debut at the Peppermint Lounge on July 18, 1982. In October 1982, Van Zandt's debut album, Men Without Women, was released. This album earned the most critical praise and Jay Cocks of TIME magazine dubbed it one of the ten best albums of the year. Van Zandt released four more solo albums, and has written that these albums are each elements in a five-part political concept cycle: the individual, the family, the state, the economy, and religion. These albums range from soul music to hard rock to world music. Van Zandt's second album, Voice of America, did the best on the U.S. albums chart, although none of his albums were much of a commercial success. After touring with the E Street Band during The River Tour in 1980–81, he started to realize and understand the perceptions of Americans made by people in other countries. He started to become interested in politics and, with Voice of America, his music became explicitly political. One of the album's leading singles, "Solidarity", is a general statement of international common ground. In April 1984, shortly before the release of Born in the U.S.A. and Voice of America, Van Zandt left the E Street Band, but rejoined in 1999. Continuing his involvement in issues of the day, in 1985 he created the music-industry activist group Artists United Against Apartheid as an action against the Sun City resort in South Africa. Forty-nine recording artists, including Springsteen, U2, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Tom Petty, Afrika Bambaataa and Run DMC, collaborated on a song called "Sun City" in which they pledged to never perform at the resort. The song was modestly successful, and played a part in the broad international effort to overthrow apartheid. Van Zandt also produced the award-winning documentary The Making of Sun City and oversaw the production of the book, Sun City by Artists United Against Apartheid, the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa: The Making of the Record, as well as the teaching guide. In 1987, he released the album Freedom - No Compromise, which continued the political messaging. Some U.S. appearances in that year as opening act for U2's arena-and-stadium Joshua Tree Tour continued in the same vein, but were not well received by some audiences. Both the record and his concerts were popular in Europe. He also performed at the "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute" concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.