(Gibson) On this day in 1980, Bruce Springsteen starts a four-week run on top of the Billboard album charts with The River, his first no 1 album. Gibson takes a look back: By 1980, Bruce Springsteen was a pretty big star. He'd made a couple of acclaimed, high-profile hit albums (Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town) and had his moment in the sun in '75 with dual Newsweek and Time magazine covers.But even if Born to Run had gotten press like it was a once-in-a-lifetime success, it topped out at #3 on the charts. Its title song, now a rock classic, never climbed higher than #23 on the singles charts. The Boss was big, but superstar status with a #1 album had eluded him. Until, of course, he delivered The River – which, on this day in 1980, began a four-week run at the top of the charts.
The interesting thing is that, in late 1979, Springsteen had planned to release an extremely pop-oriented album. Titled The Ties that Bind, the album was to feature plenty of the songs that would end up on The River – the title song, "Hungry Heart," "I Wanna Marry You" and "Stolen Car." It also featured super-melodic songs such as "Be True" and "Loose Ends." Before it could be released, Bruce had a change of heart. He decided the album was too pop and lacked the complete story of the record in his head. more on this story
