In September 1978 Bruce Springsteen welcomed NME into his dressing room at the New York Palladium. “I don’t wanna let the people that have supported me down,” he told the journalist, “and it ain’t good enough just getting by. I wanna take it all the way, every night.”
Thirty-seven action-packed years down the line, Bruce Springsteen’s mission remains miraculously unchanged. To celebrate, here is a very special and, we hope, comprehensive magazine dedicated to a true rock titan: a radically updated and upgraded edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Bruce Springsteen. In these pages, you’ll find revelatory Springsteen interviews from every stage of his career. In 1974, laying waste to the dancehalls of Texas, his distrust of stardom is so great he hopes someone will shoot him if he ever plays Madison Square Garden. In 2002, he is at home in New Jersey, reiterating the core message that has sustained him for so long: “I think you have to make a point of behaving like a human being.” In between, there are adventures in France, raids on Gracelands, paranoid episodes involving socks, and much more.
There are also deep, forensic reviews of every Springsteen album, from Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ to High Hopes, shining new light on a musical catalogue that still, with each new chapter, has the capacity to startle and inspire.