Bruce Springsteen
The River
The sources of The River go back into earlier parts of Springsteen's recording career. "Independence Day", "Point Blank", "The Ties That Bind", "Ramrod", and "Sherry Darling" were leftovers from the previous Darkness on the Edge of Town album and had been featured on that 1978 tour, as had parts of "Drive All Night" as a long interpolation within "Backstreets". "Sherry Darling" and "The River" had premiered at the September 1979 Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts, with the latter gaining a featured spot in the subsequent July 1980 No Nukes documentary film.
Originally, the album was going to be a single set entitled The Ties That Bind and released in late 1979, but Springsteen decided it was "too pop" and added darker material after he'd written "The River". Indeed, The River became noted for its mix of the frivolous next to the solemn. This was intentional, and in contrast to Darkness, for as Springsteen said during an interview, "Rock and roll has always been this joy, this certain happiness that is in its way the most beautiful thing in life. But rock is also about hardness and coldness and being alone ... I finally got to the place where I realized life had paradoxes, a lot of them, and you've got to live with them."
"Hungry Heart" was Springsteen's first U.S. pop singles chart top ten hit single, reaching #5. (Springsteen had not intended the song to be for himself, having initially written it for The Ramones; manager/producer Jon Landau convinced Springsteen to keep the song for himself.) The album hit number one on the U.S. pop albums chart, a first for Springsteen, and sold 1.6 million copies in the U.S. between its release and Christmas. Sales faltered when "Fade Away" was a disappointing follow-up single, only getting to #20; the decision to make it the second single has often been questioned.
The album was followed by a lengthy tour of North American and Western Europe during 1980 and 1981. Several of the album's up-tempo rockers became concert staples for decades to come, including "Cadillac Ranch", "Ramrod", and "Out in the Street" (a song so idealistic that Springsteen almost kept it off the album), as did "Two Hearts" (with sidekick Steven Van Zandt acting as the second 'heart').
"Stolen Car" and "Wreck on the Highway", the closing tracks on the original LP's sides three and four, bore unusually quiet, haunted arrangements that presaged much of the musical direction Springsteen would take in the future.
Since its release "The River" has been certified quintuple platinum by the RIAA in the U.S., making it one of Springsteen's best-selling albums. In 2003, the album was ranked number 250 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
"Drive All Night" and "Stolen Car" played a key role in setting the tone of the 1997 film Cop Land.
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