Bruce Springsteen – Only the Strong Survive – Double Vinyl Record

Description

Bruce Springsteen – Only the Strong Survive – Double Vinyl Record

Only the Strong Survive gives Bruce Springsteen a chance to put the singer at the center of the record. His 2022 album gathers fifteen songs from the soul repertoire, drawing on music associated with Motown, Stax, Philadelphia soul, and other corners of the American songbook. The selections range from widely familiar hits to songs that invite another hearing, with Springsteen approaching them as material he has lived with rather than as sources for new compositions. His voice is immediately recognizable, but the songs ask him to use it in ways that differ from his usual role as a storyteller singing his own work.

Producer Ron Aniello supplied much of the instrumentation, recording at Thrill Hill in New Jersey with engineer Rob Lebret. The arrangements also include the E Street Horns, strings arranged by Rob Mathes, and a group of backing singers that includes Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, Michelle Moore, Curtis King Jr., Dennis Collins, and Fonzi Thornton. Those parts are important to the album's musical character. A horn entrance, a string line, or an answering vocal can support the lead while preserving the shape of the soul arrangements that first gave these songs their identity.

The title song connects the record to Jerry Butler, while Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) brings in Frank Wilson's Northern soul favorite. The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore makes room for the dramatic pop-soul writing associated with the Walker Brothers, and Nightshift revisits the Commodores' tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. The repertoire lets Springsteen work across several styles of singing: a firm rhythmic delivery, a broad melodic line, or a phrase whose effect depends on how long he waits before completing it. The choices reveal something about his listening history as well as his voice.

Sam Moore joins Springsteen on Soul Days and I Forgot to Be Your Lover, adding a direct connection to the soul tradition the album celebrates. Other selections return to the Four Tops, the Temptations, and Jimmy Ruffin through When She Was My Girl, I Wish It Would Rain, 7 Rooms of Gloom, and What Becomes of the Brokenhearted. Springsteen keeps the vocal performance close to the main idea of each song, while the accompaniment gives him the setting it needs. The familiar material remains identifiable without requiring him to hide the grain or character of his own singing.

Someday We'll Be Together closes an album built around affection for songs that have survived decades of changing musical fashions. Only the Strong Survive follows Letter to You with a different kind of studio project, concentrating on interpretation, arrangement, and the pleasure of singing. It offers Springsteen listeners another view of a voice they know well, while giving soul listeners a program rooted in recognizable writers, performers, and recording traditions. Across the fifteen tracks, the connection to that earlier music is specific: these are songs he chose because he wanted to sing them, and the arrangements give him room to do exactly that.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Release Details

Artist

Bruce Springsteen

Album

Only the Strong Survive

Format

Double Vinyl Record

Number of vinyl records

2

Original album release

2022

Label

Columbia Records

Track Listing

Only the Strong Survive

Soul Days (feat. Sam Moore)

Nightshift

Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore

Turn Back the Hands of Time

When She Was My Girl

Hey, Western Union Man

I Wish It Would Rain

Don't Play That Song

Any Other Way

I Forgot to Be Your Lover (feat. Sam Moore)

7 Rooms of Gloom

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted

Someday We'll Be Together