Bruce Springsteen's 10 best albums — ranked
Darkness on the Edge of Town and Born in the USA: two all-time Boss classics
‘Radio Nowhere’ blasted out of the speakers with a thousand guitars and pounding drums and ‘Girls In Their Summer Clothes’ sounded like a typical boss hit but listen again and they’re sadder things. The girls pass our man by, and all he hears is a drone. The war in Iraq haunts the grooves of Magic as “metal and plastic” cave in bodies in ‘Devil’s Arcade’, Mary sits with the colours of the fallen in ‘Gypsy Biker’, and “martyr’s silent eyes petition the drivers” in ‘Last To Die’. Heavy.
Springsteen decided to respond to 9/11 after a stranger rolled down a car window and told him, “We need you now.” He delivered a record that dealt with loss but also touted hope and love. The pain of ‘Lonesome Day’ and ‘Empty Sky’ is tempered by the praying plea or ‘The Rising’ and the expectant optimism of ‘Mary’s Place’ and ‘Waitin’ On A Sunny Day’. The world sought healing and it knew who to call.
Boss Moment: The “Rise Up” section of ‘My City In Ruins’ would put a lump in a snake’s throat.
Bruce recorded home demos that were intended for full E Street Band arrangements (they’re out there, and those same sessions produced the bones of the Born In The U.S.A. album) but decided the raw power of what he had was enough. Killers (‘Nebraska’) and outlaws (‘State Trooper’, ‘Highway Patrolman’, ‘Johnny 99’) abound and even the narrator of ‘Atlantic City’ knows “Down here it’s just winners and losers and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.” It’s bleak as a cold night on the Great Plains but Springsteen’s characters still find reason to believe.
The one with his ass on the cover that sold over 30 million. Manager Jon Landau didn’t hear a single. Bruce went off and wrote ‘Dancing In The Dark’. Job done, although the whole thing plays like a ‘Greatest Hits’ anyway. Mind you, Ronald Reagan really got the wrong end of the stick with that title track. Seek out the acoustic ‘Nebraska’ demo on the unbelievably superb Tracks outtakes boxset to hear why.
A brave solo follow-up to the big blockbuster. Ostensibly about his divorce, it is, on closer inspection, a grown-up rumination on commitment, relationships, and lies. Something’s “tucked in shame” underneath a pillow in ‘Brilliant Disguise’, the highway is no longer an escape, it’s just “nothing but road”, and even the promise of ‘Tougher Than The Rest’ is tinged with melancholy. The record company were probably disappointed but Bruce’s examination of the darkness of love is powerful.
Delayed by legal troubles, although the work hadn’t slacked as the various outtakes on compilations attest, the fourth album saw the real world encroach on the romanticism, but the characters of ‘Factory’ and ‘Badlands’ face reality with defiance, knowing broken hearts are the price you gotta pay. The punk records he was listening to pushed him to rock harder than ever on ‘Adam Raised A Cain’ and the whole album laid the groundwork for everything that followed. “I’d found my adult voice,” the man himself would later say.
What do you do when you reach the end of the road and there’s nowhere left to run? Springsteen looks again at the characters who populated his earlier songs now that there’s more behind them than in front, setting their stories of acceptance against heart breaking/lifting orchestral pop arrangements, inspired by the likes of Burt Bacharach and Glen Campbell. A late-period masterpiece and his best record since The River.
Ignore the overplayed title track, and the slightly iffy production, and enjoy a Brucie bonus double album which stretches from the rockin’ pop of ‘Crush On You’ to the loneliness of ‘Stolen Car’. Laugh at the idea that ‘Hungry Heart’ was initially written for The Ramones before Bruce wisely kept it for himself and pity anyone who doesn’t think Bruce swearing he’d “drive all night again just to buy you some shoes” is the greatest romantic declaration in history.
A record that birthed a legend, from the opening harmonica wail of ‘Thunder Road’ to the final piano trills of ‘Jungleland’. Even the cover art is immortal. Kerouacian beat longing for kicks set against Phil Spector bombast, delivered by the awesome power of the E Street band. Impossibly epic and If you haven’t punched the air in a field to ‘Born To Run’ you haven’t lived. Show a little faith because there is magic in the night.
It’s perhaps a bold claim but this is his most romantic, joyous album, recorded when it was all still ahead of him. If you need reminding about how great it is just to be here or how music is the language of the soul then this is the record for you. How could Rosalita possibly refuse such an invitation? Makes you want to throw on a leather jacket and take off. It really ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.
