I'll play the ranking game

1. Tunnel Of Love
2. Wrecking Ball
3. Magic
4. Born In The USA
5. The River
6. Devils And Dust
7. Born To Run
8. The Rising
9. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
10. The Ghost Of Tom Joad
11. Nebraska
12. The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
13. Greetings From Asbury Park
14. Working On A Dream
15. Lucky Town
16. Human Touch

I'll get in on this. Everything after the top three changes based on my mood (Tunnel of Love & The Wild, The Innocent... sometimes work themselves up to the top five, and Magic and Born In The USA can swap spots pretty easily)

1. Nebraska (one of my five favorite records ever)
2. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
3. Born To Run
4. The River
5. Born In The USA
6. Magic
7. Tunnel Of Love
8. The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle
9. The Rising
10. Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ
11. Devils & Dust
12. Wrecking Ball
13. The Ghost of Tom Joad
14. Lucky Town
15. Working On a Dream
16. Human Touch

(I left out We Shall Overcome since none of it is original material)

Can we all just agree that Working on a Dream, Human Touch, and Lucky Town are by far his worst?

It appears that as of right now, we definitely can.

We Shall Overcome is one of Bruce's best albums of the last 20 years--it has every bit the amount of vision and commitment behind it as any of his original works. Why wouldn't it count?

I fucking love We Shall Overcome. That and Nebraska are really the only two Bruce albums I really like.

Big fan of the Erie Canal Song.

I actually kind of like The Rising too, thought I haven't listened to it in almost ten years.

The Rising is great if you delete Mary's Place. That song is a turd.

Just thinking about ranking these albums have given me a headache. I've also realised that each album has a flaw.

What are the flaws on Born to Run and Darkness?

I think my problem with "Born to Run" has always been that I don't like the minor songs--"Night," "She's the One," "Meeting Across the River"--and without them, it's just too much "epic" in one place. I feel like Bruce isn't writing songs on that album so much as he's building monuments--he's got 4 or 5 fine marble slabs but needs better glue.

I really like most of those major songs, but one or two at a time. As a whole listening experience, I find it pretty unsatisfying. I think my favorite is "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out"--I wish all the minor songs on the album had that same ebullience, that same punch.

While none of the songs you listed are among my absolute favorite Springsteen tunes, i do like them all. But they're not really in a very enviable spot though, being sandwiched between such epic, classic tracks.

The one album i've never really "gotten" is The River. I absolutely LOVE the slower tracks...title track, Point Blank, Stolen Car, Drive All Night and Wreck on the Highway...but the rock songs that dominate the album just kind of blend together for me.

I'm a big fan of We Shall Overcome, but I found it very difficult to contextualize it among the rest of his work when I was putting my rankings together. The performances on the record are definitely some of the most lively that he's ever managed to capture on a studio record (and the production is great), but I don't feel like it'd be fair to try to place it in a group of albums that I (whether purposefully or not) just on a different criteria. When WSO came out it was so exciting for the very same reason; here was an unhinged, instantly recognizable album that didn't require the same dedication as to permeate as the previous year's Devils & Dust. It was Bruce without being "Bruce," and he seemed to be able to approach the performances differently because he wasn't coming from a compositional perspective. I'm probably not making much sense, but that's why, as much as I love WSO, it's hard to place within a tier of Springsteen albums (despite being a more enjoyable listen and in a lot of ways much better record than a lot of them). If I REALLY had to in a pinch though, I'd probably have slotted it in at #11, right before Devils & Dust.

Flaw was probably the incorrect word. All of his albums have at least 1 track that doesn't rock my boat (even Darkness although that track is necessary to the album).

And I do agree with KD that BtR suffers from being emotionally pitched at 10 even 11 for too much of the album. I can't remember ever listening to it start to finish more than once. One side at a time is fine but all 8 is just too much.

WCO is a great fun album. Some great playing and a strong vocal performance.

WoaDream is a weird one as it has 5-6 really good songs but some ridiculous tracks. It sounds rushed and without cohesion.

I think "Outlaw Pete" and "Queen of the Supermarket" are ludicrous and among the worst songs of Bruce's career. They do "Working on a Dream" the disservice of causing it to appear ambitious, and they make the remaining (considerably better but also deliberately minor) tracks feel half-assed for not being up to challenge. But I skip those two songs and enjoy the record quite a bit. It plays like a kind of victory lap for "Magic," and I wouldn't be surprised if many of its tracks were leftovers that didn't make the cut the first time, but I liked "Magic" enough to rummage through its trash. I'd rate it at least a 6/10, acknowledging the songs for what they are.

Spot on.

Working on a dream always felt massively claustrophobic to me. The production is a massive turn-off. I'm also not a huge fan of most of the songs except for Title Track, Good eye, wrestler, tomorrow never knows....

Bruce's vocals are pushed way out front and it feels as though the band is jockeying for position.

All of Bruce's albums with Brendan O'Brien sound more or less like crap -- a complete wash, no definition at all on any of the instruments. Most of them I think succeed in spite of their production.

Isn't "Tomorrow Never Knows" great, though? One of those compositions so slight it feels like it could blow away. Pure charm.

I adore What Love Can Do. The rest before the second (or third) verse is awesome. I'm going to dig that out today.