Born in The U.S.A. - Remixes

Remixes

In an effort (a first for Springsteen) to gain dance and club play for his music, and more non-whites in his audience, remixes for the first singles from the album were executed by maestro Arthur Baker. He first created the 12-inch "Blaster Mix" of "Dancing in the Dark", wherein he completely reworked the album version. Overdubbed were tom-toms, dulcimers, glockenspiel, assorted backing vocals, bass-and-horn synthesizer parts, and gunshot sounds. Springsteen's vocal part was chopped up, double-tracked, echoed and repeated, with certain lines such as "You sit around getting older" and "Heeey, baby!" made even more prominent. The remix was released on July 2, 1984 and generated a lot of media buzz for Springsteen, as well as actual club play. It went to #7 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, and had the most sales of any 12-inch single in the United States in 1984. However, many of Springsteen's hard-core rock fans, who had been suspicious of the new sound of "Dancing in the Dark" to begin with, despised the remix. Baker was subsequently quoted in angry response: "I got really offended. What is so different? It has a glockenspiel, which Bruce has used before, background vocals ... it's no different. See, if any of those mixes had come out before, with no one knowing the other version, no one would have said a word."

Baker created the 12-inch "Undercover Mix" of "Cover Me" next, making a large-scale transformation: a new bass line was cut, an unused backing vocal by industry legend Jocelyn Brown was restored, and reggae and dub elements were introduced. Released on October 15, 1984, it also found displeasing from many fans, but managed to reached #11 on the Dance charts. Finally, on January 10, 1985, it was released the 12-inch "Freedom Mix" of "Born in the U.S.A.". It was a fairly radical remixing, even more so than those Baker had done for the album's previous singles. The mix removed any (possibly misleading) anthemic elements and pushed the song's mournfulness to the front. Synthesizer, glockenspiel, and drums were chopped up and isolated against Springsteen vocal fragments saying "Oh my God, no," and "U.S.A.—U.S.—U.S.—U.S.A." This remix was the least commercially successful of Baker's efforts, however, as unlike the prior two it failed to appear on Billboard's Dance chart.