Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Tribune
Christgau's Record Guide	A–
Creem	B+
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Goldmine
MusicHound Rock	4/5
Q
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Sputnikmusic	4.5/5

The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle is the second studio album by American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was recorded by Springsteen with the E Street Band at 914 Sound Studios in Blauvelt, New York; and released on September 11, 1973, by Columbia Records. The album includes the song "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)", the band's most-used set-closing song for the first 10 years of its career.

As with Springsteen's first album released earlier in the year, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle was well-received critically but had little commercial success at the time. However, once Springsteen achieved popularity with Born to Run, several selections from this album became popular FM radio airplay and concert favorites. On November 7, 2009, Springsteen and the E Street Band played the album in its entirety for the first time ever in a concert at Madison Square Garden.

According to biographer Peter Ames Carlin, Springsteen had developed a "renewed passion for full-band rock 'n' roll" when he started to record The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle in May 1973.Sputnikmusic critic Adam Thomas later wrote that the album departed from the folk influences of Springsteen's 1973 debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and was instead characterized by "a grand fusion of nostalgic rock 'n' roll and soulful R&B".

The back photo for the album featured six members of Springsteen's backing E Street Band standing in a doorway of an antique store on Sairs Ave in the West End section of Long Branch, New Jersey. The building was down the street from West End Elementary School, and for years was Tommy Reeds bicycle repair shop and penny candy store; it has since been demolished and its former location is occupied by a parking lot.

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Wikipedia