "Factory" is about the drudgery of everyday life. Songs like "Something In The Night", "The Promised Land" and "Racing In The Streets" are about chasing a dream that one will probably never find. "Candy's Room", "Streets Of Fire" & "Prove It All Night" are about putting everything on the line for someone and having to constantly prove their devotion. The title song best sums up the album. People are looking for answers to the same questions, willing to pay the cost, but never find them. No matter how much time they search into the Darkness On The Edge Of Town, they end up in the same place.

If I didn't have all three of these albums in my collection, I'd jump on this deal. 3 early Bruce albums for ...? Each disc buries every post-"River" album (with the exception of "Nebraska") by a long shot. Of the 3, "Wild & Innocent" is the least accessible, and even it boasts 'Rosalita', '4th of July'(better known as 'Sandy'), and the weighty 'New York City Serenade'. The poetry on "Greetings" is weird, and playful, and fun as hell: "Nuns run bald through Vatican halls, pregnant, pleading immaculate conception...?" And "Darkness"? Well, it's just a rock-solid album, pun intended. These albums are must-haves for anyone who knew and loved Bruce before the "Born in the USA" debacle.

In my humble opinion, 'The Wild, the Innocent, & the E st. Shuffle' remains one of Bruce's best albums. Taking a lot of inspiration from Van Morrison's 'Astrel Weeks,' Springsteen made a funky record that plays like cinema. Sort of a Scorsese-meets-Fellini epic. This was the record that had the East Coast rock community waiting in anticipation for what turned out to be 'Born to Run.' (hence the simultanious Time & Newsweek cover stories)

'Darkness on the Edge of Town,' of course, is loaded with Springsteen classics that he still plays live today - Badlands, Promised Land, Prove it All Night etc...