Bruce Springsteen Only the Strong Survive Album Download ZIP
Cover versions usually come out at the beginning and end of a musician’s career, when they have nothing left to prove and just want to sing the songs they’ve always loved. (Third, they decide the world needs another Christmas album.)
Springsteen, 73, is nostalgic. He’s written an autobiography and performed a Broadway one-man show. Letter to You reunited him with the E Street Band and included three songs he wrote before his debut. Why not have fun with the Sixties soul and R&B songs he knows?
The album opens with a female backing trio repeating “I remember.” Two songs capture the project’s spirit: The Commodores’ 1985 song Nightshift is a tribute to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, who died the year before. Dobie Wilson’s 2000 song Soul Days recalls the sound of youth. Springsteen croons, “Those yesterdays/Cruising in my Chevrolet/I held my baby in my arms/But my first love was always the songs”
E Street Band is missing its horns. It was recorded late at night during lockdown with Ron Aniello and Rob Lebret. The style is sweeter and less of a wall of sound than Springsteen’s other work, but his gruff, weathered voice fits soul. On When She Was My Girl by The Four Tops, he holds a long note and gives the music gravitas.
The track selection shows this isn’t a chart-topper-in-waiting. The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore and Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes of the Brokenhearted are the most well-known. Nothing here will be unwelcome when he returns to Hyde Park for two giant shows next summer.
TRACKLIST
- Only the Strong Survive
- Soul Days ft. 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 ft. Sam Moore
- 7 Rooms Of Gloom
- What Becomes of the Brokenhearted
- Someday We’ll Be Together