Albums to watch

Letter to You

Bruce Springsteen

Letter to You

Album number twenty from the veteran singer-songwriter recorded over five days with the E Street Band and producer Ron Aniello

ADM rating[?]

8.0

Label
Columbia
UK Release date
16/10/2020
US Release date
16/10/2020
  1. 10.0 |   A.V. Club

    Letter To You is an absolute triumph, one that can take its place alongside the best albums of Springsteen’s long career
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  2. 10.0 |   NME

    The Boss' triumphant 20th album features three songs he wrote in his 20s, the rest grappling with age and mortality. It's also his best work in 20 years
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  3. 10.0 |   The Independent

    The Boss’s 20th studio album comes as close to the electricity of live music as it gets
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  4. 10.0 |   The Irish Times

    They play “live” in that each track is recorded as a band with minimal overdubs. This creates a real pulsating energy, driven by Max Weinberg’s dramatic propulsive drumming and the guitars of Steve Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren and Springsteen himself
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  5. 9.0 |   All Music

    It's an album where Springsteen reckons with the weight of the past, how its ghosts are still readily apparent in the present, an album where the veteran singer/songwriter is keenly aware he has more road in his rearview mirror than he does on the highway ahead of him
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  6. 9.0 |   Paste Magazine

    Singer’s latest album ranks among his best, most collaborative work
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  7. 9.0 |   God Is In The TV

    In a year where almost no-one expected things to turn out the way they have, a good, solid Bruce Springsteen album is a cause for joy. The fact that this is an excellent album even by Springsteen’s own high standards is reason for celebration
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  8. 8.3 |   Consequence Of Sound

    The Boss and E Street Band deliver a vital set of songs devoted to aging, death, and legacy
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  9. 8.0 |   The Observer

    An album about fallen comrades sees the E Street Band deliver the distilled elixir of their best stadium-filling form
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  10. 8.0 |   XS Noize

    As well as being the first time since Born in the U.S.A. that Springsteen and the E Street Band recorded live in the studio; Letter To You is “the only album where it’s the entire band playing at one time with all the vocals and everything completely live”
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  11. 8.0 |   Vinyl Chapters

    Embellished with saxophone, guitar riffs and a compelling blend of past and present, Letter To You shows the strength you can find in heartache. And it also shows that Bruce Springsteen isn’t slowing down any time soon
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  12. 8.0 |   Exclaim

    Letter to You may well be Springsteen addressing his most significant bandmates and his audience with love, but it may as well be something he wrote and sent ahead to 2020
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  13. 8.0 |   American Songwriter

    With Letter to You, the Boss wants us to know that when our time ends, we don’t just fade away. In the hearts and memories of those who love us, we can live forever
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  14. 8.0 |   Clash

    As a whole, ‘Letter To You’ is a wonderfully warm experience, perhaps Springsteen’s most human for some time
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  15. 8.0 |   Rolling Stone

    Recorded in just a few days with the E Street Band, this is one of the most personal statements of Springsteen’s career
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  16. 8.0 |   The FT

    The singer’s new album with the E Street Band is a reflective work that wields magnificent power
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  17. 8.0 |   Gigwise

    The Boss looks inward on his brilliant and vulnerable new record
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  18. 8.0 |   musicOMH

    The first album since perhaps Born In The USA where a truly collaborative spirit has fuelled the creative process
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  19. 7.5 |   Beats Per Minute

    Letter To You may well Springsteen’s best work since 87’s Tunnel of Love
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  20. 7.5 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    Letter to You doesn’t try to fight fire with fire so much as give us all of the water we need to help us extinguish the blaze raging rampant and orange outside our windows
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  21. 7.4 |   Pitchfork

    Riding the E Street Band’s familiar uplift, Springsteen grapples with the complexities of nostalgia, a tension that animates his writing and manifests in the sound of the music itself
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  22. 7.3 |   Spectrum Culture

    It's too early to tell if Letter to You will stand as a landmark Springsteen release, but Springsteen knows exactly what he wants to say and who can help him say it
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  23. 7.0 |   Slant Magazine

    The album has all the familiar hallmarks of the E Street Band’s signature sound
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  24. 7.0 |   No Ripcord

    With his trusted E-Street Band by his side, Springsteen sounds confident that he’s laid the myth to rest; and that his legacy will be one of who Springsteen was, not what he wrote about
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  25. 6.0 |   Albumism

    This long dip in the middle of the record make it difficult to see Letter To You matching up to Springsteen’s other great works
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  26. 6.0 |   The Arts Desk

    America produces voices that are rooted in the country’s ever-renewing sense of promise
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  27. 6.0 |   The Guardian

    Letter to You is not an album to snare new listeners, compounded by the fact that it contains a lot of good songs but no spectacular breakout hit
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