IвЂ™ve left off live material for multiple reasons, one of which is that a lot of diehard fans will cite certain bootlegs as being superior to any official live release, and thatвЂ™s just a whole messy world for another list to address. That means all the E Street Band and solo records, the Seeger Sessions album, as well as the collections The Promise and Tracks. This is a list for SpringsteenвЂ™s studio recordings. This week also brought the release of the documentary Springsteen & I, making Bruce an even timelier subject. With SpringsteenвЂ™s tour in support of last yearвЂ™s Wrecking Ball soon drawing to a close, thus ending this chapter of his career, it seems as good a time as any to dig into the rich history of the manвЂ™s music. Particularly for the entries on SpringsteenвЂ™s вЂ™00s work, IвЂ™ve tried to dig into what it means that this has been the shape his career has taken. There doesnвЂ™t seem to be anyone else who has had a career quite like that, though there are a few parallels with Neil Young and Bob Dylan. HeвЂ™s also taken on a kind of second life as a luminary for particular wings of the contemporary indie rock world. When Springsteen was fully back on the radar, he was in his fifties and already an elder statesman, a cultural icon, but one who was also (frequently) making new music that people still deemed important. And then, he stopped putting albums out frequently, largely sat out the вЂ™90s, and effectively skipped the middle-aged soul-searching and listlessness of an aging pop star. He was a young, rising rock star, with a hot streak that ran from his early twenties to his late thirties.

The second is the uniqueness of SpringsteenвЂ™s artistic trajectory. Where relevant, I try to trace his oscillations between the two modes, in the process trying to figure out what each moment means not only to his career but also to a larger cultural narrative.

People have written about this, but I think the borders are more permeable on many of his albums than youвЂ™d initially suspect. The first is the perpetual pull between romanticism and realism within his career, his shifts between mythologizing and reporting.

There have been two narratives in SpringsteenвЂ™s career that have long interested me. ItвЂ™s harder still when confronted with a recording career spanning four decades that has more twists and turns than are readily apparent. When youвЂ™re dealing with a retrospective like this for an artist like Bruce Springsteen, itвЂ™s hard to find your entry point, to figure out who youвЂ™re writing for. in 1984 and the mellower, more personal Tunnel Of Love in 1987. The same went down with Born In The U.S.A. Surely, then, he would keep that momentum, release another rock album? Not exactly - he put out the dark, primarily acoustic Nebraska instead in 1982. In 1980 he released a double album, The River, that rather than being bloated and overblown was a collection of sharply written and fervently performed pop songs that heightened his mainstream profile. You donвЂ™t really consider this when youвЂ™re just presented with a list of his classic albums and how they ranked on all these вЂњBest Albums ofвЂќ whatever lists in whichever magazine in whichever year, but Springsteen did a lot of things that youвЂ™d assume shouldвЂ™ve sunk his career.ДЄfter finally breaking through with Born To Run in 1975, circumstances prevented him from releasing another album until 1978, and he chose to go harder and more bitter, and gave everyone Darkness On The Edge Of Town. For someone IвЂ™ve grown up knowing as an already well-established icon, itвЂ™s surprising to look at his body of work and realize the bizarre patterns within: itвЂ™s all kind of fits and starts, multiple вЂњmake or breakвЂќ moments, long stretches of inactivity blowing open with sudden and sustained productivity. As I began the writing, listening, and reading for this list, I started to think about a weird quality of Bruce SpringsteenвЂ™s catalogue that I hadnвЂ™t previously considered.

Songs on springsteen darkness album