Personnel: Bruce Springsteen (vocals, guitar); Steve Van Zandt (vocals); Suki Lahav (violin); Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone); David Sanborn (baritone saxophone); Clarence Clemons (saxophone, background vocals); Randy Brecker (trumpet, flugelhorn); Danny Federici (organ); Roy Bittan (keyboards, glockenspiel, background vocals); David Sancious (keyboards); Garry Tallent, Richard Davis (bass); Max Weinberg, Ernest "Boom" Carter (drums); Mike Appel (background vocals).

Producers: Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Mike Appel.

Recorded at The Record Plant, New York, and 914 Sound Studio, Blauvelt, New York.

Personnel: Bruce Springsteen (vocals, guitar, harmonica, alto horn); Steven Van Zandt (vocals, guitar, alto horn, background vocals); Clarence Clemons (vocals, saxophone, tenor saxophone); Danny Federici (vocals, organ, keyboards); Mike Appel (vocals, background vocals); Suki Lahav (violin); David Sanborn (saxophone, baritone saxophone, bass saxophone); Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone, horns); Randy Brecker (trumpet, flugelhorn, horns); Wayne Andre (trombone); Roy Bittan (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, harpsichord, organ, keyboards, glockenspiel, background vocals); David Sancious (keyboards); Garry Tallent (bass guitar); Ernest Carter, Max Weinberg (drums).

Audio Mixer: Jimmy Iovine.

Audio Remasterer: Bob Ludwig.

Recording information: 914 Sound Studios, Blauvelt, NY; Record Plant Studios, New York, NY.

Photographer: Eric Meola.

Arranger: Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce Springsteen's make-or-break third album represented a sonic leap from his first two, which had been made for modest sums at a suburban studio; Born to Run was cut on a superstar budget, mostly at the Record Plant in New York. Springsteen's backup band had changed, with his two virtuoso players, keyboardist David Sancious and drummer Vini Lopez, replaced by the professional but less flashy Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg. The result was a full, highly produced sound that contained elements of Phil Spector's melodramatic work of the 1960s. Layers of guitar, layers of echo on the vocals, lots of keyboards, thunderous drums -- Born to Run had a big sound, and Springsteen wrote big songs to match it. The overall theme of the album was similar to that of The E Street Shuffle; Springsteen was describing, and saying farewell to, a romanticized teenage street life. But where he had been affectionate, even humorous before, he was becoming increasingly bitter. If Springsteen had celebrated his dead-end kids on his first album and viewed them nostalgically on his second, on his third he seemed to despise their failure, perhaps because he was beginning to fear he was trapped himself. Nevertheless, he now felt removed, composing an updated West Side Story with spectacular music that owed more to Bernstein than to Berry. To call Born to Run overblown is to miss the point; Springsteen's precise intention is to blow things up, both in the sense of expanding them to gargantuan size and of exploding them. If The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was an accidental miracle, Born to Run was an intentional masterpiece. It declared its own greatness with songs and a sound that lived up to Springsteen's promise, and though some thought it took itself too seriously, many found that exalting. ~ William Ruhlmann

BORN TO RUN is the album that turned Springsteen from a phenomenon into a superstar. His first couple of releases found Bruce working out his fascination with Dylan and Van Morrison on earthy, wordy, folk-rock-R&B tunes full of soul and punch. On BORN TO RUN, Springsteen became even more ambitious, synthesizing Spectorian production with Orbison-esque drama and Duane Eddy-influenced guitar work, creating something grand enough to be called rock opera but too proletarian to ever claim that title.

BORN TO RUN was also the first album where the Boss began to crystallize his recurring theme of working class America's doomed-but-passionate rage against its circumstances. With the earnestness and emotion that bursts forth from Springsteen's street poems, the album is never less than exhilarating, and songs like "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (a tongue-in-cheek history of the E Street Band) provide humor. "She's The One" puts the Bo Diddley beat to its most effective post-'50s use, and the title track is Springsteen's quintessential underdog epic.

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.96) - Ranked #18 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...Springsteen produced a timeless, inspiring record about the labors and glories of aspiring to greatness..."

Q (p.129) - Ranked #3 in Q Magazine's "10 Essential Reissues Of 2006."

Q (1/03, p.64) - Included in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever"

Uncut (p.118) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[T]he struggling Springsteen's dreams of escape are turned into a grand folly without parallel in his career."

Vibe (12/99, p.157) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century

Mojo (Publisher) (p.144) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[A] little under 40 minutes of grandiloquent silver-screen melodrama....Essential for fans..."