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Every June I fill out a grade book for a hundred and some teenagers. This is the
same exercise for the eleven studio albums, ranked from the top. The live box, the
greatest hits and the outtakes get extra credit at the bottom and don't count toward
the average. I grade hard. Ask anybody who took my AP class.
Song titles only. If you want the words, buy the records. That's how it works.
| RANK |
ALBUM & COMMENTS |
GRADE |
| 1 |
Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
A legal fight with his old
manager kept him out of the studio for the better part of a year after Born to Run, and he came back
angry and grown up. Badlands, The Promised Land, Racing in the Street. Born to Run is the dream.
This is the morning after. I have taught this record, unofficially, every year since 1978. |
A+ |
| 2 |
Born to Run (1975)
Thunder Road to Jungleland, eight songs, not a
wasted second. He reportedly worked for months on the title track alone. You can hear every hour of it.
If a kid asks me where to start, I hand them this. |
A+ |
| 3 |
The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973)
The Asbury Park
record. Rosalita, Sandy, Kitty's Back, Incident on 57th Street. This is the band I saw in that club in
1974, loose and jazzy and showing off. Underrated by everybody but the people who were there. |
A |
| 4 |
Nebraska (1982)
Recorded alone at home on a four-track cassette machine,
and released that way because the band versions didn't sound as true. Atlantic City, Highway Patrolman,
Mansion on the Hill. The most American record of the eighties, and he made it in his bedroom. |
A |
| 5 |
The River (1980)
A double album, twenty songs, half party and half
funeral. Hungry Heart was his first big hit single. The title song is the saddest thing he's written, and
Independence Day is the one I can't listen to in the car. |
A |
| 6 |
Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
Seven top-ten singles off one record. Everybody
on earth owned it. Half of them thought the title song was a flag-waver. It's about a Vietnam veteran who
comes home to nothing, and I spend a class period on it every spring when we get to 1968. Minus for the
synthesizers. Plus for Dancing in the Dark, and for the girl he pulled up on stage in the video, who is
now on Friends. |
A− |
| 7 |
Tunnel of Love (1987)
Mostly Bruce by himself, with the band dropping in
here and there. A grown man's record about marriage and doubt. Brilliant Disguise, Tougher Than the Rest.
I didn't understand it until I'd been married ten years. |
A− |
| 8 |
The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
Acoustic, quiet, and full of people
Steinbeck would have recognized. Youngstown is a whole history lesson about steel towns in four minutes;
I've played it for my juniors. It won a Grammy for folk album. Not a party record. |
B+ |
| 9 |
Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
The postcard on the cover. John Hammond,
who signed Dylan, signed him to Columbia, and you can hear why everybody called him the new Dylan, which
he was not. Too many words per square inch. But Spirit in the Night, and Blinded by the Light, which
Manfred Mann took to number one in 1977. |
B+ |
| 10 |
Lucky Town (1992)
Released the same day as Human Touch, and the better of
the two. Living Proof is about becoming a father. If I Should Fall Behind is on here, the song the band
passed around on opening night this summer. |
B |
| 11 |
Human Touch (1992)
Slick, long and made with studio musicians. Some
good songs in there trying to get out. The one I play least. Somebody has to be last; that's how a
ranking works, and this is the record that taught me how much I missed the band. |
B− |
Class average on a four-point scale (A+ and A count 4.0, A− 3.7, B+ 3.3, B 3.0,
B− 2.7): 3.61. That's eleven records, 39.7 points. No section I've ever taught has
done better.
EXTRA CREDIT (NOT AVERAGED)
- Live/1975–85 (1986). The box set my wife gave me the Christmas Michelle was eight.
Forty songs from a decade on stage. The closest thing to being in the room until this summer.
- Greatest Hits (1995). Worth it for the new recordings the band came back together in 1995 to make.
The first hint they'd ever play again.
- Streets of Philadelphia. Not on any of the studio albums, but it won him the Academy Award in 1994
and he deserved it.
- Tracks (1998) and 18 Tracks (1999). See the recent
events. A box of what he left off, and it would be a great career for anybody else.
« back to the unit ·
IV. field trip reports
Grade appeals to [email protected]. I read them all. I change almost none.
Last updated Sunday, September 12, 1999
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