Leave it to Bruce Springsteen to celebrate his birthday with a present to us. I'm sure you know that as the Boss marks his 71st, he's preparing to gift us Letter to You, his 20th studio album. And to hear Brian Hiatt from Rolling Stone tell it, it's a doozy.
Hiatt's Rolling Stone cover story has already launched a thousand ships, er, news stories, based entirely on his reporting. (Yours truly is among the guilty.) Comb the Internet and you'll find Hiatt-inspired posts on Springsteen's post-COVID tour plans, the should-surprise-nobody news about a Tracks 2, the existence of "lost albums," what he thinks about Joe Biden, and his magic gifted guitar. (It's for real!) Name one other 71-year-old that generates that kind of hoopla.
And the news keeps on coming, of course: Here's a rundown of what you need to know on this Bruce's Birthday, which we'll update as the happy occasion progresses.
• First things first: If you enjoy the writing on this blog, you'll love the updated edition of "Glory Days: Springsteen's Greatest Albums" -- available for an extremely limited time at the special Bruce Birthday price of $4.99 paperback or $2.99 Kindle!
This expanded and updated edition features history and analysis of 10 of Springsteen’s most enduring albums, a chapter crowning one of them his finest work, and collected for the first time, six of the most popular Springsteen posts and essays from Blogness on the Edge of Town from 2013-2019. (End of shameless plug.)
• Feel like going behind the scenes of Bruce's latest Rolling Stone cover shoot with Danny Clinch? The Boss has got you covered:
• We heard about a certain Bruce Springsteen "first time" during an episode of his "From My Home To Yours" radio show on Sirius/XM, and it was, frankly, TMI. But Rolling Stone recently talked to Bruce about some other significant first times. Watch here:
• You'll also find Bruce well represented in Rolling Stone's newly updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which is, frankly, wild.
• If you follow author Don Winslow on Twitter, you know he's not fond of Donald Trump, and he's made more than a few videos to prove it. Now he says he's got one in the works that features Springsteen, which should make those who were looking for a Trump-bashing album in "Letter to You" feel at least a little better about it not being that.
• "Springsteen, Wilco, Bright Eyes, Tyler the Creator & more want you to register to vote," because why wouldn't they?
Far Out magazine revisits some classic examples of "7 times Bruce Springsteen proved he was The Boss."
• NJ.com updates its ranked list of Springsteen songs.
• Tom Williamson at Varsity declares "Darkness on the Edge of Town" a "perfect album."
• GQ UK declares Bruce "The Boss of '70s hair." (For a story in their "Grooming" section, natch.)
• And below, clearly the Spring-Nuts have been having a more productive quarantine than I have:
UPDATE: Did someone say something about a gift? Bruce will apparently be doling out another one this week, with the Letter to You track "Ghosts" coming out Thursday.
UPDATE 2: Some more Springsteen birthday links have surfaced:
• Jambase wishes Bruce a happy birthday with 5 classic "Stump the Band" videos.
• Melissa Etheridge fondly recalls her 1995 "Thunder Road" duet with Springsteen for Rolling Stone.
• Chris Jordan at the Asbury Park Press gets misty for Bruce and proposes a disturbing alternate history.
• And in the weirdest Bruce Springsteen birthday story of the day, plans for hackers to auction off Springsteen's stolen legal documents on the dark web have apparently led to naught.
• Also, of all the Twitter greetings to Bruce on his big day ... this may be the best:
UPDATE 3: Man, those Spring-Nuts have been busy! Watch 35 minutes of birthday wishes from some of Bruce's closest acquaintances below: