The five best albums by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen has never been shy about talking about the musicians who influence him. Whether we are talking about his lyrics, music, or general on-stage persona, Springsteen is upfront about who he looks up to.
When it comes to his lyrics, Springsteen has always been very vocal about how much Bob Dylan played a part in establishing his taste. It wasn’t just the fact that he liked Bob Dylan’s lyrics, but also that Dylan helped him view the world in a way that he hadn’t seen before. His songs revealed the truth surrounding people, politics and society as a whole, which Springsteen was desperate to capture with his own music.
Equally, he has admitted to being a big fan of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones because of their sheer power as rock ‘n’ rollers. It’s not that they haven’t written good lyrics in the past, but the way they did it paved the way for exciting music that was catchy and commercially successful.
Throughout his entire career, Springsteen has been attempting to merge these different elements in a bid to make great rock music, and he has certainly succeeded in doing so, so much so that it’s tricky for new listeners to know where they should start. If this sounds like you and you’re keen on getting into Bruce Springsteen but don’t know the best way to go about it, here are some of the greatest albums that Springsteen has ever made.
The best albums made by Bruce Springsteen:
Bruce Springsteen at his most perfect – ‘Born To Run’
Bruce Springsteen had an idea about the kind of music he wanted to make, and while it was going well, he wasn’t having much commercial success. Born to Run was the first album that Springsteen made, which managed to both reveal the truth about the world around him and also have commercial success. This was very intentional, as Springsteen was a huge perfectionist and put everything that he had into this record.
“When I did Born To Run, I thought, ‘I’m going to make the greatest rock ‘n’ roll record ever made’,” said Springsteen.
He spent so much time working on the album that it was impossible for him to get it right in his own mind, as his own sense of perfectionism was getting in the way. “Anytime you spend six months on a song, there’s something not exactly going right,” he said, “A song should take about three hours.”
Defining track: ‘Thunder Road’
Bruce Springsteen at his most vulnerable – ‘Nebraska’
The first trailer for the Bruce Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere, was released in recent months. The film will follow Springsteen as he was making his album Nebraska. For a man who has been making music for decades, the fact that this is the album the film will be focusing on should tell you just how much he put into it. It’s not just a great-sounding album, but it also reflects Springsteen at his most vulnerable.
It’s a very stripped-back album, with most songs consisting of just Springsteen’s voice and his acoustic guitar. The songs themselves talk about real-life stories about some of the more tortured stories of people in America, which Springsteen channelled in a bid to express his own negative feelings and struggles with mental health. This is the most vulnerable Springsteen has ever been on a record, and it shines through with every second.
Defining track: ‘Atlantic City’
Bruce Springsteen at his most political – ‘Born in the USA’
Released in 1984, Born in the USA came out during a time when Springsteen had already been celebrated for his ability to write pop music, rock music and political tracks. This album saw him merge all three of those albums, as he wrote about where he felt America was falling short in a way that was incredibly catchy and fun to listen to.
The album may well have been too catchy, as a lot of people loved the songs so much they would sing along and miss the point of what they were singing. Make no mistake, this album saw Springsteen as his most political, highlighting the problems he saw in his government, the way they treat veterans and why he thinks the country can do better.
Defining track: ‘Born in the USA’
Bruce Springsteen’s most apocalyptic album – ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town’
This album saw Bruce Springsteen have to bring his music back to its bare bones, as thanks to legal battles, he was kept away from the studio. Desperate to make music, he decided to get some of his band members to his farmhouse in New Jersey, and they started making Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
They wrote a lot of great music during this period. Some of the more pop-oriented numbers were left aside and used for his record The River, while the songs that spoke of defiance were put front and centre on this album. Bruce Springsteen himself described the record as “Austere, apocalyptic grandeur.”
Defining track: ‘Badlands’
Bruce Springsteen as a pop superstar – ‘The River’
While there is no denying that Bruce Springsteen has always written songs which speak of truth, he also has a way with rhythm and melody that makes his work both thought-provoking and commercially successful. On The River, we saw him explore the latter side of his music a lot more, and the result was Springsteen at his most pop-oriented.
Thanks to songs such as ‘The River’ and the up-tempo, exciting ‘Hungry Heart’, meant that radio stations were quick to pick the Springsteen album and play it to the masses. Springsteen himself confirmed that he noticed a lot more women attending his gigs following the release of The River because he was starting to be viewed as more of a pop icon.
Defining track: ‘The River’
