Bruce Springsteen just released "Only The Strong Survive," a cover album of soul and R&B songs with 15 songs; however, the singer revealed that recording it was an arduous process.
Prior to releasing his new studio album, Springsteen shared that he had 40 songs lined up, but decided to narrow the tracklist down to 15.
"Initially, it was really hard. I was picking material and I'm going, 'It's hard to sing somebody else's songs, and get them to sound authentic and it's coming out of you.'" the 73-year-old musician told Exclaim.
"So I made an entire record that I threw out, and it'll show up in different places, and there were some good things on it but didn't feel quite right," he continued.
New Direction
Springsteen also shared the reason why he decided to go in this direction for his newest album, instead of making and working on his own original material.
"I said well, maybe I'll orient myself towards soul music, because it's how I grew up, and all my great mentors were soul men that came, Sam Moore and, of course, James Brown, Smokey Robinson as a writer,
"I mean, just so many. And the great singers, David Ruffin, Levi Stubbs, all masters. They were all my masters and I said well, let me try and sing some of this material," he said.
Aside from honoring the soul singers before him, he also paid homage to the original singers of the songs he included in the album.
The album opens with the title track, "Only the Strong Survive," which was originally performed by Jerry Butler; followed by "Soul Days" by Dobie Gray, as it set the tone for the rest of the album. Springsteen collaborated with Sam Moore for the song.
"Nightshift" by the Commodores was introduced as a single, released on Oct. 2022, along with a music video, as with "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" by Frank Wilson.
According to NME, the singer wanted to "challenge" himself by performing the songs out of his usual range, noting that his "voice is bada*s."
"I'd spent my working life with my voice at the service of my songs, confined by my arrangements, by my melodies, by compositions, and by my constructions," Springsteen said. "My voice always came second, third or fourth to those elements."
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