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Live/1975–85
Live album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Released	November 10, 1986
Recorded	October 18, 1975 – September 30, 1985
Venue	The Roxy, West Hollywood Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford Arizona State University, Tempe Giants Stadium, East Rutherford Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Exposition Park
Studio	(Additional recording) Right Track Recording, Manhattan The Hit Factory, New York City Record Plant, Los Angeles
Genre	Rock
Length	216:13
Label	Columbia
Producer	Jon Landau Chuck Plotkin Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band chronology
Born in the U.S.A. (1984) Live/1975–85 (1986) Tunnel of Love (1987)
Singles from Live/1975–1985
"War" Released: November 10, 1986 "Fire" Released: January 1987

Live/1975–85 is a live album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, consisting of 40 tracks recorded at various concerts between 1975 and 1985, and released as a box set by Columbia Records on November 10, 1986. It broke the record for advance orders, and, according to RIAA certification, is the second-best-selling live album in the US. Rolling Stone hailed it as "an embarrassment of riches", while The New York Times said it was "an unprecedented event in popular recording" and "monumental".

Background

Springsteen writes in the liner notes, "Jon Landau sent a four-song cassette of "Born in the U.S.A.", 'Seeds', "The River" and "War" down to my house with a note attached saying he 'thought we might have something here'. Over the following months we listened to 10 years of tapes, the music did the talkin', and this album and its story began to emerge. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did. I'd like to thank Jon for his friendship and perseverance and the E Street Band for 1,001 nights of comradeship and good rockin'. They're all about the best bunch of people you can have at your side when you're goin' on a long drive."

Release and performance

The album debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart, a then-rare occurrence that hadn't happened since Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life in 1976. Live 1975-85 also became the first five-record set to reach the Top 10, and the first to sell over a million copies. It was released as a box set of five vinyl records, three cassettes or three CDs. There was also an exclusive record club release of three 8-track cartridges. Being both long-awaited and highly anticipated, the album generated advance orders of more than 1.5 million copies, making it the largest dollar-value pre-order at the time. Despite some record stores opening early, they were still confronted with lines of fans. "We're selling them as fast as we can get them out of the box," said Don Bergentry, a New York retailer, adding, "This is the biggest thing I have ever seen in records."

Live/1975–85 is the second-best-selling live album in US history based on RIAA certification, which puts it at 13× platinum, trailing only Garth Brooks' Double Live. The box set's sales performance attracted considerable media attention at the time, immediately for setting records during the 1986 holiday shopping period, and subsequently for the sharp drop-off in sales in early 1987, leaving many retailers overstocked.

Two singles were released: "War" (a cover of the 1970 Edwin Starr hit), which reached No. 8 on the U.S. pop singles chart, and "Fire" (a Springsteen song that was a top 10 hit for The Pointer Sisters in 1979), which only reached No. 46, breaking Springsteen's string of eight consecutive Top 10 singles. Two non-album tracks — "Incident on 57th Street", recorded at Nassau Coliseum in December 1980, and "For You", taken from the July 1978 Roxy show — materialized on B-sides from the album's singles, and on a Japanese release, Live Collection. The music video for "War" was taken from the concert where it was recorded, while the video for "Fire" was from a completely unrelated 1986 acoustic performance at a Bridge School Benefit concert. A third video, for "Born to Run", was also released, which showed a melange of clips from the band's 1984–85 Born in the U.S.A. Tour.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Chicago Tribune
New Musical Express	7/10
Rolling Stone	positive
Smash Hits	7½/10
Tom Hull	B+ ()
The Village Voice	A−

Most reviews were overwhelmingly positive. The New York Times found it to be the "equivalent of an epic American novel, its story told in the ungrammatical, rough-hewn vocabulary of rock", possessing an "historical resonance that goes beyond pop culture". Rolling Stone said it was "an extraordinary demonstration of how Springsteen’s telepathic command of a concert audience has increased in direct proportion to the size of his stage." It lauded Springsteen's "raw power, lyric honesty and spiritual determination". However, the magazine was not alone in highlighting the omission of several concert highlights, including "Prove It All Night" and Springsteen's rousing cover of John Fogerty's "Who'll Stop the Rain". Nor was it the only one to note that some superior unreleased songs, such as "The Fever", were ignored in favor of recent album tracks like "Darlington County".

Track listing

Vinyl

All tracks are written by Bruce Springsteen, except where noted

Notes

• – Mistitled as "4th of July, Ashbury Park" on some CD box sets.
• – Song never released by Springsteen before; the version on this release omits Bruce saying "All you bootleggers out there in radioland, roll your tapes" right before the song.
• – The short spoken intro is from July 7, 1978, at the Roxy Theatre, West Hollywood, California
• – This version edits out a long interpolation near the end which includes an early version of "Drive All Night"
• – Mistitled as "Caddillac Ranch" on the CD box set
• – Performed night after the election of Ronald Reagan to the United States presidency.
• – Song never released by Springsteen before, although recorded by others most notably by Patti Smith and, later, 10,000 Maniacs
• – The date in the liner notes is incorrect; the performance actually dates from the following night, December 29.
• – This performance previously released as the music video for "My Hometown" single
• – This performance was released in 1984 as the B-side of the "Cover Me" single. The song was written by Tom Waits and originally released on his Heartattack and Vine album.

CD

Disc 1

1. "Thunder Road" – 5:46
2. "Adam Raised a Cain" – 5:26
3. "Spirit in the Night" – 6:25
4. "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" – 6:34
5. "Paradise by the "C"" – 3:54
6. "Fire" – 2:51
7. "Growin' Up" – 7:58
8. "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" – 4:39
9. "Backstreets" – 7:35
10. "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" – 10:00
11. "Raise Your Hand" (Cropper/Floyd/Isbell) – 5:01
12. "Hungry Heart" – 4:30
13. "Two Hearts" – 3:06

Disc 2

1. "Cadillac Ranch" – 4:52
2. "You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" – 3:58
3. "Independence Day" – 5:08
4. "Badlands" – 5:17
5. "Because the Night" (Springsteen/Smith) – 5:19
6. "Candy's Room" – 3:19
7. "Darkness on the Edge of Town" – 4:19
8. "Racing in the Street" – 8:12
9. "This Land Is Your Land" (Guthrie) – 4:21
10. "Nebraska" – 4:18
11. "Johnny 99" – 4:24
12. "Reason to Believe" – 5:19
13. "Born in the U.S.A." – 6:10
14. "Seeds" – 5:14

Disc 3

1. "The River" – 11:42
2. "War" (Strong/Whitfield) – 4:53
3. "Darlington County" – 5:12
4. "Working on the Highway" – 4:04
5. "The Promised Land" – 5:36
6. "Cover Me" – 6:57
7. "I'm on Fire" – 4:26
8. "Bobby Jean" – 4:30
9. "My Hometown" – 5:13
10. "Born to Run" – 5:03
11. "No Surrender" – 4:41
12. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" – 4:21
13. "Jersey Girl" (Waits) – 6:30

Personnel

Charts

Certifications

See also

• List of best-selling albums in the United States

References

1. Goodman, Fred (1986-11-22). "Bruce Springs Out Of The Box" (PDF). Billboard. Vol. 98, no. 47. New York, NY, USA: Billboard Publications, Inc. p. 1. ISSN 0006-2510. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-01-27. Retrieved 14 July 2023. A Billboard survey of retail outlets around the country found most stores selling out of their initial shipments on Nov. 10, the first day of the album's release
2. ^ "Gold & Platinum – RIAA". RIAA. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
3. ^ Fricke, David (10 November 1986). "Music: Live 1975-1985". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 11 November 2022.
4. ^ Holden, Stephen (9 November 1986). "RECORDINGS; Springsteen's Live/1975-1985' Is Loaded With History". The New York Times (via Factiva). Retrieved 11 November 2022.
5. "The 80s: Record-Club Only 8-tracks: N-Z". 8-Track Heaven. 30 January 2014. Archived from the original on 7 January 2017. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
6. Selvin, Joel. "New Boss Work – Springsteen Five LP Set: A $30 Million Pre-Order" The San Francisco Chronicle November 2, 1986: 49
7. Blau, Eleanor (11 November 1986). "THRONGS LINE UP EARLY FOR SPRINGSTEEN ALBUM". The New York Times (via Factiva). Retrieved 11 November 2022.
8. Harrington, Richard. "Springsteen 'Live' in a Sales Coma" The Washington Post March 25, 1987: C7
9. Ruhlmann, William. "Live 1975–85 – Bruce Springsteen". AllMusic. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
10. Kot, Greg (August 23, 1992). "The Recorded History of Springsteen". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
11. Bailie, Stuart; Staunton, Terry (11 March 1995). "Ace of boss". New Musical Express. pp. 54–55.
12. Fricke, David (November 10, 1986). "Live 1975–1985". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
13. Cranna, Ian (5–18 November 1986). "Album Reviews". Smash Hits. 8 (23): 76.
14. Hull, Tom (October 29, 2016). "Streamnotes (October 2016)". Tom Hull - on the Web. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
15. Christgau, Robert (December 30, 1986). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
16. Pond, Steve. "Bruce's Live LP Battles Great Expectations" Los Angeles Times November 9, 1986: 5
17. Barton, David. "It's Not That Good" Sacramento Bee December 7, 1986: EN1
18. Hung, Steffen. "australian-charts.com – Discography Bruce Springsteen". australian-charts.com. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
19. Canada, Library and Archives (16 April 2013). "RPM – Library and Archives Canada". Retrieved 11 November 2016.
20. "Dutchcharts.nl – Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975–85" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
21. "Longplay-Chartverfolgung at Musicline" (in German). Musicline.de. Phononet GmbH. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
22. "Irish Charts > Bruce Springsteen". irish-charts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
23. "Classifiche". Musica e dischi (in Italian). Retrieved May 31, 2022. Set "Tipo" on "Album". Then, in the "Titolo" field, search "Live 1975/1985".
24. "Charts.nz – Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975–85". Hung Medien. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
25. "Norwegiancharts.com – Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975–85". Hung Medien. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
26. "Swedishcharts.com – Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975–85". Hung Medien. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
27. "Bruce Springsteen | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". www.theofficialcharts.com. Archived from the original on 11 February 2012. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
28. "Bruce Springsteen – Chart history | Billboard". www.billboard.com. Retrieved 11 November 2016.
29. "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2008 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
30. ^ "Bruce Springsteen" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
31. "French album certifications – Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975 - 86" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
32. "Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (Bruce Springsteen; 'Live/ 1975-85')" (in German). Bundesverband Musikindustrie. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
33. "Dutch album certifications – Bruce Springsteen – Live 1975-1985" (in Dutch). Nederlandse Vereniging van Producenten en Importeurs van beeld- en geluidsdragers. Retrieved February 8, 2021. Enter Live 1975-1985 in the "Artiest of titel" box. Select 1991 in the drop-down menu saying "Alle jaargangen".
34. "New Zealand album certifications – Bruce Springsteen – Live/ 1975-85". Recorded Music NZ. Retrieved 2024-11-20.
35. ^ "Gold & Platinum Awards 1987" (PDF). Music & Media. December 26, 1987. pp. 44–46. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
36. "Guld- och Platinacertifikat − År 1987−1998" (PDF) (in Swedish). IFPI Sweden. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-05-17. Retrieved October 15, 2021.
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38. "American album certifications – Bruce Springsteen – Bruce Springsteen". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved February 8, 2021.

External links

• Live 1975–85 at Discogs (list of releases)

• Bruce Springsteen live albums
• 1986 live albums
• Albums produced by Jon Landau
• Albums produced by Chuck Plotkin
• 1986 compilation albums
• Bruce Springsteen compilation albums
• Columbia Records compilation albums
• Columbia Records live albums
• Albums with cover art by Jimmy Wachtel