When the world first met him in the mid-’70s, Bruce Springsteen might have seemed like a throwback.

He sang about first loves and teenage runaways; he dressed like a greaser and worshipped at the altar of jukeboxes and summer nights on the boardwalk.

Springsteen turned 71 last month, and his 20th studio album, Letter to You, indulges in his past like never before.

Flourished with organ and saxophone, music box piano and glockenspiel, surf guitar licks and driving rhythm, Letter to You is bold and self-referential, using the sound of Springsteen’s own catalog the way he once treated the entirety of rock history."

— Pitchfork