The Fabled Automatic

Its been 7 years since Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have recorded and released an album together, and 11 since they have released new material. Now, in the middle of a global pandemic, they are back with Letter To You .  The album contains 9 newly released songs, along with 3 songs written back in the early 70s, when Springsteen's career was only just beginning.  The story of the beginning of the record, according to Bruce, is as follows.  "…a fan — from Italy, he thinks — gave Springsteen an acoustic guitar at his Broadway stage door. 'I said, Geez, you know, thanks,' Springsteen recalls. 'And I just took a quick glance at it and it looked like a nice guitar, so I jumped in the car with it.' The guitar, made by a company he’s never heard of, sat in his living room for months, until Springsteen picked it up around April of last year. Without warning, 'all the songs from the album came out of it,' he says, full of wonder. 'In perhaps less ...

Taylor Swift has been known for genre switching in the past, most notably in 2014, when her fifth studio album 1989  took a turn from her then typical country towards 80s inspired synth pop. Now, in the current period of isolation, she has again shifted her sound.  Her newest project, Folklore  was a surprise release, only being announced a day before the record was due to drop. The album also comes just under a year after her last studio album Lover . In collaboration with Aaron Dessner (The National) and Jack Antonoff (Lorde, Bleachers, Fun.) as co-producers, Swift brings us an alternative project, and doing something lyrically unusual for her, telling fictional stories (hence the name). Dessner and Antonoff work in elements of their own personal styles, while, again, maintaining the essence of Swifts general sound. The record uses a lot of piano, instead of synthesizer. And in place of drum machines and 808s, there are brush drums. Antonoff said in an Instagram post af...