10 Greatest Acoustic Rock Albums

It takes a bold artist to completely throw away the formula at any point in their career; to do so when riding a wave of immense success feels almost crazy. In 1982, Bruce Springsteen was two years removed from ambitious double album The River when he decided to sideline his band, hole up in his bedroom, and record a sparse, bleak, occasionally frightening album that was about as un-commercial as it gets.

Nebraska features only Springsteen as a player, mostly just him and a guitar. He sets out his stall with the title track, sung from the perspective of teenage murderer Charles Starkweather. As per, Bruce writes songs from those on the bottom rung of society, but they’re a saltier bunch than normal: a hopeless gambler on “Atlantic City”, an impulse killer on “Johnny 99”.

The best track is “State Trooper”, a song that sounds like madness itself. The narrator is an oblique character driving at night, urging the cops not to stop him; what he’s done, and what he will do if pulled over, are left to the listener’s imagination.

Springsteen went back to the big time with Born In The USA after Nebraska’s inevitable flop, but he’s returned to the sparse, spooky sound on occasion, and without exception he’s always the better for it.