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On this work, the original album cover art design was posterized and the stripes were extended so that the square image could fit into an 18x10 canvass. The posterization transformed the working class
image of the blue jeans and tees and baseball cap and the dust-blown flag into a neat and chic pose of the still rugged and tough USA teen turning his back on his audience and looking forward
to his double who is snugly fit in the middle stripe and elegantly sandwiched between the modified album title and the name of the "boss."
This might be the digital version of blue collar America, in the working clothes of the boys who stayed at home and formed the economic backbone of the world's greatest superpower
while their daring contemporaries wore fatigues and camouflage to fight wars in foreign lands. And now, in the age of drones and the policy of "no boots on the ground", his
working clothes are Fabrique en Chine.
Here's the "boss" on the original album cover art design.
No. 24, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time; No. 86, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 89, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 160, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.
Bruce Springsteen in front of the American flag photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Cover design by Andrea Klein.
Album produced by John Landau, Chuck Plotkin, Bruce Springsteen, and Steven van Zandt. Columbia, 1984.
The title track inspired the celebrated Annie Leibovitz photo of Springsteen's backside against the backdrop of an American flag. The album cover became a cult image in Western
popular culture. Springsteen commented on the origin of the concept: "We had the flag on the cover because the first song was called "Born in the USA", 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:
"That was unintentional. 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." More
(A) Born in the USA - Cover Me - Darlington County - Working on the Highway - Downbound Train - I'm on Fire
(B) No Surrender - Bobby Jean - I'm Going Down - Glory Days - Dancing in the Dark - My Hometown
"Born in the USA" live from BruceSpringsteenVEVO on YouTube.
