August 25, 2026, marks the 51st anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s breakout album, Born To Run.
Columbia Records released Springsteen’s third studio album in 1975.
The record reached No. 3 on the Billboard album charts. It has since sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
Critics now regard Born To Run as one of the greatest rock albums ever made.
However, the album almost never reached listeners.
Rips the bones from your back
Springsteen entered the studio with huge pressure on his shoulders.
His first two albums had earned strong reviews. However, neither record produced a major hit.
Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle impressed critics. Neither album delivered the breakthrough Springsteen needed.
At 25, Springsteen faced growing expectations.
The singer also had a reputation as a perfectionist. Fans later embraced his nickname, The Jersey Devil.
Springsteen spent six painful months working on the Born To Run title track with The E Street Band.
That effort focused on one song alone.
The long recording process showed how much pressure surrounded the album.
Something not right
“Anytime you spend six months on a song, there is something not exactly going right,” admitted E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt.
“A song should take about three hours.”
Even when the four-and-a-half-minute song was finished, Springsteen threw the mastered version into his hotel pool.
“I hated it. I couldn’t stand to listen to it. I thought it was the worst piece of garbage I had ever heard,” he said.
His team eventually convinced him to let the album release – and thank God they did.
From flop to the top
Debuting on the Billboard 200 chart at #84, it is hard not to imagine Springsteen wishing every copy of the album had sunk to the bottom of that pool.
But the disappointment was short-lived.
Only one week later, it soared to the top 10, before reaching its highest position at #3 in October 1975.
Selling 700,000 copies by the end of the year, Springsteen’s career was well and truly saved.
The Boss is still in office
Since the release of Born to Run almost 51 years ago, the 20-times Grammy award winner has recorded 18 more albums, including the incomparable Born in The USA in 1984.
Finally getting him that number one on the Billboard 200, the album even brought Born To Run back on the charts almost a decade later.
Showing no signs of slowing down, his Europe and North America tour Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band ran for two years from 2023-2025 and is one of the highest-grossing tours of all time.
But perhaps the most 21st Century-esque sign of his legendary status is him joining icons Michael Jackson, Queen and Bob Dylan in having a biopic made about his life.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere released in cinemas on October 24, 2025, with critics commending American actor Jeremy Allen White’s interpretation of the rock legend.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, The Boss has well and truly cemented his legacy in music.
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