Category: Bruuuuuuuuce!!

Review: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story’
You’d better be some kind of genius to ask the world to admire your spiral notebooks. Bruce Springsteen, who’s spent a quarter-century-plus absorbing the love of people who feel his music changed their lives, can afford to be that presumptuous. “The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story” is a boxed set disguised as a scrapbook, its packaging full of scribbled lyrics and tentative track listings and notes revealing ó celebrating ó the painful process of making a masterpiece.
The masterwork in question was the album that, Springsteen writes in the set’s liner notes, granted him an adult voice. “More than rich, more than famous, more than happy, I wanted to be great,” the 61-year-old admits, chuckling at the twentysomething egotist he was then, in Thom Zimny’s fine film about the making of his 1978 album “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”
This archival set goes to exhaustive lengths to prove that Springsteen accomplished his goal, though “Darkness” was neither breakthrough (that was 1975’s “Born to Run”) nor blockbuster (1984’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” icon jeans-clad derriere and all).
In three DVDs (the making-of film and two live sets, one vintage and one contemporary), a double album of rejected material, and the remastered original album, “The Promise” set illustrates how Springsteen used the circumstances surrounding “Darkness” to hone in on his Monument Valley, to reference his cinematic influence John Ford: a setting, both sonic and lyrical, that could hold the stories he needed to tell.
An ex-manager’s lawsuit and the pressure to follow up the hit “Born to Run” put restrictions on the creative process; a monster writing streak, and the dedication of his E Street Band and longtime producer Jon Landau, broke it open. “What we had were our relationships and the music Bruce was writing,” says the drummer Max Weinberg. This detailed, ruminative look back is not just an attempt to nab the shrinking music-buying public with a commemorative plaque; it’s more like self-analysis, a long-standing creative team’s attempt to understand the process it’s come to take for granted.
“Darkness on the Edge of Town” is a highly focused classic that set Springsteen on a new path. In Zimny’s film and the set’s liner notes, Springsteen states and restates that this album revealed his major theme: the pursuit of happiness not just in youth, but within the more complicated realm of adulthood. Sharing what went into that process of revelation is a gift this collection gives Springsteen’s fans; maybe it was one he wanted to give himself too.
Springsteen and his mates absorbed much as they explored this territory, which, to them, felt new. (Others had been there: Marvin Gaye, for example.) They learned from punk and Hank Williams, tried new production methods, recording styles and drum sounds. Equally important, and somewhat hidden within the narrative this boxed set presents, is what they left behind.
The two-volume rarities album “The Promise,” available both in the boxed set and as a separate release, celebrates the sound from which Springsteen turned away. That sound was bewitched by radio-oriented pop ó by the voice of Ronnie Spector and the seductive gestures of dandyish rock pioneers such as Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. On “Born to Run,” Springsteen and the E Street Band found a way to meld that brashly commercial sensibility with the grandiosity of classic rock.
As a set, the previously unreleased material feels experimental, not in tone but in spirit. Some songs, like the brooding hymn “Come on (Let’s Go Tonight)”, are the seeds of others on “Darkness.” Others could stand on any Springsteen album, relating familiar tales of freedom or peril on the highway, or love in dark tenement corridors, within arrangements that lack the sharpness of the “Darkness” material but often have more warmth.
Springsteen devotees will know some of this material from bootlegs and live renditions, but to revisit it as a set ó pristinely remixed by Bob Clearmountain ó is to realize that Springsteen, just as much as Bob Dylan, is a great lover and thief of American pop history. These songs journey from Spanish Harlem to the punk den of CBGB, invoke murder ballads and doo wop corner serenades, and using these sources, allow Springsteen to build his own world ó a sonic environment that, when streamlined on “Darkness,” would seem to belong only to him.
With “Darkness,” Springsteen set out for somewhere beyond that space ó beyond the porch where the radio plays. He moved toward darker areas where men gather to do business or hurt each other, or set forth on journeys that they might never complete.
And he abandoned romance.
What he turned from was specific: the flirtatious, dreamy, deeply feminine spirit of the pop music he loved. Working to make what his producer Landau then called “the highest thing in rock” ó a concept-driven album ó Springsteen found his mojo by going to a masculine extreme.
“It’s a bit tragic,” says the E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt in the film. “He would have been one of the great pop songwriters of all time.” “The Promise” album, with gems like the Crystals’ homage “Ain’t Good Enough for You” and the lilting ballad “Candy’s Boy” (a far cry from “Darkness’ ” aggressively lustful revision “Candy’s Room”) showcases the danceability, catchiness and even sentimentality Springsteen had to rein in to create “Darkness.”
In Zimny’s film, Springsteen’s wife and band mate, Patti Scialfa, zeroes in on what this shift meant. “When you look at ‘Darkness,’ the person’s not really attached to anybody else on that record,” she says. “There are no love songs on that record.”
On the surface, Scialfa’s words seem wrong. What about songs like the sweaty vow “Prove It All Night”? Or “Racing in the Street,” with its tender mention of “the wrinkles round my baby’s eyes”? Or “Candy’s Room,” the sexiest Springsteen song next to “I’m on Fire”?
But Zimny’s film and the sound of “The Promise” outtakes support Scialfa’s insight. Not one female appears in the old footage from the Jersey farmhouse where the Boss and the band recorded those 70 songs. Van Zandt recalls that no one involved had a girlfriend that mattered; Springsteen says he had “no life,” and cajoled his collaborators into a similar monk-like state.
The sound this band of brothers worked toward turned away from the feminine within Springsteen’s earlier work. The warm embrace of Clarence Clemons’ saxophone became a sparer element punctuating the music’s movements like sniper shots. Giving what love songs he did write to other (female) artists, Springsteen filled “Darkness” with elegies and work songs, stuff that reminded him of punk and country. He clearly preferred Hank Williams to Loretta Lynn.
Then there are the lyrics, so crucial to Springsteen. Only one woman, the hardened Candy, has a name on “Darkness.” These songs express an isolation that can’t be remedied by pop’s love potions.
Two years later Springsteen would open himself back up to other sounds and subjects. “The River” album puts seductions like “Crush on You” next to starker meditations like “Wreck on the Highway.” He’d never completely return to that imaginary space of “Darkness.” But for a time, like the hero whose character he inhabited, Springsteen made a sacrifice. The man he imagined had to stand alone. That meant leaving your woman behind.

Springsteen set to pay NBC’s ‘Late Night’ a visit
NEW YORK (AP) ó NBC says The Boss is paying Jimmy Fallon a visit.
The network announced Wednesday that Bruce Springsteen will appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Nov. 16, both to chat with the host and to perform.
Springsteen’s appearance is timed to the twin releases of his The Promise two-CD set and The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story, a six-disc set, which are both due out that same day.
NBC says his guest appearance on Late Night will mark his only scheduled TV performance this year in support of the releases.
Late Night airs weeknights at 12:35 a.m. Eastern time.

Springsteen talks ‘Darkness’ with festival doc
TORONTO ñ Bruce Springsteen says he and the E Street Band were on a mission when they made his “Darkness on the Edge of Town” album 32 years ago.
Springsteen opens up about the career-altering album in the documentary “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which premieres Tuesday at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film, which played Monday for press, features contemporary interviews with Springsteen and his band along with rehearsal and studio footage as they made the 1978 record, which he calls a “reckoning with the adult world” after the phenomenal success of his “Born to Run” album three years earlier.
Before the premiere, Springsteen will discuss his music in a public chat with actor Edward Norton, who became friends with the rocker after they met at a concert about 10 years ago.
“That record, there’s no way to overstate how much that record was a part of my life,” Norton said in an interview. “I’ve seen the film, and it’s amazing to see him at that age going through the creative process on it. Any artist, I think, will appreciate the chance to see someone who is as great as he is at that age struggling and struggling and struggling to get things to where he hears them in his head.”
After its Toronto premiere, “The Promise” will air Oct. 7 on HBO, then will be included in a CD and DVD boxed set release of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” due in stores Nov. 16.
Directed by Thom Zimny, who made a similar making-of documentary about “Born to Run,” “The Promise” captures Springsteen in a burst of creativity after a three-year studio lapse, when he was unable to record amid a court fight with his former manager.
Springsteen says he wanted the album to reflect the “deep despair and resilience” he saw among the small towns where he grew up.
“One of the things that’s amazing to me is he’s considered this quintessential American working-class artist, yet so much of his work has challenged the idea that America lives up to its ideals in some ways,” Norton said. “He shows people and artists that you can live in a culture and place and love it and still question it, still challenge it.”
Unlike “Born to Run” ó for which Springsteen wrote nine songs, eight of them appearing on the album ó “Darkness on the Edge of Town” was honed into a 10-song cycle from about 70 tunes he wrote, according to his band mates. The songs included such castoffs as “Because the Night” and “Fire,” which became hits for Patti Smith and the Pointer Sisters.
Springsteen jokes that if a song did not work, he would pull out the fragments he liked and try them elsewhere, like taking car parts from one vehicle and sticking them into another to make it run. He shares failed lyrics for the album’s opening anthem, “Badlands,” and describes a version of the slow, meditative tale “Racing in the Streets” in which the narrator’s melancholy girl, who “cries herself to sleep at night,” was not even in the song.
Sound mixer Chuck Plotkin describes Springsteen’s poetic instructions for how the dissonant assault of “Adam Raised a Cain” should sound next to the album’s more melodic tunes. Springsteen told Plotkin to think of a movie showing two lovers having a picnic, when the scene abruptly cuts to a dead body. This song, Springsteen said, is that body.
The “Darkness” songs were leaner and angrier than those on “Born to Run,” advancing from the earlier album’s sense of youthful anarchy and escape to growing resignation to a “life of limitations and compromises,” Springsteen says.
“`Born to Run’ and `Darkness,’ they’re the beginning of the story,” Springsteen says. “I’m beginning to tell the story that I tell for most of the rest of my working life.”

Springsteen Announces Massive ‘Darkness’ Set’
After years of rumors, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have announced the details of their Darkness On The Edge of Town box set, which will be released on November 16. Numerous songs on the 3 CD/3 DVD package don’t appear to have been heard anywhere, even on bootleg, including “Someday (We’ll Be Together),” “The Brokenhearted,” “Save My Love,” “Ain’t Good Enough For You,” “It’s A Shame,” and “The Little Things (My Baby Does).” The set includes a remastered version of the album, two discs of rare and unreleased songs, a DVD of a 1978 Houston concert and another DVD of live cuts from 1976 through 1978 and a complete filmed performance of the album last year in Asbury Park.
Read the press release below:
Columbia Records will release Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story’ on Nov 16. The Deluxe Package comprises over six hours of film and more than two hours of audio across 3 CDs and 3 DVDs. The media contents are packaged within an 80-page notebook containing facsimiles from Springsteen’s original notebooks from the recording sessions, which include alternate lyrics, song ideas, recording details, and personal notes in addition to a new essay by Springsteen and never-before-seen photographs.
Containing a wealth of previously unreleased material, ‘The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story’ offers an unprecedented look into Springsteen’s creative process during a defining moment in his career. ‘The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story’ will additionally be released as a 3CD/3 Blu Ray disc set.
The set will be available as ‘The Promise,’ an edition which consists of only the unheard complete songs on two CDs or four LPs, along with lyrics and the new essay by Springsteen.
The previously unheard song “Save My Love” and an excerpt from the documentary will be streaming at http://www.BruceSpringsteen.net.
The Deluxe Package includes ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,’ digitally remastered for the first time.
CD 1: REMASTERED ‘DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN’
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy’s Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
“‘Darkness’ was my ‘samurai’ record,” Springsteen writes, “stripped to the frame and ready to rumble…But the music that got left behind was substantial.” For the first time, fans will have access to two discs containing a total of 21 previously-unreleased songs from the ‘Darkness’ recording sessions, songs that, as Springsteen writes, “perhaps could have/should have been released after ‘Born To Run’ and before the collection of songs that ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ became.”
Highlights include the extraordinary rock version of “Racing in the Street,” the never-before-released original recordings of “Because the Night,” “Fire,” and “Rendezvous,” the supreme pop opus “Someday (We’ll Be Together),” the hilarious “Ain’t Good Enough for You,” the superb soul-based vocal performance on “The Brokenhearted,” the utterly haunting “Breakaway,” and the fully orchestrated masterpiece and title song “The Promise.” All 21 songs have been mixed by Springsteen’s long-time collaborator Bob Clearmountain. According to long-time manager/producer Jon Landau, “There isn’t a weak card in this deck. ‘The Promise’ is simply a great listening experience.”
CD 2: THE PROMISE (DISC 1)
1. Racing In The Street (’78)
2. Gotta Get That Feeling
3. Outside Looking In
4. Someday (We’ll Be Together)
5. One Way Street
6. Because The Night
7. Wrong Side Of The Street
8. The Brokenhearted
9. Rendezvous
10. Candy’s Boy
CD 3: THE PROMISE (DISC 2)
1. Save My Love
2. Ain’t Good Enough For You
3. Fire
4. Spanish Eyes
5. It’s A Shame
6. Come On (Let’s Go Tonight)
7. Talk To Me
8. The Little Things (My Baby Does)
9. Breakaway
10. The Promise
11. City Of Night
The Deluxe Package also features “The Promise: The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,'” a documentary directed by Grammy- and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The ninety-minute film combines never-before-seen footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band shot between 1976 and 1978–including home rehearsals and studio sessions–with new interviews with Springsteen, E Street Band members, manager Jon Landau, former-manager Mike Appel, and others closely involved in the making of the record.
Advanced word on the documentary is so strong that it was invited to debut at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival on September 14 and will make its television debut on HBO on October 7.
DVD 1: “THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF ‘DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN'”
In addition, the set features more than four hours of live concert film from the Thrill Hill Vault, including the bootleg house cut (the footage that appeared on-screen at the concert) from a 1978 Houston show, and a 2009 performance of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’ in its entirety from Asbury Park. The special performance in Asbury Park was shot in HD without an audience and successfully recreates the stark atmosphere of the original album.
DVD 2: DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (PARAMOUNT THEATER, ASBURY PARK, NJ,2009)
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy’s Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
THRILL HILL VAULT (1976-1978)
1. Save My Love (Holmdel, NJ 76)
2. Candy’s Boy (Holmdel, NJ 76)
3. Something In The Night (Red Bank, NJ 76)
4. Don’t Look Back (NYC 78)
5. Ain’t Good Enough For You (NYC 78)
6. The Promise (NYC 78)
7. Candy’s Room Demo (NYC 78)
8. Badlands (Phoenix 78)
9. The Promised Land (Phoenix 78)
10. Prove It All Night (Phoenix 78)
11. Born To Run (Phoenix 78)
12. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Phoenix 78)
DVD 3: HOUSTON ’78 BOOTLEG: HOUSE CUT
1. Badlands
2. Streets Of Fire
3. It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City
4. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
5. Spirit In The Night
6. Independence Day
7. The Promised Land
8. Prove It All Night
9. Racing In The Street
10. Thunder Road
11. Jungleland
12. The Ties That Bind
13. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
14. The Fever
15. Fire
16. Candy’s Room
17. Because The Night
18. Point Blank
19. She’s The One
20. Backstreets
21. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
22. Born To Run
23. Detroit Medley
24. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
25. You Can’t Sit Down
26. Quarter To Three

Band On The ‘Run’
When Bruce Springsteenís ìBorn To Runî album was released on Aug. 25, 1975 ó 35 years ago this week ó critics couldnít have been more effusive in their praise. Newsweek said the album recalled ìthe glory days of Mick Jagger, The Beatles and Elvis Presley.î The LA Times called Springsteen ìthe purest glimpse of the passion and power of rock íní roll in nearly a decade.î
The songs ìThunder Road,î ìJunglelandî and ìTenth Avenue Freeze-Outî became staples of both rock radio and Springsteen concerts. The title track became The Bossí first top-40 hit and its chorus, ìTramps like us, baby we were born to run,î turned into one of the most recognizable in pop history.
But one major music-industry figure seemed almost disgusted by the record. One month after its release, he told an interviewer, ìI couldnít stand to listen to it. I thought it was the worst piece of garbage Iíd ever heard.î
That harsh critic was Bruce Springsteen.
The Bossís third album is now widely regarded as one of rockís greatest albums, the one that made him an icon. But if ìBorn To Runî was a work of passion, it was also a work of madness, as its creation nearly drove Springsteen off the deep end, making that time ìthe most horrible periodî of his life.
Springsteenís first two albums had received rave reviews, but sold poorly. As such, Columbia Records was considering dropping him.
ìHe knew it was his last shot,î says Richard Neer, a longtime deejay for WNEW-FM who was a major early supporter and friend. ìHe knew that if he didnít come up with a record that sold, he was gonna lose his deal, and maybe not get another one anywhere else.î
As Springsteen began hearing songs for the album in his head, he hoped to create a lush, Phil Spector-style production. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to get this sound onto vinyl.
The first song he recorded, ìBorn To Run,î took him and his band an astonishing six months to complete, during which time he rewrote, retooled, overdubbed and tried virtually every conceivable arrangement, including doo-wop, heavenly vocal choirs and drag-racing noises. He openly sought to create the greatest rock íní roll record of all time.
ìThere are outtakes of other versions of ëBorn To Runí that are hysterical to listen to,î says Louis Masur, author of the new book, ìRunaway Dream: ëBorn To Runí and Bruce Springsteenís American Vision.î ìThere are versions with strings, sound effects, double-echoed voices, all this crap. Itís crazy, because it makes you appreciate that these things are created, not just born.î
This same spirit of never-ending revision applied to the songís lyrics, which Springsteen rewrote so many times that his notebook for the song filled 50 pages.
ìI worked very, very long on the lyrics to ëBorn To Run,í because I was very aware that I was messing with classic rock íní roll images that easily turned into clichÈs,î Springsteen says in the documentary ìWings for Wheels: The Making of Born To Run.î ìI worked really hard getting the soul of the song . . . and kept stripping away clichÈs until it started to feel emotionally real.î
Sometime after the songís completion, Springsteen, who had been co-producing the album with his manager, Mike Appel, had a new, increasingly frequent visitor to the studio. Jon Landau was a journalist for Rolling Stone who, in a Boston publication called the Real Paper, had famously proclaimed, ìI saw rock íní rollís future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.î
After Landau solved a vexing problem by suggesting that Springsteen move the sax solo in ìThunder Roadî from the middle of the song to the end, he was brought on as a co-producer, becoming a perfect foil for Springsteenís meandering creative impulses.
ìWhere there were roadblocks in Bruceís head, Jon may have plowed through those,î Appel tells The Post. ìHe broke up a lot of creative logjams.î
(Eventually, Landau would displace Appel as Springsteenís manager.)
With Landau onboard, the rest of the album moved faster, but was still mired in Springsteenís obsessive quest for perfection. He could spend days adjusting the sound of his guitar. On ìJungleland,î Clarence Clemonsí saxophone solo was composed by Springsteen, literally note by note, in a marathon 16-hour session.
Clemons, who called it ìthe most intricate collaborationî in his almost four decades with The Boss, later recalled: ìI went to the bathroom a few times, but I donít think we stopped to eat.î
Personally, Springsteen was cracking up. Staying at a Holiday Inn on Manhattanís West Side with a girlfriend, she would ask every day if the record was finished, and he would suppress tears ó or, occasionally, shed them ó in saying that it wasnít.
Finally forced to conclude the sessions thanks to a scheduled tour, Springsteen was singing ìSheís the Oneî in one studio, putting finishing touches on ìJunglelandî in another and rehearsing for the tour in a third on the day of the first show. Clemons was still playing the ìJunglelandî solo as the band packed up the car to leave.
They hit the road as engineers stayed behind to mix and master the album. But when Springsteen received the test pressings, he not only rejected them, he threw them into a swimming pool. He was so unhappy that he considered scrapping the album entirely and starting over.
Cooler heads prevailed. Upon its release with only minor changes, ìBorn To Runî was hailed as a classic by critics and fans alike.
ìThat album captured his energy,î Neer says. ìBruce is one of the most energetic performers onstage, and thatís what came off, finally, on that record.î
Springsteen was eventually able to enjoy his remarkable achievement, coming to appreciate ìBorn To Runî both on its own merits and for what it meant as a reflection of a very important and meaningful time in his life.
ìWhen I hear the record, I hear my friends, my hopes and dreams, and what I thought my life was gonna be,î Springsteen says. ìItís a lovely thing to have as part of my life.î

HBO to air Springsteen documentary
HBO will air the Bruce Springsteen docu “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” in October.
From director Thom Zimny, who has worked with Springsteen on several projects, film captures the tumultuous time Springsteen had between “Born to Run” and “Darkness,” his fourth album.
For much of that 1975-78 time period, Springsteen was entangled in a lawsuit with his former manager Mike Appel that prevented him from recording any songs. Doc will offer never-before-seen footage, including home rehearsals.
“The Promise” will also unspool at the Toronto Film Festival, to be held in September.

Film shows Springsteen recording ‘Darkness’ album
NEW YORK ñ An Emmy Award-winning filmmaker has collaborated with Bruce Springsteen on a new documentary that chronicles the recording of the Boss’ 1978 album.
The film, “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town,” will premiere Sept. 14 at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Filmmaker Thom Zimny gained access to never-before-seen footage of rehearsals and recording sessions shot from 1976-78.
At the time, Springsteen was working to move past years of legal trouble and match the success he had with “Born to Run.”
“The Darkness” album featured many songs recorded with a full band immediately after being written. Tracks covered the plight of average Americans, from the struggling everyday hero in “Badlands” to hopelessness in the title track.

OíBrien, Weinberg part ways?
Conan O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television tour has been delighting audiences with all the usual players like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Andy Richter, and of course, Conan himself. The only person who hasn’t joined the party is O’Brien’s long-time bandleader, Max Weinberg.
His absence from the tour has sparked rumors that Weinberg doesn’t plan to join O’Brien’s TBS show when it premieres in November.
In an interview with CityPages, music legend Al Kooper said that Weinberg and O’Brien have parted ways. “That’s a name you can’t say anymore,” Kooper said when O’Brien was brought up. “He’s not in that band anymore. They let him go. This is a big transition, and they’re all signing new contracts and everything so they replaced him, as far as I know.”
Movieline reported earlier this month that Weinberg met with Jay Leno to discuss the possiblity of returning to “The Tonight Show” bandleader Kevin Eubanks, who’s leaving this month. Those rumors didn’t pan out — the show hired “American Idol” music director Rickey Minor as Eubanks’ replacement — but Kooper also notes that there was a “lotta conflict” between Weinberg’s work with O’Brien and his other steady gig as Bruce Springsteen’s drummer.

Bruce Springsteen concert film set for early summer release
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’s June 2009 concert at the Hard Rock Calling Festival in London will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray June 22.
Titled “London Calling: Live In Hyde Park,” the collection features 26 live tracks on two DVDs. The Blu-Ray format contains the entire 163-minute film on one disc, according to a press release.
The film also features bonus material, including footage of “The River” from Glastonbury and the full music video for “Wrecking Ball,” filmed at New Jersey’s Giants Stadium.

Springsteen, Jay-Z, Urban join Haiti telethon
NEW YORK ñ The music world’s top stars are signing on for Friday’s “Hope for Haiti” telethon.
Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Keith Urban and Alicia Keys are just a few of the performers who will be featured, according to MTV Networks, an integral partner in the two-hour event.
Haiti was devastated and thousands of its citizens killed when an earthquake hit the Caribbean nation last week.
“Hope For Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief” will be an international event. Haitian native Wyclef Jean will anchor the show from New York, while George Clooney will do so from Los Angeles. CNN’s Anderson Cooper will report from Haiti.
London has also been added to the lineup, and that’s where Jay-Z will perform, along with Bono, The Edge and Rihanna in a special joint performance. Coldplay is also to perform from London.
In New York, Springsteen will perform, along with Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, Shakira, Jean and Sting. In Los Angeles, Swift is to perform, and Urban, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow plan a collaboration. Also performing in Los Angeles is Timberlake, Dave Matthews, John Legend, and Stevie Wonder.
People can purchase the night’s performances for 99 cents each through iTunes starting Saturday. A statement released Tuesday says all proceeds will go to Haiti relief.
The “Hope for Haiti” benefit will be broadcast from New York, Los Angeles, London and Haiti. It will be televised on all the major networks at 8 p.m. EST, as well as MTV, VH1, CMT, BET, PBS, CNN, Bravo, and a host of other networks. In addition, the telethon will be streamed live on Web sites including YouTube, MySpace and AOL.
The funds raised from the telethon will be donated to several relief organizations, including UNICEF, Oxfam America and Partners in Health.