eMusic Review
This record has a deck-clearing swagger that's entirely appropriate to its original format — the vinyl double album. It's full of tunes that are great to chug beer and pump fists to — titles such as "Sherry Darling," "I'm A Rocker," "Out In The Street," "Crush on You," "Cadillac Ranch" all speak for themselves. Then of course, there's "Hungry Heart," the first Springsteen song to have a big Top 40 impact, and a tune that Bruce had originally shopped to the Ramones. As much fun as it is, the record's not entirely light-hearted and, in fact, Springsteen wrote a lot of the darker tunes late in the album's recording, in the interest of creating a wider-ranging, more fleshed-out record. The title track and "Point Blank" are two of his finest ballads, and the latter is one of his most harrowing songs. Then there's the epic "Drive All Night," which has more in common with the drony avant-rock of Suicide (a band whose influence Springsteen would acknowledge years later with a cover of their "Dream Baby Dream") than with "Jungleland." And finally, the album's quietly haunting closer, "Wreck on the Highway," once heard, never forgotten.
