137: BORN IN THE USA | BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Born in the U.S.A. is the seventh studio album by American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was released by Columbia Records on June 4, 1984. The album's music was written by Springsteen and recorded with his E Street Band and producers Chuck Plotkin and Jon Landau at The Power Station and The Hit Factory in New York City.
Born in the U.S.A. was met with positive reviews and massive commercial success. It produced seven top-10 hit singles and was promoted with a worldwide concert tour by Springsteen. Born in the U.S.A. became his most commercially successful album and one of the highest-selling records ever, having sold 30 million copies by 2012. It has also been cited by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. The album received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 1985 Grammy Awards.
Born in the U.S.A. is composed of twelve tracks, eight from early 1982 (including the "Electric Nebraska" sessions). They are "Born In the U.S.A.", which was completed on May 3, 1982; "Downbound Train", recorded April 28, 1982; "Cover Me", recorded at The Hit Factory, NY on January 25, 1982; "I'm On Fire", recorded at The Power Station on May 11, 1982; "Glory Days", recorded at The Power Station on May 5, 1982; "Darlington County", recorded at The Power Station on May 13, 1982; "Working on the Highway", recorded April 30 and May 6, 1982, and "I'm Going Down", recorded on May 12 or 13, 1982. The four remaining tracks are "No Surrender", recorded October 25–27, 1983; "Bobby Jean" from July 28, 1983; "My Hometown" recorded June 29, 1983, and "Dancing in the Dark", the last to be recorded, on February 14, 1984. The latter was written overnight, after Jon Landau convinced Bruce that the album needed a single. According to Dave Marsh in Glory Days, Bruce was not impressed with Landau's approach. "Look", he snarled, "I've written seventy songs. You want another one, you write it." After blowing off some steam, Bruce came in the next day with the entire song written.
The Born in the U.S.A. (BITUSA) sessions cover more than two years (January 1982 thru March 1984), and produced approximately eighty songs. It is not accurate to separate these from "Nebraska"; two-thirds of this album was recorded in the same time frame, and consists of the songs that were recorded successfully with the E Street Band during that period (January-May 1982). This encompassed the most prolific point of Springsteen's career. Springsteen spent much of the two years at the home he purchased in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles in 1982, writing songs and recording demos at a home studio constructed by Mike Batlan, his assistant, in November-December 1982. During the BITUSA sessions time frame, he conceived several sequences for proposed albums, but found a reason to scrap every one, until he was finally pressured into releasing BITUSA. Springsteen was recording material in 1982 while "Nebraska" was being prepared for release, and considered combining both sources for a double record release. "I had these two extremely different recording experiences going," he told Mark Hagen in an interview for Mojo magazine published in January 1999. "I was going to put them out at the same time as a double record. I didn't know what to do."
After Nebraska's release, and further solo recordings, Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band at The Hit Factory in New York in May 1983. Plans were made to release an album, "Murder Incorporated" in 1983, then scrapped "because it lacked cohesion", according to Springsteen. Finally Jon Landau put enough pressure on Springsteen to get BITUSA released, after the "Dancing in the Dark fight". There are a huge amount of unreleased recordings "in the vaults" from this period, and Springsteen followers are expecting some form of "super box" release, perhaps larger than anything done in the past