I wouldn’t say this is my favourite album (though it’s not far from it) but I just listened to it beginning to end and realised that this is the one perfect Bruce record.
Born to Run and DOTEOT have an emotional resonance that make them my favourites, but they have songs that are less than perfect. Great as She’s the One or 10th Av. are, they don’t have a whole lot of substance. Prove it all night is majestic specially when played live but those lyrics could have been perfected (“to buy you a gold ring and a pretty dress of blue / Baby just one kiss will get these things for you”) and the whole album‘s production could be quite better.
The River has its clunkers, TOL has some horribly produced songs, TGOTJ has an irrelevant My Best Was Never Good Enough. Even Western Stars has some bad choices (e.g. the background vocals on The Wayfarer or a the mediocre Sundown).
So the one album that is absolutely perfect, the one that stands the test of time and the one where no fault is to be found has to be Nebraska. I can’t find one single thing that’s wrong with it, one single thing I wish had been done differently.
I love this thread.
But I feel obligated to say I think "Sundown" is one of the two or three best songs on Western Stars.