Apologies to Jon Bon Jovi, Jack Antonoff, and Uproxx cover star Charlie Puth, but Bruce Springsteen is the musician that comes to mind when you think of New Jersey. There’s a clear home-state pride surrounding The Boss when it comes to NJ residents, and one of those residents went above and beyond to signal that.
Josh Gottheimer, a congressman who represents New Jersey’s 5th congressional district and who is also running for governor, shared a Spotify Wrapped graphic on X (as Stereogum notes), indicating his top five songs of the year were Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” “Because The Night,” “Glory Days,” “Badlands,” and “The Rising.” When sharing the post, Gottheimer declared, “No surprises here… Fun fact: My first ever concert was at Meadowlands to see The Boss!”
However, the folks at New Jersey Monitor took a close look at the graphic, and after finding inconsistencies with details like fonts and spacing, they determined the image had been edited.
Sure enough, NJ.com ended up asking Gottheimer about the allegations, and he confessed.
He had an explanation, though: “This would be my Spotify Wrapped if I didn’t share my account with my 12 and 15-year-old kids. While it’s Springsteen all day for me — don’t get me wrong, I still love listening to Taylor Swift!”
Hopefully Gottheimer’s gubernatorial campaign can recover from this grave misstep.
