In which my favorite critic of this century ranks Bruce Springsteen's albums. I haven't looked past the first (lowest-ranked) entry yet but so far I'm pretty much with him.
...all right, I just skimmed the next half dozen and I have never been so out of step with this guy before. Usually it's like he takes what I'm thinking and expresses it far better than I ever could, and adds a bunch of insights I'd never be able to come up. This time he's...very wrong. (While still sometimes being very right.) On the other hand, on the stuff I think he's wrong about it, many of y'all might just agree 100%. So.
I've never found one of these lists I agree with and I always falter trying to make my own. As this guy says, the middle ground is the hardest to fill, but he also misjudged his top and bottom five.
Number 20 Only the strong, number 19 Seeger Sessions and number 15 Western Stars - well, totally clueless! The top 10 on the list - he doesn't get every album here in the right place or in the right order but at least now he's in the ball park.
Yeah, I cannot emphasize enough how great a critic Steven Hyden is...usually. I'm reading his Pearl Jam bio right now, for instance, and it's fabulous, as have been all his books and virtually all his columns and articles and rankings and lists...
...and he seems to have lost his goddamn mind on this one. I'm halfway through it now and am just baffled. Because he's a true fan, he's got very catholic and excellent taste, and he's not just a ragebaiter.
And yet this damn list, man.
ETA: the Top 8 are all pretty damn righteous, though. Not quite the order I'd put them in, but unlike the middle of the list, at least entirely defensible.
I only skimmed through it (will read later) but WS so far down the list?? I'm not going to like it!!