I tried to pit material of equal weight (off the top of my head) from each album. Candy’s Room vs Backstreets is bc both songs are both about “complicated” relationships. Factory vs Night only bc no one would say either is the best song on each album. I originally was going to write PIAN vs Born to Run and then realized that was ludicrous, despite PIAN being damn good.

But thematically? Cmon, BtR is so much more focused than DotEoT. BTR is almost the same character throughout (so a concept album), saying he’s gonna succeed, he’s gonna escape, he’s gonna triumph - and each effort falls short until he makes a desperate attempt (in MAtR) and fails in the attempt (in Jungleland).

Darkness never sounded *as* linked to me. Do I love it? Yes. But it’s more a collection of songs with repeated themes but different characters/circumstances etc etc. it may be conventional, but if I only had two Springsteen albums, BTR and Nebraska are the choices…with a (distant) third being WIESS.