Born in the U.S.A. is the seventh studio album by American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released on June 4, 1984. His popular and commercial triumph, it found Springsteen marking a departure in his sound – while the predecessor, the dark and acoustic Nebraska featured songs of pessimism and isolation, Born in the U.S.A.' s lyrics expressed signs of hope in the daily fight of the standard American in following the American Dream, a new feeling complemented by synthesized arrangements and a pop-flavored, radio-oriented sound that helped Springsteen to extend his already-growing popularity and dominate the mainstream audiences. In support of the album, there was an enormous commercial and sociocultural exposure throughout a large string of hit singles, remixes and music videos, and also the renewed image that Springsteen delivered – a muscular physique and a tougher, American-hero-like persona.
These departures auspicied Springsteen's peak of commercial success – Born in the U.S.A. was the best-selling album of 1985 in the United States (and also Springsteen's most successful album ever), produced a record-tying string of seven Top 10 singles (the most for an album in history tied with Michael Jackson's Bad and Janet Jackson's Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 ) and also a worldwide concert tour (the two-year Born in the U.S.A. Tour ) that was a massive success. Apart from this tremendous hype, the album was lauded by most critics and it is often considered Springsteen's magnum opus along with his 1975 breakthrough, Born to Run . As part of its enduring popularity, the album's impact as a cultural phenomenon lasted for generations, with its title track often misinterpreted as a patriotic anthem and its cover (a close-up of a rear Springsteen in front of an American flag, as he was photographed by Annie Leibovitz) becoming one of the most recognizable images in American popular culture.
Production
In 1981, Springsteen was asked to write some music for a film by Paul Schrader called Born in the U.S.A. (Schrader's movie would eventually be published 1987, entitled "Light of Day", featuring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett). Shortly after, when Springsteen was working on a song titled Vietnam, he glanced at the script and sang the title. The song, entitled as the work-in-progress movie, was already finished during the sessions of Springsteen's introspective album Nebraska , and Springsteen originally wanted to included on it. However, it was removed as it did not coincide with the dark feel of the rest of the songs. The same happened with other songs already cut around January or February 1982 – the energetic rocker "Cover Me" and the intimate "I'm on Fire". Then, between April and May, Springsteen composed and recorded a number of songs specifically intended for an album besides Nebraska at The Power Station in New York – "Born in the U.S.A.", "Darlington County", "Working on the Highway", "Downbound Train", "I'm Goin' Down" and "Glory Days". By mid-1982, most of the album was already recorded even over three months before the commercial release of Nebraska . In May 1983, Springsteen cut another song, "My Hometown" at The Hit Factory and around the end of the year he taped the two final tracks originally considered for the album – "No Surrender" and "Bobby Jean".
A last moment addition was "Dancing in the Dark", a song specifically commissioned by Springsteen's producer and manager Jon Landau, who was satisfied with the material recorded but wanted a blockbuster first single, one that was fresh and directly relevant to Springsteen's current state of mind. Landau and Springsteen got into an argument, but later on Springsteen wrote "Dancing in the Dark" with some trepidation. His irked mood from the day's argument combined with the frustrations at trying to complete the album quickly poured out into the lyrics. As he wrote on his 1998 book Songs , "It went as far in the direction of pop music as I wanted to go – and probably a little farther." However, Springsteen noted that "My heroes, from Hank Williams to Frank Sinatra to Bob Dylan, were popular musicians. They had hits. There was value in trying to connect with a large audience."
One of the songs that was about to be left-off the album was No Surrender . Springsteen claimed that this was because "you don’t hold out and triumph all the time in life. (...) You compromise, you suffer defeat; you slip into life’s gray areas." Steven Van Zandt, convinced Springsteen otherwise: "He argued that the portrait of friendship and the song’s expression of the inspirational power of rock music was an important part of the picture."
Promotion and blockbuster success
"Dancing in the Dark" was chosen as the first single for the album and it was released on May 4, 1984. The song surprised both critics and the public, as it showed the E Street Band using synthesizer for the first time. The track was enthusiastically received, particularly pointing at Springsteen's change of sound on the wake of the blockbuster success of Michael Jackson's Thriller and the popularity of pop music in general in America. The song quickly climbed the charts, and peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached #1 on the Cashbox singles charts for two weeks on June 30 . "Dancing in the Dark" also provided Springsteen a Top 10 hit in several countries and the most successful single of his career. The album was released on June 4 and, after a strong debut at #9 on Billboard 200, it quickly reached the top spot on July 7 , spending four weeks at the top. Then, on August 4 , it slipped down to #2, surpassed by Prince's breakthrough album Purple Rain , which spent an impressive 24 consecutive weeks at #1. During that 24-week period, Born in the U.S.A. was stucked #2 or (only in the case of three of those weeks) at #3. (This caused a rare phenomenon – Purple Rain and Born in the U.S.A. remained at #1 and #2 respectively during 18 consecutive weeks, marking the longest period with a static Top 2 in the history of the Billboard 200.) ( Born in the U.S.A. replaced Purple Rain on the top on January 19, 1985, remaining at #1 for three further weeks.)
In late July 1984, the next single, "Cover Me", was released, and reached at #7 by October. Then, the title track, a stinging tale of the hardships suffered by returning Vietnam veterans, was released immediately, eventually becoming one of Springsteen's best known songs, accumulating a considerable amount of folklore and becoming misinterpretated as a patriotic anthem. It was another Top 10 hit, reaching #9 in January 1985. Shortly, the follow-up, "I'm on Fire", released in February, was also a big hit, reaching #6 in May. The next month, "Glory Days" was also released, reaching #5 in August supported also with a music video. The sixth and seventh singles, "I'm Goin' Down" and "My Hometown", released in September and November 1985 almost equaled the success of their predecessors and, even with no music videos and despite the lower airplay, they managed to reach #9 and #6 respectively.
With this, Columbia released a total of seven singles for the album in the United States, a particularly notable feat for a rock album, especially if coming from Springsteen, who was considered at the time essentially as an "albums artist". Before Born in the U.S.A. , and despite a career of over a decade, only the radio-oriented 1980 single from The River , Hungry Heart was a Top 10 for Springsteen. Born in the U.S.A.' s strength in terms of hit singles its particularly significative if considering that, of all twelve Top 10 hits that Springsteen achieved to date in the U.S., seven were extracted from this album. (The radical change that the album represented surrounded some controversy at the time, with Cliff Bernstein, as manager of Def Leppard and Dokken, considered that "a sixth single is a little bit of overkill.") Thanks to these singles, Springsteen was an almost constant presence on the Billboard Hot 100 between May 1984 and March 1986. All seven received extensive promotion, enjoyed respectable sales and gained considerable airplay, and four of them were supported with music videos. Springsteen made history when during the Christmas season of 1985 when he equaled the record achieved by Michael Jackson's Thriller the year before of the largest number of Top 10 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 extracted from a single album (only other album would also produce seven Top 10 singles in the U.S. – Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 , in early 1991).
The constant presence of Springsteen in the music industry that was auspicied with this number of singles, represented an invaluable support for the album, which enjoyed an impressive staying power on the charts, spending its 84 first weeks at the Top 10 (which included the whole calendar year of 1985). With this feat, Born in the U.S.A. became both the album with the most consecutive weeks on the Billboard Top 10 ever and the third album with the most weeks on the Top 10 overall (equaling Peter, Paul and Mary's 1962 eponymous album), only behind Jackie Gleason's Music for Lovers Only (153 weeks) and the Glenn Miller album by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra (130 weeks). Born in the U.S.A. spent an impressive total of 139 non-consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 (which represented, in conjunction, over two years and a half on the list). Also, despite being released as earl
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