ziggy

I love this album - it is just so damned good. Its just an amazing addition to Springsteen's collection. I like most of his other stuff too, but this album just amazes me.

I just don't have enough good things to say about this album.


Someone help me out.

SiberianLlama

I actually just bought this album about 2 months ago. I didn't own a single Springsteen album and, being a classic rock fan, I realized that there was a huge hole in my music listening experience without The Boss. So I asked my friend, a huge Springsteen fan, to recommend me just ONE album to get me started. He said Nebraska and I've been listening to the album almost non-stop ever since.

The songs are just so great. Very dark, very moody. I like the fact that it's just Springsteen by himself. The songs are just so good. Johnny 99, Mansion on the Hill, My Father's House, the list goes on. This album is just great! Way to go Ziggy in making a thread about it!

dglaser6

The best album he's ever done. I'm not a huge springsteen fan, and it might only be because of the orchestration of his music with the E st. band, because nebraska has some of the best songwriting ever.

Whenever someone asks me if i like Bruce, I usually say not really, except for Nebraska.

Rocky_Stallone

Yeah I agree that this is one of my favorite albums he's ever done.

Before "Born To Run" was my favorite Springsteen album but until I heard this one "Nebraska", I was blown away.

It's great that he's back with the E. Street Band and The Boss and the guys are releasing a new album this year.

Three Day Delay

I agree with the above that this is his best album.

This album followed The River, which has "Hungry Heart" on it. His record label was licking their chops for his next album, and Bruce had given them a sneak peak at some of the songs that were to eventually become the Born in the USA album.

He had finally made a "money" song in "Hungry Heart", and they knew that with his popularity on his concert tours matched with a radio single would be a huge smash.

So when he dropped Nebraska into their laps, they were stunned, and rumor is that his label almost refused to release the album. He had recorded the songs on a four-track recorder, and insisted that they be released on 4 track. His label thought it career suicide.

The rest is history. This was second album I ever owned....I was 12.

Yancey

I have to say that my faves are the first three: Asbury Park, Wild, Innocent and Darkness on the Edge of town. If I had to pick one out of those three, I'd say Darkness.

Gdrlv

Nebraska is one great disc, and it's definitely my favorite Springsteen album. I've also got Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, which has Chrissie Hynde, Los Lobos, Ani DiFranco, Son Volt, Ben Harper and others doing cover versions of the album's songs. Nowhere near close to the real thing, but an interesting disc for Springsteen fans.

grunter

Oh - how I envy those that are just beginning the Springsteen experience!

The marvelously picturesque lyrics, the scruffy lived-in characters, the Stax soul tributes, the romance of the aging Jersey boardwalks, the live boots of concerts where he just couldn't give any more, "me and Crazy Janey were makin' love in the dirt, singin' our birth. day. so-oooongs" . . .

So many backroads to travel.

*sigh*

Now I wish I'd brought some Springsteen into work this morning. This new Belle & Sebastian CD just won't do.

LurkerDan

Umm, great albums all, but Darkness was not his 3rd album, it was his 4th (Born To Run was 3rd).

Nebraska is a great album, and may be my fave.

Born to Run, while not may favorite, just might be the most "classic" rock album ever. There isn't a single song on it that isn't a rock and roll classic...

Yancey

You are correct, my bad.

I generally think that Springsteen went downhill after Landau became his handler. Everything felt so calculated (and most of all his live show). I like how loose the first two records felt.

ziggy

I still haven't heard his first two albums - which bugs me to the point that I'm going to go order them right now.

My range of Springsteen at present goes from Born to Run to Born in the USA - not very much in a very long career.

Born to Run is a fantastic album, but Nebraska almost - sometimes does - makes me cry everytime I hear it.

ziggy

Got the first 2 Springsteen albums a couple of days ago, now I have to rethink my ranking, because these albums are really great.

I think I still like Nebraska best, but the second slot is still up in the air.

dork

I'd probably also go with Darkness if I had to pick a favorite, but there are wonderful moments on The River and Nebraska, as well.

But I want to give a plug for what I consider to be a very underrated album: Tunnel of Love. Yes, it sounds so much like overproduced "adult contemporary" rock that it's hard to believe that the same guy who ten years earlier did stuff like "New York City Serenade" had made it, and for that reason Springsteen diehards generally don't think much of it. But the songs are strong and the whole thing really hangs together as an album. To me, it's the last thing he's done that's worth owning.

Ky-Fi

I was also going to mention Tunnel of Love. A very nice turn away from Born in the USA, stepping back from the anthemic to hit the personal again (not that I don't occasionally enjoy the anthemic, too). VERY solid songs.

I'm not a huge Bruce fan, but Nebraska is also my favorite. Especially if you grew up in small-town America---this album really rings true. The good, the bad and the ugly.

ViewAskewbian

To anyone who enjoys Nebraska, I shall suggest The Ghost Of Tom Joad. This is, by far, not only my favorite Springsteen album but the best album in my entire CD collection. Just Bruce, a guitar and a hermonica (aside from a bit of band on a few tracks) this album tells many tales seemingly torn from the pages of The Grapes of Wrath and the borderline of Mexico and California. Every song is a story told in true Bruce fashion (except for the last song, which is a funny little way to end a rathre somber and, sometimes, depressing album).

I turn this disc on and relax. There is not enough praise I can give to Joad.

Norm de Plume

I guess I'm in disagreement with all of you. I don't like NEBRASKA; in fact, I don't really like much of his introspective, country-influenced solo music very much.

I'm a big fan of Springsteen, particularly his early stuff. I think his best songs are the powerhouse tunes like Born To Run, Brothers Under The Bridges ('83), No Surrender, Badlands, Living On The Edge Of The World, I Wanna Be With You, Rosalita, Dancing In The Dark, Night, et al, or the inspired, relentlessly spirited and youthful (Blinded By The Light, It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City, etc.) or sometimes movingly epic (Incident On 57th Street, New York Serenade, etc.) styles of his early work. 1984's I'm On Fire is also a beautiful classic. As albums, TUNNEL OF LOVE and HUMAN TOUCH boast some nice latter-day songs, but one could sense that his heart wasn't really in it anymore.

By the way, I urge every fan who hasn't done so to buy the 1998 box set TRACKS, a compilation of all his unreleased songs from 1972-1998. Why some of these were passed over for inclusion on the various albums is beyond me. Some of his best work is in the "Tracks" collection, especially on disc 2 (encompassing approx. 1979-1983). "Brothers Under The Bridges ('83)" (on disc 3), an anthemic piece of pure rock in the same vein as "Born To Run" is my second favorite Springsteen song.

Decker

Dead thread resurrection!

I just listened to this whole album for the first time in eons (one of the few Boss albums I never bought; just got Spotify). I like it a lot, but boy is it bleak. So much crime/murder back-to-back on side A. Of course I knew most of the songs from compilations and live albums, but hearing them strung together is quite striking. Must have been a big shock for new fans who just got into him from The River. This is a much more somber affair.

Really love "Reason To Believe" and "Highway Patrolman". Hadn't heard them in years and they're such good songs.

Did wonder about why he repeats the line "I had debts no honest man could pay" twice in the first four songs. Seems kind of sloppy in the songwriting department if it wasn't intentional.

Supermallet

This is a phenomenal album, easily Springsteen's best--and that's saying something given the general quality of his work. My personal favorite album is Darkness on the Edge of Town, but this album does top it for overall quality.

Hiro11

The album is a classic from beginning to end. I think it's the pinnacle of Springsteen at his most American myth-making. I have to say, Darkness is still my favorite Springsteen.

aintnosin

I actually own a rare Japanese CD of the album. When it was first released over there, they used a different master for some reason. The recording is "hotter" (meaning a little louder and more dynamic that the U.S. version), the playback speed is different on some songs, and "My Father's House" has a synth coda not found on any other pressing. This version was only sold in Japan for a short time before they pulled it and replaced it with the same disc sold in the U.S.

Set me back $50 about twenty years ago.

I definitely agree that this is Bruce at the height of his songwriting powers.

Supposedly, somewhere in the vaults there is a set of full E-Street band versions of these songs, unofficially known as "Electric Nebraska." Bruce never liked these versions compared to the acoustic tracks on the cassette tape in his back pocket, but I'd loved to hear them someday..

wendersfan

The recordings were actually demos so he probably hadn't finished the songs when recorded them, or so he thought at the time.

Ky-Fi

"State Trooper" still gives me cold chills every time I hear it.

"License, registration? I ain't got none. But I got a clear conscience about the things that I done."

Did he kill somebody? Hold up a liquor store? So much is simmering under the surface in that song.

RagingBull80

I don't like Springsteen but I like this album quite a bit. Among the people I know, this is THE Springsteen album to own.

hanshotfirst1138

When I fist discovered Springsteen in my high school years and suddenly learned that rock could be smart and literate, Nebraska was a revelation. After the exuberance of Born to Run, the spooky, dark, sparse, sinister nature of Nebraska was like nothing I'd ever heard. Raw, political, angry, simmering, almost malevolent. It's an amazing album. For someone who though rock and roll was fun songs about teenage kicks, it was a revelation. If only I could recapture those highs.

Just be sure to take your Prozac before you listen.

Would that I was more articulate, I could speak better of it. It deserves better than I can say.

creekdipper

Bought it the day it came out (on Vinyl). Been listening to it for over 30 years.

It's the album that made me start buying EPs & 45s just to get B-sides such as "Shut Out the Light" which had that same sparse feel.