Bruce Springsteen Reveals He Didn’t Liked His Biggest Album

Bruce Springsteen is finally opening up about one of his biggest albums—and surprisingly, he has some mixed feelings about it. While Born in the U.S.A. became a career-defining moment, selling over 30 million copies, the Boss says it wasn’t quite the record he had set out to create.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Springsteen reflected on the iconic 1984 album as he promotes his upcoming box set, Tracks II: The Lost Albums, set for release this Friday.

Springsteen Wanted a Different Sound

Looking back at Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen admitted it didn’t come together the way he imagined. He said:

“It was a record I put out. It became the record I made, not necessarily the record that I was interested in making.”

Originally, Springsteen hoped to expand on the emotional tone of his 1982 album Nebraska.

“I was interested in taking Nebraska and making a full record that had somewhat that same feeling. If you hear ‘My Hometown’ and you hear ‘Born in the U.S.A.,’ they were sort of the bookends I intended. And the rest of the stuff was … just what I had at the time. Those were the songs I wrote. Those were the songs I recorded.”

Even though it didn’t match his initial vision, Springsteen acknowledged that creative plans often evolve.

“From conception to execution, it was not necessarily the record that in my mind I had planned on, but that’s the way creativity works.”

Finding Darkness Beneath the Pop

When Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene suggested the album played like a commentary on the struggles of Reagan-era America, Springsteen acknowledged the interpretation. He said:

“I guess, it was to a lot of other people too. I suppose maybe I was looking for something darker.
“But outside of that, the themes of Nebraska are in there — in ‘Downbound Train,’ they’re in there, they’re disguised somewhat into pop music.”

New Box Set Sheds Light on Springsteen’s Creative Gap

The upcoming Tracks II box set dives into the space between Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A., featuring L.A. Garage Sessions, a full album recorded in that transitional period. Springsteen said:

“I enjoyed the recording and the experience of Nebraska, and thought I might continue in that vein with a small rhythm section, still very lo-fi, and a new group of songs.
“At the time I wasn’t sure where I was going with Born in the U.S.A. I had half the record, but I didn’t have the other half. And so it was just a record that happened in between those two records.”

And there’s more on the horizon. Springsteen already has Tracks III ready to go—another five-album collection of unreleased material—but no release date has been announced yet.

Fans can also look forward to seeing the Boss on the big screen in Deliver Me From Nowhere, a biopic about the making of Nebraska, starring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White. The film hits theaters on October 24.