ALBUM REVIEWS
For over a decade, J. Cole has rapped as the enlightened everyman, navigating issues of race, class, and gender like a thoughtful jock. His latest release, The Off-Season, finds him pondering inventive gun violence prevention measures one moment, and lobbing sexist locker-room insults the next (“Check your genitalia, pussy-niggas bleedin’ on yourself,” he raps on “95.South”). Still, the album is generally absent the overt social critiques that have built his reputation as a rapper of substance.
Last summer, on “Snow on tha Bluff,” his last lengthy engagement with ideas of Black liberation, he began by disputing that reputation: “Niggas be thinkin’ I’m deep, intelligent, fooled by my college degree/My IQ is average, there’s a young lady out there, she way smarter than me.” From there, the song becomes a well-intentioned but wildly insecure and paternalistic confrontation of the rapper Noname, likely a response to tweets in which she questioned her peers’ participation in the moment’s anti-racist movement. Noname, who has spent the last couple of years publicly learning and sharing anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialst ideas, responded with “Song 33,” a one-minute eviceration of his tone-policing with reminders of the tragedies people across the country were rectifying. After, in a series of tweets, Cole reiterated his incapacity to act as a thought leader: “a nigga like me just be rapping,” he relented.
His next songs came and went with much less fanfare, a two-track EP announced as the first singles from his upcoming album, The Fall Off. Instead came The Off-Season. The album was preceded by a short documentary on the rapper’s mindstate while making the music. The film isn’t particularly revelatory, but indicates that Cole was prioritizing the technical proficiency of The Off-Season’s songs over the construction of an arc between them. “Let me try to reach new heights from a skill level standpoint,” he says in the doc. In turn, the album is as highly proficient and non-revealing as the documentary foreshadows. Over a tight twelve tracks of nimble songwriting and outstanding composition, J. Cole continues to muse on the themes weaved throughout his discography: life and death, success and lack thereof, the divine and the mortal. He does this with personal and interpersonal anecdotes that are interesting but safe, as he leans into his passion for rap and sport and away from his predilection for social commentary.
Musicality drives The Off-Season, where Cole croons, hollers, and spits through a tangle of satisfying melodies and complex rhyme schemes. In standouts like “Amari,” “My.Life,” and “100.Mil,’ ” there’s drama and power as he alternates between agile rapping and serious singing. He harmonizes with fellow Fayetteville, North Carolina native Morray on “My.Life,” and enlists Dreamville veteran Bas — an impressive rhymer himself — as a singer in two places, where his performances are careful and calming. Dead center, “100.Mil’ ” feels like the thesis of Cole’s efforts here. He dances through a handful of flows in just one verse, sounding like he’s bounding through drills on the court. “How come a nigga ain’t enter his prime? Still gettin’ better after all this time,” he boasts. He’s right. Cole has become a top-tier composer, marrying rhythmic acuity with lyrical dynamism.
There are quick, vivid bursts of imagery scattered throughout The Off-Season, moments in which he tells stories without laboring over them. On “Close,” Cole bobs and weaves in and out of vignettes of his life and that of a friend who is ultimately slain, returning to the titular word as like a home base. He gives visceral exposition on “Interlude,” where he raps about EMTs carrying a woman’s child away from her “like surrogate mothers” in the unbearable southern summer heat. Together, Cole’s tales paint a picture of himself as a survivor who has traded in remorse for gratitude. He refers to his fear of death in the past tense on “Let.Go.My.Hand,” says, “I’m thankful ’cause I made it past my thirties, no one murdered me,” on “Pride.is.the.Devil,” and sets out to celebrate the life of a dead friend on “The.Climb.Back.” Making it out of Fayetteville used to torment Cole; now it gives his life a sense of meaning. “That’s why when niggas throw a shot or two online, I pay no mind to their benign gestures,” he raps on “Applying.Pressure.”
But with The Off-Season, Cole has made an album nearly devoid of spaces for the kind of rigorous critique that “Snow on tha Bluff” warranted, because he doesn’t offer thoughts that are new, challenging, or socio-politically charged. The rapper, who admittedly “hasn’t done a lot of reading” instead talks about what he knows best — his own life — with undeniable acumen as a lyricist. There is an uncomfortable finger-wagging at broke people hating on millionaires on “Applying.Pressure,” but he does so in the context of the jealousy he once harbored. The album’s biggest revelation comes with “Let.Go.My.Hand.” where J. Cole admits that he once had a physical altercation with Diddy, as was rumoured. The idea of any tension between them is quickly rectified when Diddy shows up on the outro.
After a year of social and political upheaval, it’s notable that Cole retreated into himself, setting out to be the greatest rapper and a professional baller rather than a voice of reason. That’s not a bad thing, per se — maybe it leaves space for listeners to engage more deeply with performers who have stronger ideas about race, class, and society, like a Noname. But when Cole raps that he “can’t let the fame scare me off from speaking candidly,” on “Punchin’.The.Clock,” it feels like it might have.
Bruce Springsteen was right. At the risk of simplifying the value of this impressive box set, giving away the main storyline of his new biopic, and flattening decades of mythmaking, the reality is just what Springsteen always claimed. Even when he tried the material with his closest collaborators, using some of the strongest songs he had ever written, the most powerful version of Nebraska is still the one he recorded at home in Colts Neck in January 1982. Just a lonely man in his early thirties with an acoustic guitar, a TASCAM PortaStudio, and an Echoplex, capturing solo demos for what he thought would be a full-band project. Everything that came after was an experiment.
But what an experiment it turned out to be. For those who don’t know the story, here it is in brief. After the success of his upbeat 1980 single “Hungry Heart” and a long streak of relentless touring and critical praise, Springsteen entered one of the most creatively intense chapters of his life. He began by writing the grim ballads and shadowy lullabies of Nebraska, which he then tried to recreate with the E Street Band and in solo studio sessions before ultimately choosing to release the home demos. He did no press and no tour, which left him free to keep writing, and that work became 1984’s massive commercial hit Born in the U.S.A. During that time, he tossed aside enough songs to fill multiple albums, later shared through collections like Tracks and Tracks II: The Lost Albums. He also found time to help revive the career of early rock’n’roll icon Gary U.S. Bonds, co-writing and co-producing two comeback records, contributing a Grammy-winning song to Donna Summer, and hitting the gym with enthusiasm.
It might sound like a golden moment, but for Bruce, it felt like a creative cage—the kind of brooding, restless chapter that inspires a filmmaker to cast Jeremy Allen White to play you on screen. The twist is that the most crucial moments, from the original Nebraska to the electric and explosive version of “Born in the U.S.A.,” happened quickly and naturally, before anyone could complicate the process. Unlike anything else in his official catalog, Nebraska 82: Expanded Edition offers a clear window into that moment. Within this tight collection is a sharper, more complete image of one of Springsteen’s most legendary and personal records—still the one he treasures most—along with rare insight into his creative rhythm.
The set includes a newly remastered version of the album, a disc of solo acoustic outtakes carrying the same raw emotion, the legendary Electric Nebraska sessions, and a live album and film capturing Springsteen performing the record start to finish in an empty New Jersey theater earlier this year. The live material feels reverent, with beautiful support from former Bob Dylan bandmate Larry Campbell. The remaster reveals that, despite the album’s association with the birth of lo-fi, the sound is richer and more intentional than much of what followed. Listen to the last half minute of “Atlantic City” through headphones and focus on how the acoustic guitars, mandolin, and background vocals fade away layer by layer. It’s a reminder of how much careful craft went into creating such stark beauty.
Unlike his earlier box sets for Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, this one isn’t about showcasing how many different paths he could have taken. It’s about sharpening the vision. Where Nebraska is known for its unbroken mood, Electric Nebraska jerks between heartland laments and roaring rock songs across its eight tracks. These takes feel like rough sketches more than finished recordings—mostly Springsteen on electric guitar and vocals, Max Weinberg on drums, and Garry Tallant on bass—hinting at an album that could have been more accessible and mainstream in 1982. And yet, this raw version of “Downbound Train,” with its clanging rhythms and unsettling bridge, may be one of the strangest things he ever put to tape.
It’s easy to see why Springsteen thought these sessions didn’t work. Versions of “Open All Night” and “Johnny 99,” which on the original album burn with desperate energy, sound here like something a bar band could fall into with a casual count-in and some good-natured rockabilly riffs. On one hand, it highlights how his delivery gives shape and gravity to his songwriting. (Compare the early acoustic “Thunder Road” to its triumphant album version for proof.) On the other hand, slipping into different musical skins was a key part of his process then. He could turn something as playful as “Pink Cadillac” into a moaning, shadowy reflection of itself, as if the character had returned to earth wrecked and hollow, fixated on one thought.
For devoted fans, these shifts are what make the box set essential: witnessing how songs like “Working on a Highway” transformed from a chilling ballad called “Child Bride” into a loud, laughing, raucous number. Some of the outtakes, like the quietly devastating country song “Losin’ Kind,” have been passed around unofficially for years. But this set also reveals two entirely unheard songs: “On the Prowl” and “Gun in Every Home.” In the first, he ends with a dizzying repetition of “searching,” drenched in slapback echo that mimics the sound of a live band. In the second, he paints a nightmarish portrait of suburban life and ends with a bare, defeated admission: “I don’t know what to do.”
Within a single song, Springsteen might take the role of a killer hiding in the dark or a runaway on the move, either escaping or facing the question of whether being caught is actually a strange kind of salvation. That’s the point of sitting in the dark: you can’t see the exit. Yet sometimes he caught brief glimpses of where it all might lead. Along with the original demo tape, Springsteen sent a letter to his manager, Jon Landau. He went through each track, detailing the grim subject matter, floating arrangement ideas, and occasionally letting a sliver of optimism shine through.
He scribbled a note next to “Born in the U.S.A.,” which appears here in two early forms: a heavy acoustic blues and a full-band rocker stripped of its later synths, leaving no doubt about how the narrator feels. “Might have potential,” he wrote. That small spark of belief carried him through. He knew these songs would take work, and that truly understanding them would take time. But he also trusted that at the end of each hard-earned day, there would still be magic in the night.
