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    Bruce Springsteen Releases EP Including Remarks That Angered Trump

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    After Bruce Springsteen criticized the Trump administration on tour, the president said he should “KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.” Instead, Mr. Springsteen included his comments on a new release.After Bruce Springsteen opened a tour of England last week with a denunciation of President Trump, the president taunted Mr. Springsteen on social media and wrote that he “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT” until he returns to the United States.Mr. Springsteen, undeterred, released a six-track EP this week which begins with his remarks that America “is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”The new EP, “Land of Hope & Dreams,” offers a mix of songs and Mr. Springsteen’s pointed political remarks from his May 14 concert in Manchester, England.In the introduction to the song “My City of Ruins,” Mr. Springsteen takes on a somber tone, telling the audience that in the United States the authorities were “persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent.” He said that the nation was cutting aid to the poor, abandoning allies, rolling back civil rights protections, defunding universities and deporting people without due process.“A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government,” Mr. Springsteen said. “They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.”Mr. Springsteen’s remarks were perhaps not surprising, given that he endorsed Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign and has supported a long list of Democratic candidates over the years. But they were notable since a number of other major stars have seemed to mute their criticisms of the president.After Mr. Springsteen’s comments were reported last week, Mr. Trump responded with a social media post calling him a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!).” After saying Mr. Springsteen should stay silent until he returns to the United States, the president added: “Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”Mr. Trump has continued to criticize Mr. Springsteen since then, including on Monday, when he called for a “major investigation” into Mr. Springsteen and other celebrities including Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Bono. More

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      Bruce Springsteen’s Rowdy ‘Repo Man,’ Plus 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by S.G. Goodman, the Lemonheads, Rihanna, Lido Pimienta and more.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Bruce Springsteen, ‘Repo Man’While Bruce Springsteen was recording the somber songs on “The Ghost of Tom Joad” in 1995, he was also, it’s now revealed, blowing off steam with rowdy, lighthearted songs like “Repo Man,” the latest preview of his archival collection “Tracks II: The Lost Albums.” It’s a Chuck Berry-meets-Buck Owens country-rocker that has Springsteen hollering, “You shouldn’t have bought it if you couldn’t have paid!” It’s also a showcase for skidding, careening, scene-stealing solos by Marty Rifkin on pedal steel guitar, abetting Springsteen’s stunt driving as he turns class warfare into comedy.S.G. Goodman, ‘Snapping Turtle’“I grew up hard on bottom land where only crops should grow / Watched people reap what the demons sowed,” S.G. Goodman sings in “Snapping Turtle,” from an album due June 20. She’s from Kentucky, where she grew up and still lives; the cracks and scratches in her voice hark back to Appalachian roots. “Snapping Turtle” is a stoic, six-minute march, a two-chord jam with eerie resonances opening up under drums and guitars. Goodman sings about memories she can’t escape — including a friend who had “a life beat down” — and the bitter lessons of the small town “where my mind gets stuck.”Sofi Tukker featuring Liniker, ‘Intensity’Sofi Tukker — the duo of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern — sets aside its usual electronic production on its new album, “Butter.” Instead, they visited Brazil, enlisted the producer Marcio Arantes to assemble a mostly acoustic studio band and invited Brazilian musicians like Seu Jorge as guest singers. Most of “Butter” remakes (and unplugs) songs from the duo’s 2024 album, “Bread.” But “Intensity” — with guest vocals from the Brazilian songwriter Liniker — is a new song. Over syncopated acoustic guitar and a crisply sputtering, samba-rooted beat, Hawley-Weld and Liniker celebrate a partnership that’s “way too much / It’s the right amount for me.”yeule, ‘Dudu’Named after the nonsense syllables in its hook, “Dudu” has such a blithe, shiny pop facade that the verses could easily go unnoticed. Yeule — a style-hopping, electronics-friendly songwriter and producer from Singapore — sings about unrequited love that’s turned pathological. “Overdosed from the pain / Woke up in a bed, restrained,” yeule sings. “I screamed and screamed and screamed your name.” But the vocals are so nonchalant, surrounded by whizzing synthesizers and kicked along by a robust backbeat, that the heartache almost evaporates.DannyLux, ‘Sirena’The Mexican American songwriter DannyLux has thrived by playing up his sensitive side, and “Sirena,” the single from his new album “Leyenda,” is no exception. In a waltzing corrido that updates the traditional acoustic guitars with a sheen of reverb, extra vocal harmonies and a sudden shift of texture before the second verse, he insists he’s been hypnotized forever by a woman’s beauty — though he also reminds her that “Other guys would put a price on your body, a price on your kisses.” He’s more sensitive, of course.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Springsteen, in England, Blasts Trump Administration as ‘Treasonous’

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      His remarks, delivered to an audience abroad, stood out at a time when other superstar artists have seemed to mute their criticism of the president.Bruce Springsteen opened his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, on Wednesday with a forceful denunciation of President Trump, accusing him and his administration of trampling on civil rights and workers, abandoning allies and siding with dictators.Even for an avowed liberal like Mr. Springsteen, it was a notably piercing broadside at a time when some artists have seemed to avoid directly confronting Mr. Trump as they did in 2017, after he took office the first time. Back then, many prominent performers and celebrities roundly denounced Mr. Trump at shows and rallies and on television.Appearing in Manchester, Mr. Springsteen, 75, criticized Mr. Trump in separate remarks before his songs “Land of Hope and Dreams,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” and “My City of Ruins.” He later posted a transcript of his comments on his website and a video of them on his YouTube channel.“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ’n’ roll, in dangerous times,” he said. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”The crowd responded with cheers, and Mr. Springsteen went on to offer a litany of grievances about the administration, accusing it of “taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers.”“They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society,” he said. “They’re abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They’re defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They’re removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Miley Cyrus’s Apocalyptic Pop, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Brandi Carlile, Wet Leg and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Miley Cyrus, ‘End of the World’Miley Cyrus has announced that her album “Something Beautiful,” due May 30, will be a “pop opera” and a “visual experience,” with a film to follow in June. One of its early singles, “End of the World,” is a luxurious pop extravaganza with songwriting collaborators including Jonathan Rado from Foxygen and Molly Rankin and Alec O’Hanley from the group Alvvays. A pumping beat, stacked-up guitars, orchestral underpinnings and a platoon of backup vocals abet Cyrus as she calls for one last, desperate chance at pleasure. “Let’s pretend it’s not the end of the world,” she urges. She probably didn’t know she’d be singing through an economic crisis. JON PARELESBruce Springsteen, ‘Rain in the River’Bruce Springsteen was hoarse and howling when he recorded “Rain in the River,” now released as a preview of “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” an 83-song collection from his archives that will be released in June. It’s a booming, arena-scale cry of anguish with Springsteen’s guitars pealing, droning and spinning gnarled leads. His character gets spurned, told that “Your love means no more to me than rain in the river.” What happens next is ambiguous — and possibly fatal. PARELESElton John and Brandi Carlile, ‘Little Richard’s Bible’Layers of fandom inform “Who Believes in Angels?,” the new duet album by Elton John and Brandi Carlile. Carlile grew up as an ardent fan of John’s songwriting and flamboyant gay identity, while the producer Andrew Watt, who collaborated on the songwriting (along with John’s longtime lyricist, Bernie Taupin), spurs longtime musicians to rediscover their youthful spark. The album’s two opening tracks pay tribute to songwriters that John admired: Laura Nyro and, in this song, Little Richard. John, now 78, sings about Little Richard’s swings between carnality and faith, with high harmonies from Carlile, and he pounds out piano chords as a lifetime rock ’n’ roll believer. PARELESWet Leg, ‘Catch These Fists’A deadpan near-spoken vocal, bristling bass and guitar riffs and a beat that stomps its way into the chorus: those were the ingredients of the English indie-rock band Wet Leg’s 2021 smash, “Chaise Longue.” The group deploys similar elements in “Catch These Fists,” but trades the drolleries of “Chaise Longue” to contend with a more fraught situation: an unwanted pickup attempt at a club. “I know all too well just what you’re like,” Rhian Teasdale tells the suitor. “I don’t want your love — I just wanna fight.” PARELESThe Hives, ‘Enough Is Enough’The swaggering Swedish punks the Hives are back — so soon! — with the first single from an album due Aug. 29 called “Play It Again Sam.” The quintet paused after its 2012 LP “Lex Hives” until 2023, when it returned with “The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons.” (“It was like a slow, 10-year-long panic,” the frontman Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist joked then. “It was never an outright panic because we continued to be so immensely popular worldwide.”) “Enough Is Enough” rides four chords and a wave of frustration to a delightfully tuneful bridge. In the video, Almqvist is the king of the ring — until he takes a punch that lands him in the hospital. Like his powder keg of a band, he rallies. CARYN GANZWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bruce Springsteen Will Release Seven ‘Lost Albums’ in June

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      The singer and songwriter announced a boxed set featuring 83 songs, of which 74 have never been officially released in any form.Bruce Springsteen is opening his vault — and unleashing seven “lost” LPs.On June 27, Springsteen will release “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” a collection of 83 songs on seven CDs (or nine vinyl LPs), of which 74 have never been officially released in any form, according to an announcement from the star on Thursday.Fans have long known that Springsteen has withheld many songs throughout his career. Over the years the singer-songwriter has made stray comments about shelved or unfinished recordings, sometimes seeming to itch to get them completed and released.But even many Bruceologists may be surprised at the scale of “Tracks II,” which is organized as seven discrete projects from 1983 to 2018, each with its own production and stylistic approach. Among them are working tapes from Springsteen’s fruitful pre-“Born in the U.S.A.” period and a hip-hop-influenced album from the early 1990s.“‘The Lost Albums’ were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” Springsteen, 75, said in a statement.“LA Garage Sessions ’83” has 18 songs from the period when Springsteen was developing “Born in the U.S.A.,” his monster 1984 hit, a moment of transition from the raw solo demos that were released as “Nebraska” (1982). Many of those titles, like “Fugitive’s Dream” and “Don’t Back Down on Our Love,” have long circulated among fans as bootlegs, but are getting their first official release on “Tracks II.”“Streets of Philadelphia Sessions” peels back the curtain on another phase of Springsteen’s career. After using synthesizers and a drum machine to record “Streets of Philadelphia,” a solo song for Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film “Philadelphia” — which went on to win best original song at the Academy Awards — Springsteen continued to experiment with the format, and word filtered out about a dark LP with a “hip-hop edge.” But even after fully preparing it for release, Springsteen opted to hold the album back.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Joe DePugh, Pitcher Who Inspired Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days,’ Dead at 75

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      A gifted athlete, he gave a clumsy teenage Bruce Springsteen his first nickname, Saddie. Years later, the Boss returned the favor, memorializing him in a song.Joe DePugh, the Little League teammate of Bruce Springsteen who inspired the rocker’s hit song “Glory Days,” a rousing, bittersweet anthem to their hardscrabble childhoods in Freehold, N.J., where time passed by “in the wink of a young girl’s eye,” died on Friday in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 75.The cause of death, in a hospice facility, was metastatic prostate cancer, his brother Paul said.In the early 1960s, before Mr. Springsteen became the Boss, he was a clumsy baseball player whose athletic abilities were so sad that Joe, the team’s star pitcher, gave him the nickname Saddie.“Bruce lost this big game for us one year,” Mr. DePugh told The Palm Beach Post in 2011. “We stuck him out in right field all the time, where you think he’s out of harm’s way. But this important game, we had a bunch of guys missing, and we had to play him.”In the last inning, Saddie dropped an easy fly ball.“Actually, it hit him on the head,” Mr. DePugh said, “and we lost the game.”They remained friends in high school, bonding over their turbulent home lives and their distant, alcoholic fathers. After graduation, Saddie took off to play rock ’n’ roll in bars and nightclubs. Joe, who excelled at multiple sports, tried out for the Los Angeles Dodgers but wound up playing basketball at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.In 1973, when they had been out of touch for years, these two boyhood friends bumped into each other at the Headliner, a roadside bar in Neptune, near the Jersey Shore. Mr. Springsteen was walking in; Mr. DePugh was walking out.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Power of ‘Two’: An Anniversary Playlist

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      Celebrate two years of this newsletter with songs by Dolly Parton, Stacey Q, Mitski and more.Dolly PartonCharlie Riedel/Associated PressDear listeners,Surprise: There’s a birthday party in your inbox! Today we’re celebrating two years of The Amplifier, with — what else? — a themed playlist.On March 21, 2023, I sent out the first installment of this newsletter, introducing myself with 11 songs that explain my musical perspective and asking readers to submit some of their own favorite tracks. In the time since, I’ve sent out nearly 200 playlists, shared thousands of songs and received countless submissions when I’ve asked Amplifier readers to generate their own soundtracks. The community we’ve created together is vibrant and reciprocal: I may have discovered as much new music through your recommendations as you have through mine.Today’s playlist honors the Amplifier’s second birthday with eight tracks that feature the word “two” in the title. In keeping with The New York Times style guide, I stuck with songs that spell out the word “two,” so my apologies to Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” and Beyoncé’s “II Hands II Heaven,” among plenty of other greats that didn’t make the cut. But you will hear classics from the Beatles, Dolly Parton and Bruce Springsteen, as well as more recent and lesser-known tracks from indie singer-songwriters like Mitski and Flock of Dimes.This anniversary is also ushering in a new chapter for this newsletter. Starting next week, I’ll be taking a few months off to finish the manuscript of a book I’ve been working on. I’ll miss making these playlist and corresponding with you all, but I’m incredibly excited to get one step closer to a lifelong goal of publishing my first book. Once I’m back, I’ll update you on my progress — and probably share my writing playlist with you, too.While I’m out, I have a wonderful lineup of guest writers who will be sending out their own newsletters and playlists each Tuesday, and I’m thrilled for you to see (and hear) what they have in store.Thanks to each and every one of you who has read this newsletter, sampled our playlists and reached out to give us feedback. As always, happy listening.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      1984: The Year Pop Stardom Got Supersized

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      Forty years ago, the chemistry of pop stardom was irrevocably changed. Nineteen eighty-four was an inflection point: a year of blockbuster albums, career quantum leaps, iconic poses and an enduring redefinition of what pop success could mean for performers — and would then demand from them — in the decades to come.The indelible albums of 1984 were turning-point releases: Prince’s “Purple Rain,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” among them. Tina Turner reintroduced herself as a bruised but resilient survivor on “Private Dancer.” And Van Halen proved that hard rock could mesh with pop — even synth-pop — on “Jump.” These were pivotal statements from established acts who were decisively multiplying their impact.Those blockbusters were propelled by an unlikely convergence of artistic impulses, advancing technology, commercial aspirations and popular taste, all shaped by the narrow portals of the pre-internet media landscape. The eye-popping novelty of music videos, the dominance of major record labels and the cautious formats of radio stations still made for a limited, recognizable mainstream rather than the infinitude of choices, niches, microgenres and personalized recommendation engines that the internet opened up. It was a peak moment of pop-music monoculture. Listeners in the 1980s absorbed hits that felt like ubiquitous earworms: the fanfare-like synthesizer riff of “Born in the U.S.A.,” the saxophone cushioned by synthesizers in George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” the drone and percussion and bawled vocals of “Shout” by Tears for Fears. Younger generations have definitely heard and seen their repercussions, whether or not they’ve played back the originals. The sounds and lessons of 1984 have been durable and widely recycled by countless synthesizer-pumped 21st-century hitmakers, among them the Weeknd (“Blinding Lights”) and Sabrina Carpenter (“Please Please Please”). More

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      No More Nostalgia Concerts, Please

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      The culture industry keeps getting better at monetizing the past — including the new ritual of musicians playing old albums, in full, onstage.In March, the rock band Weezer announced plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their self-titled debut, known to fans as “the Blue Album,” with a special tour: At every stop they would play the album in full, from front to back. I may not have enjoyed Weezer’s new output in decades, but the Blue Album was a fixture of my teenage consciousness, as it was for many my age; I was tempted to buy a ticket and spend an evening among my cohort, transported back to that time. But as I watched the video announcing the tour, I also felt a nagging sense of déjà vu.I assumed I was just reacting to the whole ritual of touring years-old albums, a concept that has become a staple of the industry. It emerged in the mid-2000s, with a curated series of relatively small concerts self-consciously titled “Don’t Look Back” — but within a decade it had become big business. In 2016, Bruce Springsteen toured the world playing the entirety of his 1980 album “The River”; U2 came aboard in 2017 with a massive tour where they played the whole of “The Joshua Tree,” from 1987. Now these exercises are commonplace: Just this year, concertgoers could catch anything from the rap icon Nas playing all of “Illmatic” (30th anniversary) to the country star Clint Black playing “Killin’ Time” (35th) to the pop-punk band Green Day playing both “Dookie” (30th) and “American Idiot” (20th) — albums mostly from an era when people expressed their love for records by actually buying them.Then it came to me: It wasn’t just that Weezer’s Blue Album tour was the sort of thing every band seems to be doing these days. It felt familiar because it was something that Weezer themselves had already done, 14 years earlier, on their “Memories” tour.Back then, I remember finding the conceit intriguingly novel. Today that aura of novelty is itself a distant memory. Notices of new album-anniversary tours pop up incessantly in my inbox and social feeds. Taken together, they do not feel like fun experiments or celebrations of beloved albums. They feel like the onward acceleration of a culture industry that is unsettlingly dedicated — not just in our concert halls but on our screens and everywhere else it can reach us — to monetizing our nostalgic attachment to media from the past.It’s easy to sympathize with everyone involved. For fans who grew attached to these albums when they were originally released, the concerts function as powerful shortcuts back to poignant memories and distant modes of feeling. For new fans, they are a chance to reconnect with cultural moments they might have missed the first time around. As for the bands: Many are scrambling, looking for ways to pay the bills as album and tour revenues plummet for all but the most successful artists. Presumably, booking agents are reminding artists that these nostalgia exercises do help sell tickets, while streaming stats are reminding them exactly which of their albums people listen to most. Speaking to Yahoo News in 2017, Art Alexakis of the band Everclear noted that merchandise sales at their anniversary tours were almost twice as high as at their regular shows. (Nostalgia is a hell of a drug; side effects may include buying two vinyl LPs and a T-shirt.) So musicians become jukeboxes — playing exactly what the data says people want to hear, minimizing the risk of boring anyone with new material or new ideas.‘That means that all the good songs were up at the front.’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More