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Bruce Springsteen fans all over the world jumped for joy on November 17, 2008, when Springsteen’s new album, Working on a Dream, was announced to the public, along with a track listing. The album will be Springsteen’s sixteenth studio album, another impressive milestone in a musical career that has spanned over thirty years.

According to Bruce Springsteen himself, the album is created from material that is much in the same vein of 2007’s Magic album, material that more feasibly would make up a whole new album rather than another couple songs on Springsteen’s previous album. Although Springsteen has been known to slowly produce his albums in the past, Working on a Dream is the fruit of a remarkably quick period of labor for the beloved singer. By January 12, 2009, the album had already leaked onto the internet, but the official release of the music will not occur until January 27, 2009. The release of the album was preceded by a Golden Globe Award for Springsteen for his song, “The Wrestler” and will be followed on February 1, 2009, with a halftime show performance from The Boss himself.

Bruce Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey and he spent his high school years in Freehold Boro, attending Freehold Regional High School. His father was a bus driver and his mother a legal secretary, while both of his sisters, Virginia and Pamela, are photographers. When Springsteen, raised Roman Catholic, attended parochial school, he often did not get along with the nuns and the rest of the students, but a heavy Catholic influence is present in much of his music regardless. Throughout high school, Springsteen never quite felt comfortable with his peers and his surroundings, to the point where he even opted to skip his own graduation as to not have to go through with the ceremony. As a teenager, Springsteen spent much of his time learning to play the guitar and sing, and his self-teaching paid off in 1965 when Springsteen met with two music patrons who would help Springsteen to become the lead guitarist and singer of his own band, The Castiles.

From there, Springsteen continued to play the local circuit, next with a power trio known as Earth. Around this time, Springsteen earned his nickname, “The Boss” because of his practice of collecting the band’s money and dividing it among the band members. His big break came in 1972 when talent scout John Hammond signed Springsteen to Columbia Records, along with many of Springsteen’s New Jersey colleagues. In January 1973, Springsteen released his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., to much critical acclaim, but sales were not as quick as would have been desired. His second album received a similar response from critics and the public alike: while the album was lauded by many, the sales of Springsteen’s sophomore album were less than stellar. Regardless, Springsteen’s sound, along with that of his E Street Band, continued to evolve as they created larger songs in form and scope. Springsteen’s next effort, Born to Run, proved to be difficult to produce, with Springsteen growing more and more frustrated and unhappy with the results of the recording. He would be cast into the public eye, though, with his legendary five-night, ten-show stand at New York’s Bottom Line club, and the widespread publicity this caused made Born to Run a massive critical and respectable popular success. Soon, Springsteen was in the forefront of the rock and roll community, a household name and an iconic figure.

Bruce Springsteen’s sound continued to evolve into the 1980s, much of it having to do with his personal life. His Nebraska album, a solo acoustic depiction of American life, was said to have been influenced by deep depression and disenchantment. The album would not sell much, but it went on to achieve massive critical acclaim, named the album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. In 1984, Springsteen would release Born in the U.S.A, which became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. Selling 15 million albums, Born in the U.S.A. would spawn seven hit singles, the most successful of these “Dancing in the Dark”. International megastardom would follow the release of the album as well as the extensive touring, consisting of the height of Springsteen’s mainstream visibility. Throughout the 1990s, Springsteen continued to tour and release albums, but this period marked a spat of rare disappointment of fans and critics alike, but by the turn of the millennium, Springsteen was back into the hearts and minds of the world with a sold-out ten-night engagement in Madison Square Garden in 2000. His 2002 album, The Rising, was a critical and popular success, and Springsteen’s fan base across the world continued to grow. In the mid-2000s, Springfield would become more politically active, participating in the Vote for Change tour. Springsteen would debut his new song, “Working on a Dream”, at a November 2, 2008 political rally in support of Barack Obama.

The Working on a Dream album was recorded with the E Street Band during breaks on the 2007-2008 Magic tour, finishing most of the songs in just a few takes. This stood in contrast to Springsteen’s attempts to record Born to Run in the 1980s, for example, as he had come to be known for taking his time on his albums. One of the songs from the album, “What Can Love Do”, was written, according to Springsteen, as a “love in the time of Bush” meditation, while the bonus song, “The Wrestler”, first appeared in conjunction with the release of the film, The Wrestler, at the 65th Venice International Film Festival. On January 11, 2009, the song would win a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, the album version having been released on iTunes on December 16, 2008. Springsteen introduced the title track at a Barack Obama rally, and then a chopped-up airing of the recorded version of the song appeared at halftime and an NBC Sunday Night Football airing. On November 21, the song began appearing on radios, and on November 24, the song was made available for a free download on iTunes. Several other songs have been released as free downloads throughout the course of the album’s production.

According to the track listing, the songs on the album greatly vary in length, with “Outlaw Pete” clocking in at eight minutes and other song just under three minutes. The New York Times has called the released work “more hopeful, less bleak” reflecting a lyrical departure from some of Springsteen’s previous efforts. Springsteen, throughout his long career in music, has explored many different moods and styles of music, with most of his works receiving extensive critical acclaim and a strong reaction from fans all around the world. The Boss has become one of the most notable names in rock and roll history all around the world, and as his expected upcoming tour should show, his fan base shows no sign of dwindling with time. If you count yourself among the almost innumerable lovers of Bruce Springsteen, from casual listener to the hardcore fan that attends every stop on the concert, you owe it to yourself to have a listen to Working on a Dream, due to be released on January 27, 2009.