Greetings From Asbury Park served notice that there was a new musical force on the scene. On his debut, Bruce showed he was the best songwriter to come along since Bob Dylan. The album kicks off with the musical tounge twister "Blinded By The Light" that showed Bruce wasn't a typical singer-songwriter. The song has a funky riff and is replete with horns. "Spirit In The Night" introduced the E Street sound and is a precursor to the character oriented songs that would appear later on Born To Run & Wild. "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd St?" is fun and "For You" is a rare rock song about suicide. "Growin' Up" & It's So Hard To Be A Saint In The City" show early signs of Bruce's "Tramp" persona. "Lost In The Flood" is the great forgotten Bruce song and is as good a song as he has ever recorded. While Greetings is uneven at points ("Mary, Queen of Arkansas' & "The Angel"), it shows an artist who had a very original sound and huge potential. It is great to throw it in the cd player and hear a young, raw and hungry Bruce Springsteen and listen to where it all started.

One of the greatest debut albums of all-time. Not only did "Greetings From Asbury Park" put unfashionable New Jersey back on the map, it also launched one of the longest and most important careers in rock's history. The 23 year-old Springsteen displayed a remarkable brand of lyrical verbosity not heard since the heady hey day of Bob Dylan circa "Blonde on Blonde". Of course, the imminent Dylan comparsions were unavoidable, but the ambitious young star refused to let the hype machine eat him up. While much has been made of "Greetings'" poor production, nothing could possibly detract from the quality of Springsteen's songwriting. Nearly 30 years after their release, songs such as "For You", "Spirit in the Night" and "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City" still rank among the upper echelon of Springsteen's work. Lyrically, Bruce would never quite approach the lofty heights he reached on "Greetings" and its magnificient follow-up "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle". Colorful imagery practically jumps off the grooves on every track. From the wild verbal assault of "Blinded By the Light" to the poetically violent gunfight of "Lost in the Flood", Bruce never lets down his guard. Zany characters with eccentric names like Crazy Janey and Mission Man pop up all over the place. The hastily assembled band, loose and ready to roll, so perfectly suits the rapid-fire vocal delivery of the raspy-voiced Springsteen. The whole experience is sheer unadultrated joy. Ironically, being the adventurous piece of work that it was, "Greetings" proved to be an abysmal financial flop. Practically no one outside of Philadelphia, New York or New Jersey was even aware of Springsteen. Within a few years that would all change. While Bruce would eventually become an international superstar, I personally believe that he would never again display the brilliant artistry of his first three albums ("Greetings", " The Wild, the Innocent" and "Born to Run"). Bruce's current work lacks that urgent sense of abandon which made "Greetings" so darn enjoyable. In fact, fans only familiar with his post 1980 output may be shocked to realize that, once upon a time, listening to Bruce Springsteen was actually fun! "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." is more than just fun, however, it's the embodiment of the spirit of rock-n-roll. Great album. Highly recommended.

With the rambling, stream of consciousness lyrics on GREETINGS you can feel Springsteen pressing a bit. For every wondrous street poem like "Spirit in the Night," or "Lost in the Flood," you have the odd imagery of "Mary Queen of Arkansas," or the rather bizarre rambling of "The Angel," a song that seems interminable and it only clocks in at 3:23. There are definitely enough wonderful songs here to see the potential, but some of it is just a bit ponderous and has not aged well. Still, it definitely has its merits and is well worth your time to hear how one of America's greatest rockers began his career.

We all know Born to Run and The River and these are great albums. But if you love Bruce, this is the one you must have! It was his first studio album and the best he ever put out. The lyrics in these songs brings you through his painful, drug fenzied, lonely, and sexy moments from his early life. For You is probaly his best and most underrated tune. It will give you goosebumps when he screams out "and who am I to ask you to lick my sores..." Spirit in the Night and Blinded by the Light are the best known hits from this record. Growing Up is the rebel's anthem and The Flood will rip your heart out. So if you are a Bruce fan you must add this to your collection. But understand, this is not Born in the USA or Tunnel of LoveIt is wild, young, and raw!

Although Bruce Springsteen became known to the world as a singer/songwriter who wrote story songs embodying the spirit of the disheartened and the downtrodden, it is often forgotten that he started out as a wild, exuberant, and borderline naive artist. His debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. is a prime example of this youthful enthusiasm. Springsteen belts out lyrics in his raspy, intimitable voice the likes of which had not been seen in rock 'n' roll since Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde (fostering the inevitable Dylan comparisons that hound The Boss to this day.) Right from the kick-off of Blinded By The Light (later a big hit for Manfred Mann's Earth Band, but far better in this, the oringal version), it was obvious that a new and very talented singer/songwriter was on the scene: replete with a funky/jazzy rock riff and numerous horns, the song starts out with the lyrics "madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat/in the dumps with the mumps as the adolescant pumps his way into his hat" - and just goes on from there. The arrangements and playing are just as busy as the lyrics, and the playing, while not exactly what you would call tight, is huge-sounding, loose, and feels like it is just barely contained - in other words, the perfect backdrop for these wild lyrical flights of fancy. Despite somewhat hazy production, this remains one of the greatest debut albums of all-time. It has what still rank as some of Springsteen's best songs (Blinded By The Light, Lost In The Flood, Spirit In The Night) - not to mention the all-time classic lyric "nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant pleadin' Immaculate Conception." Although he would later come to be known and treasured as American's bard of the dispossessed, one can look back on this album and hear a Bruce who was just as good, infused instead with a brimming, admirable youthful enthusiasm. Essential Springsteen.