American Land by Bruce Springsteen
The fourth album in the American Recordings series that comprised Johnny Cash’s comeback was the last released during his lifetime. It’s no coincidence that <i>The Man Comes Around</i> is the most poignantly elegiac of those releases, with the rumble-toned troubadour transforming such unlikely source material as Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” from an angst-filled alt-rock stomp into a hushed acoustic requiem for all he holds dear. These stripped-down statements from deep within Cash’s indomitable soul are impossible to shake off—not that anyone would want to.
