Back catalogue: Rock

Review: A new Bruce Springsteen album is always exciting. The Boss' hardworking and hard-done-by fables, touching on the politics and socio-economics tearing America apart, still resonate. If anything, they have become more relevant in an age when class struggles have created deep cultural divides, meaning any reminder of the real enemy is a welcome release.

Save for 2014's collection of covers and alternative versions, High Hopes, Letter To You is Springsteen's first full length since 2012, and will delight die harders - this is what they've been waiting for. Opening with 'One Minute You're Here', gruff rock 'n' roll set among the railroad tracks of Nowheresville, post-industrial decline, sets the tone. This is the artist on full power, an orator of broken dreams and heartfelt promises, a guy who will always be there for us because it feels like he's one of us. The king is back, long live the king.

Review: The Boss wouldn't know how to quit even if he fancied trying - maybe it's the leftover work ethic of the humble upbringing that has been a consistent theme throughout his work since we first heard Greetings From Wild Asbury Park, N.J.. 20 studio albums or so later, and we have a fittingly titled new addition to the LP discography, Only the Strong Survive, a rare example of Bruce Springsteen performing and recording work by other artists.

Apparently spurred on in part by memories of his experience working on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, his 2006 ode to Pete Seeger, and the mixed bag of largely negative and unnerving emotions we all went through in lockdown, the Great American songwriter set about not writing but singing and playing a load of covers in a series of studio takes. The result is a gem - tracks by Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Frankie Valli, The Commodores, Four Tops and Ben E. King prove, if there was ever any doubt, that Springsteen can turn to anything and make it his own.