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Hungry Heart. Was this record sped up drastically?

It's possible they could have slowed the tape down slightly and had him sing to that and then sped it back up to normal, that would make his voice sound higher, in fact that may be what they did but it would have had to have been slowed down only a semitone, just enough to give it a slight edge when sped back up to normal. Some of those analog engineers back then were phenomenal.

Frankly I don't see what's phenomenal about adjusting the speed.
 
Frankly I don't see what's phenomenal about adjusting the speed.

Engineering was an art back then, it was all seat of the pants. It could have taken them 20 tries to get it right, maybe more. Slowing the tape down a semitone and having him sing to it then speeding it back up is the most plausible idea, the whole tape could not have been sped up a whole half step. Ever see an engineer flange a record with two tape decks?
 
Here it is here, they do this is by slightly slowing down the tape so that it is at below 440, having him sing with it and then speeding to back to 440, that will make your voice sound higher and younger:

"Springsteen's voice was slightly sped up on the recording, producing a higher-pitched vocal, a technique first used by Brian Wilson in the production of "Caroline, No" in 1966."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Heart
 
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So it seems like he was a major regional phenomenon, but took a while to catch on with the general public.


Maybe, regional successes were much more common back then and especially during the 60's. There was a band called 'Barry and The Remains' out of Boston that was a regional band but I never knew it until years later, I thought they were known all over the country, they had two or three big hits in Mass and went on to tour with The Beatles.

Demo, they did record this proper a little later on and it was a hit in Mass.

 
Here it is here, they do this is by slightly slowing down the tape so that it is at below 440, having him sing with it and then speeding to back to 440, that will make your voice sound higher and younger:

"Springsteen's voice was slightly sped up on the recording, producing a higher-pitched vocal, a technique first used by Brian Wilson in the production of "Caroline, No" in 1966."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_Heart

Thank You!
Sorry, I know that others have already posted the Wikipedia article. But I tried finding it in the article several times, not that I blindly trust Wikipedia 100% of the time.
But I don't agree with the Beach Boys comparison, because I never would have noticed or cared, even though I love Pet Sounds.
 
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Thank You!
Sorry, I know that others have already posted the Wikipedia article. But I tried finding it in the article several times, not that I blindly trust Wikipedia 100% of the time.
But I don't agree with the Beach Boys comparison, because I never would have noticed or cared, even though I love Pet Sounds.


I've got to listen to Caroline, No again, it's been a while. I've corrected misinformation once in a while in wiki myself.
 
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It's plausible they did the same with this record, this is Brian Wilson singing I think. The voice does kind of have that same sound.



I doubt they did it for the same reasons. Maybe he had trouble reaching the highest notes even with his falsetto, after spending so much time creating the instrumental track with all those high value session musicians. Just my assumption.
 
I doubt they did it for the same reasons. Maybe he had trouble reaching the highest notes even with his falsetto, after spending so much time creating the instrumental track with all those high value session musicians. Just my assumption.


Maybe but he had a pretty high voice, he could, rather can, falsetto with the best of them. The sound of the voice on this record is reminiscent of the voice in hungry Heart, I'm glad you asked that.
 
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Born to Run - regional God, national curiosity
The River - national interest
Born in the USA - national phenomenon, regional sellout
Really? My friends and I were listening to The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle and Born To Run over here in New Zealand before I left high school at the end of 1977, so about four years before he achieved "national interest".
 
Plus he had gotten rid of that scraggly beard by the time Darkness had come out, cut back on the Spectorian arrangements, and had gotten through a huge legal go-round with his manager. Darkness did OK, but I’m sure the label was leaning on him to do better; they could also have been worried that the The River, being a double album, would be a hard sell, so a single would have to be heavily pushed. Having won some artistic freedom with the sucess of all that, he followed up with Nebraska, a stark, dark, brooding solo album recorded on a cassette four-track. It could have been a career killer for anyone else, but his following was strong enough. CBS still had to make something big with the next one, and yes, with the help of MTV, it went huge, but at a cost. That “Dancing In The Dark” video, with him pulling a pre-Friends Courteney Cox out of the audience was pure cheese, and while he gained a larger, more generic audience, many old fans fell by the wayside.

Exactly. Like many others, I kinda skipped most of 80s Bruce, as it just didn't do it for me. Although I can look back and appreciate what was good.
 
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Guys, I'm just reporting what I grew up with. As I said, I grew up in his geographic area in that time period.

I never said he was unknown prior to Born in the USA. But prior to Hungry Heart, about the only song of his you ever heard on the radio was Born to Run, and the he was largely considered a fringe artist known for his "bad" voice, marathon concerts, and devoted fans (similar to the Grateful Dead). The River album was a junp in terms of popularity and public knowledge of his musicand USA a quantum leap, with a corresponding change in attitude from his "real" fans. Think "Touch of Grey" times 100.
 
The backlash against Born in the USA. I think it's just jealousy over the fame and money.
A similar thing happened with Nirvana fans when Teen Spirit was a hit.

I think the attitude is childish. There are bigger problems in this world than you favorite singer becoming popular.
 
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