Most of that album has grown on me quite a bit. Except "Outlaw Pete". But that song has definitely solidified itself as my favorite.
After many years of looking around online occasionally, a pretty damn good audience recording surfaced recently of the first Bruce show I ever went to (was pretty young; 2000 on the Memphis date of the E-Street reunion tour that Live in NYC was recorded on). Super cool find for me personally, and if I can find a CD drive I'm gonna burn a copy for my dad, who took me to the show, for Father's Day. The quality is shockingly good too, can hear everything pretty clearly. Too bad the venue where we saw him is literally a fucking Bass Pro Shop now:
posted this in the Gaslight thread too but, cool write up by brian on the Odeon show 1975 Brian Fallon on How Bruce Springsteen's 1975 London Show Changed Rock Music
Yep he just disappears into the abyss. It also has the utterly transcendent "For You" on piano that makes my soul leave my body.
My band did a Springsteen cover set for Halloween a couple years ago and I lobbied hard for our singer to recreate that moment, but we decided that no one besides my dad would get the joke.
This list has got me listening to Bruce all day, a burden I'm willing to shoulder The 100 Best Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked
1. The River 2. Racing in the Streets 3. Thunder Road 4. Growin' Up 5. Born to Run 6. Rosalita 7. Jungleland 8. For You 9. Backstreets 10. Because the Night
Hyden really rides hard for outtakes, often at the expense of (imo) superior album tracks. But a fun read for sure.
He also really hates The Rising album. Any list without The Rising and Lonesome Day in the top 25 is crazy to me, and there are 3-4 more songs from that album that need to be top 100. I laughed out loud at The Rising at #90
I really liked a lot of this list but it was disappointing that Moonlight Motel didn't make the cut for tracks he listed from Western Stars. I haven't done an official ranking, but I think that's easily a Top 25 or better song from his career.
He definitely doesn't value post-2000s Bruce as much as I do, so that was a bummer. Agreed on "Moonlight Motel."
Fair enough, I think that is probably a minority opinion, but in case it's not, I will amend to say top 40 or 50. Certainly worthy of mention.
I wouldn't have any Western Stars or Tom Joad in my top 100, I don't think. Not that I'm going to take time to actually check and see.