A guy who once said “I cannot allow myself anything less than to produce the best live LP ever,” Bruce Springsteen had a lot to prove on his first live album. He had built a reputation around his live shows, and when it came time to illustrate the point on record, he thought big: assembling 40 songs spanning Hollywood gin joints to Jersey arenas, boardwalk hood rat to Rambo Bruce, filling five LPs (or three CDs). The core of this epic box is four sequential songs: “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Seeds,” “The River” (with a deep story about Springsteen, his dad and the draft) and Edwin Starr’s “War.” “These four songs together were telling different things, things never heard  before on any of our albums,” said manager/producer Jon Landau. RJ Smith