Album Review: Bruce Springsteen - Chapter & Verse

This album is the companion piece to His Bossness' upcoming autobiography, which largely works as a beginners guide to the music, if needed.

Most of the songs that define his revered status are present: the Dylan-esque word tumbles of early on, through Born To Run's epic sweep, onto the battler's anthems he keeps pouring everything into - Tom Joad, Wrecking Ball, and so on. The hook for the hardcore Bruceophiles is early works from his teenage bands like The Castiles and Steel Mill - but regrettably not the grandly named Dr Zoom & The Sonic Boom - which show the precocious kid was listening to The Beatles, Stones, and old soul and blues records much like everybody else.