Nebraska

This album is maybe Springsteen’s most critically underrated. It consists of very dark songs questioning society, and ends with “reason to believe”, a somewhat hopeful song that reflects on humanity’s determination to go on. The placement of the song leaves the dark album with a note of hope, in one of the most impressive song placements of all time.

Even though Springsteen did not record the album in the same style of famous American rockabilly/country/blues singer Johnny Cash, he tried to find inspiration for the style and the themes of the album by listening repeatedly to the singles and the albums Cash published for his first label, the Sun Records. Those records featured songs talking about the poors, the beaten down, the prisoners. Johnny Cash himself reacted enthusiastically to this album, seeing shades of his younger self in this new, dark version of Springsteen, and in fact, he recorded two covers from Nebraska: Johnny 99 and Highway Patrolman.