Bruce Springsteen announces new album, Letter To You, and a bad album cover
Aux Features Bruce Springsteen
The Boss has once again emerged from the underground bunker where he painstakingly, exactingly obsesses over every millisecond of sound he has ever recorded, in order to announce that he had finally decided that latest round of endless tinkering has resulted in a finished product that meets his standards. For now, anyway—until he gets mad later, decides it’s garbage, and throws it into a pool.
Bruce Springsteen announced this morning that he had finished work on a new album, Letter To You. Recorded once more with his beloved E Street Band, the record contains 12 songs, three of which are new versions of outtakes from his ’70s work: “Janey Needs A Shooter,” “If I Was The Priest,” and “Song For Orphans.” Produced by Springsteen and Ron Aniello, the album marks a new evolution in his studio process, as the Boss himself explains in the press release: “I love the sound of the E Street Band playing completely live in the studio, in a way we’ve never done before, and with no overdubs. We made the album in only five days, and it turned out to be one of the greatest recording experiences I’ve ever had.” Of course, those thinking this would result in some rough, raw recording may want to himself themselves that Brice Springsteen does not do rough, raw recordings any more. Here’s the lead single, title track “Letter To You.”
More importantly, let’s discuss this stinker of an album cover. Admittedly, it’s by no means the worst one he’s ever done (as our own Noel Murray has pointed out, that honor probably goes to Working On A Dream, which is apropos), but it is proudly up there in the pantheon of weak images, the visual equivalent of a shrug. Snow does not equal striking imagery, especially not when it looks a bit to much like a cheap Instagram filter. Also, what is this supposed to convey? That he set a timer but then stood in the wrong place, cutting off half his face? That he’s a jolly winter pilgrim, here to deliver holiday cheer? We love Bruce around these parts, but this continues the unfortunate tradition of Springsteen’s fondness for sticking his own mug on an album cover and calling it a day.
Nevertheless, it’s a new Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band record, so it’s cause for celebration. Letter To You will be released October 23 on Columbia. You can pre-order the album here. The complete track listing is below.
1. One Minute You’re Here
2. Letter To You
3. Burnin’ Train
4. Janey Needs A Shooter
5. Last Man Standing
6. The Power Of Prayer
7. House Of A Thousand Guitars
8. Rainmaker
9. If I Was The Priest
10. Ghosts
11. Song For Orphans
12. I’ll See You In My Dreams
37 Comments
Maybe they cropped the photo because he decided against propagating the stupid idea that hansom cabs are whimsical symbols of New York and not, you know, animal abuse (and also really fucking dumb).
So that’s what it would look like if Bane recorded a roots rock album after breaking Batman’s back.
“You merely adopted the darkness on the edge of town. I was born in it.”
“I wasn’t blinded by the light until I was already a man. By then, I was revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night.”
“dropped like a deuce another clinker in the night”
I am extremely on board for an E Street Band album of actual live in-studio performances. Extremely.
I think every album cover should be the cover of “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.”Solves a lot of problems. Creates a few more, but what can you do?
I like that. I also like The Beatles album art on “The Beatles”
I would, for the record, not listen to The Freewheelin’ System of A Down.
“to[o] much”
Janey Needs a Shooter is a great song, but I don’t think I want to hear a 2020 version of it. Bruce’s recent version of The Promise paled in comparison to the 1978 outtakes version. His style has changed so much that he can’t really re-record the old songs without ruining them.
Is Janey Needs a Shooter the prequel to Janey’s Got a Gun?
For someone who’s released a number of classic rock albums, dude sure has a massive amount of dud albums covers. Besides Born to Run, has he had a particularly “iconic” cover that’s risen above passable? I guess some would say “denim-clad ass” from Born in the USA, but nah.
Born in the USA is pretty iconic, but I’d attribute that more to sales; it’s just a weirdly framed and shot image, if you ask me.But I will go to bat for Darkness at the Edge of Town for its bedroom-street-tough aesthetic. Maybe The River for the can’t-fuck-this-up simplicity. I like Nebraska because it goes with the starkness of the album itself. And Tunnel of Love is a cover that (much like Neil Young’s Everybody’s Rockin’) tells me I don’t need to listen to the album, which is effective in its own right.
Agree, Darkness and Nebraska have really nice covers. I also enjoy Greetings from Asbury Park, though maybe because I just like those types of greeting cards.When I look at the cover for Tunnel of Love, I always first mistake it for a photo of John Travolta in his Pulp Fiction costume haha.
so the disguise…wasn’t brilliant?
Ironically, Tunnel of Love is IMO his last good record. It’s a little subdued, but the songs are good.
I’d throw “Nebraska”s cover into the hat, but I think that’s due more to the striking red-on-black typography than to the black & white photo in the middle.
You might not think it’s good but it’s hard to say that the Born in the USA cover isn’t “iconic.”
Needs more Lofgren. Honestly, cut back on the organ and violin (last three or four albums) and get back to rocking and/or rolling.
The cover’s not quite Lucky Town level but, yeah, not great. I think we’d all hoped he’d be inspired to go the live-in-studio route after the Seeger sessions, but he did very much the opposite. So I applaud this even if I wish it had happened earlier. New song seems pretty good on first listen, definitely benefiting from the raw approach. Hope everyone in Bruce World is keeping COVID safe while playing together and glad he’s decided to be prolific again.
Bruce approaches album covers the way Oprah approaches O. “Hey, how about a picture of me?”
I’m going 100% off the header photo, but are we certain this isn’t the soundtrack for “Fallout: New Jersey”?
It’s bad – mainly because it looks like an album that’s destined to be sold exclusively in Starbucks – but is it Working On A Dream bad?
So this site is nothing but badly written snark now, huh?
It’s the weekend after Labor Day and everywhere near where I live is both incredibly hot and on fire. What’s up with the winter cover album? It looks like a poster for a Lifetime movie. It’s as if he’s already moved past Halloween and Thanksgiving Day sales and moved straight into Christmas sales
put the other guys on the cover for once, for fuck’s sake
Sounds like it would be a crowded album cover.
better than this dry fart
Speaking of bad album covers, I’ve always disliked Sting’s. (Who did a pretty good Rising cover for Springsteen’s Kennedy Center Honor.) They’re usually creatively dull, just his face or profile. Maybe why he kept doing them like that was because they sold well with his female fan base.
I would never complain about looking at a picture of Sting.Signed,a heterosexual female
Is that the Dakota Building behind him (on the right)?
Good call. Yeah, that’s the Dakota. Bruce is walking into Central Park.
I, for one, always himself myself.
Almost 24 hours later, and this still hasn’t been fixed. Calling the album cover “the visual equivalent of a shrug” is the height of irony.
Sure it’s a bland cover, but is it really “write an overlong and typo-filled article bitching about it” bad?Ah, who am I kidding. This is just what The AV Club is now. I barely even noticed the auto-playing unstoppable video ad that started halfway through the article.