Bruce Springsteen – “The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story” (2010)
Another look at the recent Springsteen box set that contains a remastered version of his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town (I had forgotten just what a great album this was) — plus, The Promise, a 2-CD collection of outtakes and alternate versions of songs from the Darkness sessions, not to mention 2 DVDs and a replica of Bruce’s working notebook of lyrics and ephemera. Definitely a box worth having.
This review comes from the Pitchfork website and was written by Mark Richardson, Nov. 17, 2010…
Sometimes reissues add a few demos or outtakes, sometimes they add a bonus disc with a live show or additional music, and sometimes they go so far with the bonus material they become something else entirely. The Promise, a name given to two sets based around unheard music from Bruce Springsteen dating to 1977 and 1978, when he was writing and recording the seminal Darkness on the Edge of Town, doesn’t fit easily into typical reissue categories. There’s a 2xCD, 3xLP set that contains 22 unreleased songs from the period, and then there’s a deluxe box set that augments the unreleased material with a remastered version of Darkness and three DVDs. And the latter is housed in a faux spiral-bound notebook with facsimiles of Springsteen’s handwritten studio notes from the time. Taken all together, we’re talking 10 hours plus of video and audio, along with the booklet. So calling this a reissue of Darkness on the Edge of Town is not accurate. This is a trove, a vast clearinghouse from a fertile period, Read the rest of this entry »
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