Born in the U.S.A.

Born in the U.S.A. is Bruce Springsteen's 7th studio album that was released on June 4, 1984 by Columbia Records.
The album has become Springsteen's most commercially successful album and of the highest-selling records ever, having sold 30 million copies by 2012. It has also been cited by critics as of the greates albums of all-time and was also nominated for "Album of the Year" at the 1985 Grammy Awards.
==Tracklisting==
#Born In The U.S.A.	4:39
#Cover Me	3:26
#Darlington County	4:48
#Working On The Highway	3:11
#Downbound Train	3:35
#I'm On Fire	2:36
#No Surrender	4:00
#Bobby Jean	3:46
#I'm Goin' Down	3:29
#Glory Days	4:15
#Dancing In The Dark	4:01
#My Hometown	4:33
==Album Background==
"Born in the U.S.A." showed Bruce Springsteen embracing a livelier mainstream sound than on his previous records, but continued to express progressive themes and values in his lyrics.
According to Roger Scott, it was a "defiantly rock 'n' roll" album while Rolling Stone's Debby Bull said Springsteen incorporated "electronic textures" with music he "kept as its heart all of the American rock & roll from the early Sixties".
Music journalist Matty Karas regarded it as "a quintessential pop album that was also a perfect distillation of the anger and bitterness seething beneath the surface of Reagan-era America."
Although Springsteen's previous record Nebraska had darker songs, he said that "Born in the U.S.A." was not entirely different: "If you look at the material, particularly on the first side, it's actually written very much like Nebraska – the characters and the stories, the style of writing – except it's just in the rock-band setting."
Springsteen considered leaving "No Surrender" off the album, explaining that "you don't hold out and triumph all the time in life. ... You compromise, you suffer defeat; you slip into life's gray areas."
E Street Band guitarist 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."
===Album Artwork===
The title track of the album inspired the Annie Leibovitz photo of Springsteen's backside against the backdrop of an American flag, which was used as the album cover.
Springsteen commented on the origin of the concept: "We had the flag on the cover because the first song was called "Born in the U.S.A.", and the theme of the record kind of follows from the themes I've been writing about for at least the last six or seven years. But the flag is a powerful image, and when you set that stuff loose, you don't know what's gonna be done with it."
Some people thought that the cover depicted Springsteen urinating on the flag. He denied it, saying: "That was unintentional. We took a lot of different types of pictures, and in the end, the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face, that's what went on the cover. I didn't have any secret message. I don't do that very much."
According to political writer Peter Dreier, the music's "pop-oriented" sound and the marketing of Springsteen as "a heavily muscled rocker with an album cover featuring a giant US flag, may have overshadowed the album's radical politics."
==Chart Performance==
"Born in the U.S.A." was the best-selling album of 1985 and proved to be the best-selling record of Bruce Springsteen's career.
It was promoted with a worldwide concert tour and seven singles that became top-10 hits: "Dancing in the Dark", "Cover Me", "Born in the U.S.A.", I'm on Fire", "Glory Days", "I'm Goin' Down", and "My Hometown."
The album debuted at #9 on the Billboard 200 during the week of June 23, 1984, and after two weeks, it reached the top of the chart on July 7, staying at number one for seven weeks; it remained on the chart for one hundred forty three weeks.
"Born in the U.S.A." was also a commercial success in Europe and Oceania; in the United Kingdom the album entered at number two on June 16, and after thirty four weeks, on February 16, 1985, it reached number one and topped the chart for five non consecutive weeks; it was present on the chart for 135 weeks.
The album also topped the album charts in Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
"Born in the U.S.A." proved to be one of the best-selling albums of all time. It was certified three times platinum by the BPI on July 25, 1985, denoting shipments of 900,000 units in the UK.
After the advent of the North American Nielsen SoundScan tracking system in 1991, the album sold an additional 1,463,000 copies.
On April 19, 1995, the album was certified fifteen times platinum by the RIAA for shipments of 15,000,000 copies in the US. By 2012, it had sold 30 million copies worldwide.
As "Born in the U.S.A." became a massive commercial success, Springsteen expressed his thoughts on his growing fame in a 1984 interview: "Yeah, there's a change [in me]. [Being a rich man] doesn't make living easier, but it does make certain aspects of your life easier. You don't have to worry about rent, you can buy things for your folks and help out your friends, and you can have a good time, you know? There were moments where it was very confusing. [...] I don't really think [money] does change you. It's an inanimate thing, a tool, a convenience. If you've got to have a problem, it's a good problem to have. [...] Money was kind of part of the dream when I started. I don't think...I never felt like I ever played a note for the money. I think if I did, people would know, and they'd throw you out of the joint. And you'd deserve to go. But at the same time, it was a part of the dream."
==Critical Reception==
"Born in the U.S.A." received positive reviews from critics.
In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Dave Marsh called it Springsteen's most accessible listen since his 1975 album, "Born to Run" and said that he knew how to incorporate "technopop elements without succumbing to the genre's banalities".
The magazine's Debby Miller wrote that Springsteen has set songs that were as well thought-out as Nebraska to more sophisticated production and spirited music, and that the four story-driven songs that end each side of the album give it an "extraordinary depth" because of his world-beating lyrics.
Robert Hilburn from the Los Angeles Times felt that, with the album's "richer" musical settings, Springsteen had succeeded in articulating his message to a wider audience.
John Swenson of Saturday Review credited him for showing a more disciplined writing style than on his previous albums and for "championing traditional rock values at a time when few newer bands show interest in such a direction".
Writing in The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said that Springsteen improved upon his previous work by eschewing dejected themes of nostalgia and losers in favor of tougher lyrics, a sense of humor, and an upbeat worldview more honest than the one-dimensional politics of Nebraska.
He added that the record's vibrant music "reminds me like nothing in years that what teenagers loved about rock and roll wasn't that it was catchy or even rhythmic but that it just plain sounded good".
"Born in the U.S.A." was voted the best album of the year in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1984.
Christgau (the poll's creator) also ranked the album number one on his list; in 1990, he named it the ninth-best album of the 1980s.
According to Christgau's 1990 book, "Record Guide: The '80s," the album may have seemed more conservative than Springsteen's previous work but it showed him evolving on what was his "most rhythmically propulsive, vocally incisive, lyrically balanced, and commercially undeniable album".
Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, later called the album "an 11-million-selling record with a conscience".
AllMusic's William Ruhlmann interpreted the album as an apotheosis for Springsteen's reoccurring characters from his past albums and said that the album "marked the first time that Springsteen's characters really seemed to relish the fight and to have something to fight for".
Richard Williams was more critical in a retrospective review for Q magazine, writing that Springsteen had exaggerated his usual characters and themes in a deliberate attempt at commercial success.
Williams added: "The decision by someone who grew up in the '60s to exploit the American flag on the cover and to bury the anti-war message of Born In The USA beneath an impenetrable layer of clenched-fist bombast ... was, in the era of Reagan and welfare cuts, downright irresponsible."
In 1987, "Born in the U.S.A." was voted the fifth greatest rock album of all time in Paul Gambaccini's poll of 81 critics, writers, and radio broadcasters.
In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked "Born in the U.S.A." #85 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
In 2013, it was named the 428th greatest album in a similar list published by NME. The album was also included in the book, "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die."
Category:1980s albums
Category:Rock