AudioAficionado.org - Bruce Springsteen - The Discography

So now it's time to give the boss a little love as we get through the Bs. I've always loved Bruce Springsteen.....true story, a Born in the U.S.A. cassette tape was the first gift a girl ever gave me when I was in 5th grade, she had good taste. This is going to be a bit of a challenging thread because as many of you probably know, one does not equate good sound quality with Springsteen albums. He always went with a more stripped down, low fidelity sound on his albums with some being worse than others (The River for example). Some of his later works are better, but we're still not talking about audiophile quality on pretty much any of his records. I'll kick off this thread with a review of his debut album which I've always loved but if my memory serves me sounds pretty flat and lifeless throughout. I chose the 2014 vinyl version from the "Album Collection Volume 1" as the review subject here. Most of the albums from the box set were mastered from the original analog tapes, so let's see how it fares.

Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., 1973, Columbia Records
Review version - 2014 vinyl reissue, mastered by Bob Ludwig @ Gateway Mastering

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Here's a link to Michael Fremer's review of the vinyl box set: https://www.analogplanet.com/content...-1984-reviewed

This is a neat link to a Rolling Stone article going in great detail about "Greetings" with a ton of interesting information about the album itself: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...t-know-204206/

1. Blinded By The Light - This classic song kicks off the album with a relatively flat 2 dimensional sound, the thing that stands out most here is the lack of any type of low bass, it's just not present on the recording. The (younger) Springsteen's voice is nicely centered in the mix along with Clarence Clemons' saxophone somewhat in the background. The soundstage is also fairly narrow..it wouldn't take much to imagine this was a mono recording...it reminds me a bit of the Beatles' mono vinyl box with not quite the dynamics.

2. Growin' Up - This is a much warmer sounding recording, almost night and day compared to "Blinded". The mid bass is a bit warmer and fuller on this track, also, the drums and cymbals stretch much wider on this song. The piano solo kicks in about halfway through but it sound muffled compared to good piano recordings.

3. Mary Queen of Arkansas - This is a pretty rough sounding song even though the acoustic guitar sounds pretty decent....you can hear it clearly on the inside of the right channel....it sound pretty lifelike but not as vivid as you would hear on a better recording.

5. Lost In The Flood - You get a little better sense of Vini Lopez' drums on this track, they're quite a bit more powerful than on the first few songs on the album. Springsteen's voice still has that grating "close miked" sound on this song, turn the volume up on this and you'll hear what I mean. The highlight of this song is the drumming, it's very tight and paces the song well....listen especially to the last minute of the song, pretty nice.

6. The Angel - [DEMO] This is a pretty nice example of Bruce's vocal ability, it's a slow almost atmospheric and sparse song......it's piano over in the right channel and his voice centered nicely between the speakers. There's much more air to his vocals on this song with an upright bass coming in softly toward the end of the song. If you wanted to play a track off this album to show off anything, this would be it so far. No, it's not gonna be played at any audio salons to sell speakers, but for this album, it sounds pretty nice. Turn the volume up on this one.

8. Spirit in the Night - Medium temp song with a bit of swing that is a fan favorite at his live concerts. Doesn't sound very good here. Where are the dynamics? :tears: You can hear some congas way over outside the left speaker which sounds kind of cool I guess.

9. It's Hard To Be a Saint In the City - Really cool song that helped Springsteen land his first record deal but as with the rest of the album, it sounds very flat and close miked.

"Greetings" is a really cool debut album, I still think it sound fresh even if the recording quality is a bit dated. Sonically, it really doesn't have that much to offer with it's low-fi production. "The Angel" is about the only track I'd bother playing for a demo, Springsteen's vocals sound a lot better on that track then they do on the rest of the album. The real culprit here is the lack of dynamics....it's a very even and boring listen (sonically of course........I don't think the music is boring at all :thumbsup:). I'll have to refresh my memory when it comes time for his other albums, but hopefully we can ramp up the sound quality at least a little bit in the future here.

Audiophile Rating: 3/10 (overall sonics)
Demo Rating: 11% 1/9 (number of cool demo tracks/tracks on album)