Born in the U.S.A. Review

The central fact about this album is the gap between how it sounds and what it says, and that gap was engineered on purpose. The title track is a bitter account of a man sent to a war, coming home to nothing and being turned away at the employment office, set to a six note synthesiser figure and a drum sound like an artillery piece, sung in a roar that reads as triumph if you are not listening.

Politicians misused it within a year, which proves the point rather than undermining it. Elsewhere, Downbound Train and My Hometown are quiet and devastating, Dancing in the Dark is about being unable to write a song and became the biggest hit on the record, and Glory Days is a joke that turns cruel in the last verse. The production is unmistakably of its decade and it has aged better than it had any right to. Twelve songs, seven singles, and none of it stupid.