Album: Bruce Springsteen <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Born to Run: 30th Anniversary Edition, COLUMBIA

Born to Run was the album that finally bore out all the outlandish claims made for Springsteen, ranging from his being the latest "new Dylan" to nothing less than "the future of rock'n'roll". It was the pay-off on a complex aesthetic strategy to marry the poetic wordiness of Dylan with the sonic power of Spector's Wall of Sound. It made for a sort of opera as played by a killer bar-band, and elevated the insignificant lives of its cast of New Jersey characters - Eddie, Mary, Terry, Bad Scooter, Magic Rat, the Duke Street Kings - to mythic status. To this point, the wordiness and the operatic thing had come on nicely, but in a slightly unwieldy manner; with Born to Run, the florid pianos and polysyllables were animated by a punchier presentation that hoisted Springsteen to superstardom. This boxed edition has the remastered album, a book of photos and two DVDs - a 90-minute documentary about the album's creation, with plenty of studio footage, and a 130-minute film of Springsteen's first UK concert at Hammersmith Odeon in November 1975 - which, like the period footage in Dylan's No Direction Home, makes you wonder: where has this stuff been hidden all these years?

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Thunder Road', 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out', 'Backstreets', 'Born to Run', 'She's the One', 'Jungleland'