Born To Run

Big hits aside can't say Bruce does much for me 🤷‍♂️

I’m a quarter American. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s quite enough. Fav song: Jungleland

I've always heard Born to Run was Bruce Springsteen's landmark album, but I'd never listened to it. I was familiar with "Thunder Road," "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," and "Born to Run," and those are great songs. I felt the other songs were just....bland. I'm also not a fan of the production. The sound feels overly dense and cluttered, and it's exhausting to listen to Springsteen's aggressive non-stop wordy singing. "Jungleland" has some great moments, but honestly, some of the best parts are when he stops singing and lets the music breathe. The only other Springsteen album I've heard is Darkness on the Edge of Town, which I thought was much better.

Oh boy, another Bruce Springsteen album that sounds like all the other ones. Be still my heart.

With some power but doesn't do anything for me.

Sympa, du bon rock américain. Mais j'ai pas trouvé qu'il y ait de trucs en plus

good

One of those albums that can't possibly live up to the reputation it has. And then it does. This is the album "Bat Out of Hell" wants to be when it grows up. Cars and bikes and dirty streets raised to the level of epic myth and set to a Wall of Sound that Spector could only dream of. Thunder Road tells the story of a boy convincing Mary to get in his car and escape "this town full of losers" all set to a roaring rock backing. In She's the One, when Springsteen gives a "Ha" and summons up the band playing the greatest Bo Diddly beat you've ever heard it's nothing short of an apotheosis. Born to Run comes on like a raging Locomotion and Meeting Across the River is a compressed Raymond Carver story. An astonishing, extraordinary album.

Huge Jungleland fan. Born to run is also great. I saw someone else describe Springsteen as “aggressive non-stop wordy singing” and I agree completely. I thought some of the production was strange and hard to hear certain parts of the music. For example, in She’s the One, some of the background vocals are REALLY far in the background and I wish we heard more of that. Just the singing bit to develop some sort of melody or something. But overall, I was kinda sad bc I’ve heard Born to Run (song) and Jungleland before and those were the only two I’d add to my playlist. I was hoping something could be on that level, but nothing else really surprised me from the album and it just seemed like other meh (non-hit) Bruce that I’ve heard before. The hits are great, and everything else is meh. I listened back and also liked Thunder Road

Flipped a switch in for me around thirty and turned me into a Bruce fan. I used to not get it. Then I did.

Great album obviously. Like most of the songs but 9 minutes tends to be too long for a single song for me.

Its a classic

This album is a monument to Springsteen's unique ability to capture a truly American form of tragedy: characters who, despite being promised otherwise, must settle for less not due to a lack of imagination, desire or effort, but simply because their dreams are just out of reach. Whether that be as a result of the circumstances of ones birth, economic status, political disenfranchisement, or otherwise. No one does that quite like Springsteen, and this may be his best.

molts crits, bruce. alguna cançó good pero nah no mola. obv born to run temardo sas?

Just the saxophone solo on jungleland makes it 5 stars. The rest of the album is very solid and contains some absolute classics. The e street band deserves a lot of credit here

3.5. Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, Backstreets

This is not just the Boss's best album, but possibly the peak of classic rock, period. Springsteen never got as much out of the E Street Band as he did here; the arrangements of these songs are flush with keys and Clarence Clemons's saxophone. They make the album sound huge, but not in a flashy or overdramatic way. These songs are all about dreams, about potential, and the hard road to fulfilling that potential. The arrangements, and Springsteen's urgent vocals (his voice crack on "Jungleland" may be the album's highlight), make those themes feel real. It boasts four 5/5, undeniable tracks: "Thunder Road," "Backstreets," the title track, and "Jungleland." But the other tracks are nothing less than great too. An album that both rocks and lays its vulnerabilities out for the listener to connect to.

Springsteen has never been for me. Born to Run is undeniably a good song, but nothing else on this album worked for me.

Very weak compared to his other work. Favorite song: Born to Run

hmmmmm. Bon bon bon, Meeting Across the River - j'aime bien. Mais encore une fois je pouvais m'en passer de cet album. Un bruit de fond ok Ok la derniere est chouette - jungleland. Enfaite des que Bruce ne chante pas c'est beaucoup mieux.

Bruce Springsteen L'americain. Bruce Springsteen L'amerloque. Bruce Springsteen Le ricain.

Yeah.

It was nice!

No fav song

Decent album, couple of good hits, can listen through with ease.

4/5

I think this is a pretty great record and stands the test of time.

He's good is Bruce. Not heard a bad album by him yet And the title track is an absolute worldie

To me, it's the greatest in the Boss' discography. It is such a cohesive listen, with every track serving a clear function and each one offering a couple of standout moments. Some of his other records might have stronger singles, but this one is strongest as a whole. 9/10 [KEEP]

posso falar? não gosto de bruce springsteen

tenho preguiça demais desse homem, mas a faixa título é beeeem legal (e me lembra horrores the killers QUE ODIO). só por ela eu darei 3.

The Darkness on the Edge of Town album is better in my opinion.

Not the biggest fan

What is there to say about this album that has not already been said, written about, dissected, etc. It is about as perfect an album as one can get. Even though my favourite BS album is The River, this was Springsteen at his narrative peak. So utterly and completely brilliant. (10/5)

Its OK, but I find his voice on this album a bit shouty and angry sounding, which wears on me a bit.

pure american

Enjoyable but not all that memorable for me. Rating: 3

Good

I don't mind a bit of Springsteen, but here I found his voice too garbled and mushy (including on the title track) and the tracks all too similar and wearing, so overall the album was an irritation although any individual track would have been much more enjoyable.

Utterly incredible … outstanding top to bottom 5

Sweeping and iconic

"Ted Danson's in the freezer" What? In the end, it's good but not something I'll be seeking to listen to again.

It's ok

Yeah! That was fun!

Just not a huge bruce fan, I get it but ok.

I know there's gonna be some stuff I dislike here, but I didn't think I'd dislike this as much as I did. Sheer torture.

I do like the album overall and think there are some phenomenal songs. However, some of the more ballad-leaning songs like Thunder Road and Night feel like the instrumentals and vocals are competing with each other in a way that is so distracting. It's hard to understand the vocals and, simultaneously, hard to fully appreciate the instrumentals. Of course, the album has insanely high highs. Backstreets, Born to Run, and Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (in order for me) are phenomenal and are the songs from this album I definitely will come back to. Backstreets is just phenomenal - genuinely a top top tier song that has everything. The song allows the vocals to shine. Born to Run is also excellent - honestly just like Backstreets, it's an example of a song that builds a whole world. And Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out isn't as impressive, but it's just a really fun vibe and an enjoyable listen. Meeting Across the River is honestly a tough listen. It just feels off the way the vocals seem to meander without much of a direction and take away from the story. And the whispery growly vocals are just a bit jarring. Also, have to give credit to an artist that makes a cohesive album. Overall, a very good album with some excellent songs.

It's not bad really, but it didn't resonate with me.

Not bad. Obviously heard Born to Run a million times before. It's good but I prefered Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Overall, not as bad as I was expecting. Good runtime of just over 30 minutes, but still was not going to listen to a 10-minute song. Was requested to review each song. So here it is: 1.) Thunder Road: Good start to an album, builds energy. 2.) Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out: One of the Springsteen songs that I genuinely like and would put on before listening to this album. 3.) Night: Its not a bad song but when he sings at a higher octave, he sounds like Dracula singing to me. Fitting song for a vampire. 4.) Backstreets: I like the piano in this one. Don't mind this one. I will say he does do a good raspy, guttural yell. I would like it a lot if it was around 3 minutes instead of 6 minutes. Feel like it didn't have enough variation for the runtime. 5.) Born to Run: A good song. It wouldn't be a Springsteen album without at least one song about driving fast. 6.) She's the One: I should like this one more. Its upbeat, has a bit of different sound, and has a good sax solo. It is dancing around Dracula-voice territory so maybe thats it. 7.) Meeting Across the River: I like the piano, trumpet, and bass melody. Not bad lyrics, just felt lackluster which I guess is on par for the theme. 8.) Jungleland: I started listening for the first 2 minutes and then gave up. Its not bad but I can't commit to an almost 10-minute Springsteen song.

I'm torn because this is very much not for me musically BUT I have always loved Bruce Springsteen as a person, and the depth of his friendship with Clarence Clemons (as is keenly demonstrated on the cover of this album) and just how well they played together is really incredible to witness.

Excellent. Such beautiful songwriting and incredible delivery. Beautiful arrangements and great pacing of the record. Another example of where the artist went on to do some really interesting stuff later in their career and I love that stuff but there's something raw and energetic about the early stuff that makes it extra special!

If I give this anything less than 4, my mate Neil would kill me

Ar Brucey is very good at making 4 star albums it seems. The music is rocking, but he does need to annunciate

Probably a 3 to 3.5, but it's fairly short. Couple standouts and some forgettables. Will round up to a 4.

Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run is a powerful and energetic album filled with passion on his part. It is one of the albums that remains a timeless rock classic.

Not listened to Bruce, apart from the singles. A good album, some great tracks. Very short album, so 3* 88%

Springsteen always sounds like he needs to take a fat shit, but he makes some awesome ass music.

Great album, from start to finish. If I had to pick any tracks out above the others they would be Thunder Road and Born to Run.

Ok but not really for me

Eh sure Bruce

I've enjoyed Springsteen's music for years, so I was already familiar with and loved many of the bigger songs on this album. Thunder Road is an incredible opener, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out is fantastic, and Jungleland is a nearly ten-minute epic that somehow never feels its length, thanks in no small part to Clarence's brilliant saxophone work. Unfortunately, some of the lesser-known tracks don't do much for me, with Backstreets in particular losing my interest well before it finished. There's a lot of great music here, but the album as a whole is a little too inconsistent for me to rate it any higher.

Obviously.

#11 - Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run. My first 1 star album on this website was Nebraska by Brucey boy and now I already have Born To Run. I wanna run away from this album already and I haven't even pressed play yet. Let's just get this shit over with. I'm not gonna do track-by-track reviews for this album either because I already know I'm not gonna enjoy most of it. Yeah. I got nothing. This wasn't as sufferable as Nebraska because it had generally more energy but Bruce...just ain't the guy for me. Favourite Track: Born To Run (I guess) Least Favourite Track: Jungleland Overall: 2/10 (⭐)

this would have rated much higher if i was a teenager still ... this one does not hold up to the ravages of time

727/1001 2026.10.20 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

it all sounds the same

Eight songs, almost no wasted space, and a closing stretch that ranks among rock's finest. Born to Run is a 9.5/10: not quite flawless, but close enough that its weaknesses feel small beside its ambition and emotional power.

Bloody excellent. Listened twice then listened to Nebraska twice. I'm relapsing on the boss

One of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time, and definitely on my list of personal favorites. In a song-for-song battle with any other album, I think only Who's Next might beat this. "Thunder Road," "Born to Run," and "Jungleland" are a top three that I'd take over just about any album's best tracks. Most artists would sell their souls to have this album's second tier ("Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," "Night," "Backstreets," and "She's the One") as their own album's hits. Even the album's weakest song, "Meeting Across the River," is a marvel of powerfully understated restraint. This album is everything that rock and roll has ever been about.

So good.

His early masterpiece (others would follow). Surprisingly short! But the hits come fast and furious. Bruce inhabits this world and builds it into an epic. Youthful rage and vigor! I don’t know what else to say that hasn’t been said. I don’t listen to a lot of Bruce, admittedly, but I recognize his legendary talent.

Prompted to listen to this again! Easy to see why Springsteen became so successful. It's very spirited, honest and likeable.

I’m still not a fan of ‘The Boss’, but this album’s not half bad 😊 Three stars…

Moest even landen, maar een mooie 4 sterren voor Broes

Ik ga al jaren goed op dad rock, al ruim voor het daadwerkelijk vader worden. Bruce is daarin uiteraard de basis. Born To Run is ongetwijfeld het beste Springsteen album. Niet mijn favoriet, die komt nog, maar wel de beste. Het album is gefocust en subtiel maar tegelijk groots en meeslepend. Thunder Road, Backstreets, Jungleland en uiteraard de title track zijn echt waanzinnige nummers en de rest is ook gewoon goed.

La melodía de She’s the one 10/10 , este disco lo sentí un poco cómo las pelis en las que te explican todo para que no te pierdas xd

Just an all-time great album as far as I'm concerned. He famously tried to be the intersection of Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Phil Spector and he exceeded each and every one of them.

I can see why people like it, but I found it quite samey. And bombastic, in quite a cheesy way. I like a handful of Bruce songs, but by and large it's not for me.

Better than some of the other albums, but I still cannot get into his music

okay but a bit boring

Eh, I don't really like Springsteen's music. It's inoffensive. I didn't hate it, but nothing sparked joy.

A favorite of mine. Never really listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen besides the hits: except for this album. I’ve always liked this album front to back. Been a few years since I did a full relisten probably so will do that now. This is a great one. Probably Springsteen’s best and most accessible too. Thunder Road is a great opener and it keeps going. Born to Run is one of my all time favorite classic rock songs. 70s isn’t always my favorite decade but this is a jam. It ends with the grand closer Jungleland. Great album. Feels essential. Even if you’re not a Bruce fan overall this is the one that’s most likely to win you over. I’ll go 5 stars. Probably overrated other Springsteen but this one deserves it I think.

First time I listen to a Springsteen's album from back to back. I was expecting some crude but genuine rock but I got the most verbose lyrics and a "wall of sound" production. The former thing is fine (one can only sympathize with Jersey's working class), the latter less: frankly, the wall of sound thing was bullshit even in the hands of Phil Spector, who invented it (or at least theorized it)... Here, the outcome is an album full of songs that are OK but mostly sound the same to me.

Wow… (10/10, 5/5 on this scale)

Album #223: Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I went around the house today singing in an overexaggerated Bruce Springsteen impression, just singing absolute garbled nonsense to myself and finding it all very funny. I think he’s an artist who’s very open to parody because he tends to write the same song a lot. This is not an astute observation. Everybody knows this. His songs are usually about one last chance to make something of your life and escape the humdrum reality in which you’re living. It usually involves a girl, a car, some form of road, motorway or highway, and it’s all very dramatic. And I think that parody, that stereotype of his music, is born on this album. This is an album of pure melodrama. But that’s not really a criticism. This album is what it is. It’s striving for something orchestral and dramatic, like a great Hollywood movie, and I think it achieves those goals. It’s just not really my kind of album. I’m not big into anthemic stadium rock. I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen live, even though I’d love to. But even if I did, I’m not sure I’d be that into it. My favourite Bruce Springsteen album is Nebraska. I’ve said that four times now because this is my fourth Springsteen album in the last 220 or so albums, so I feel like I’m repeating myself. But I think the fact that Nebraska is my favourite by a large margin, and that I gave it five stars when it came up, shows the kind of Springsteen fan I am. This stuff just doesn’t do it for me as much. It’s very overblown. It’s not even the music. The music is excellent. The band are incredible, and the songs are really complicated. There are all these different passages, breakdowns and transitions. It’s not just verse-chorus-verse stuff. It’s orchestrated and incredibly well thought out, but it still has a uniform sound that makes it feel like a band performance rather than an orchestra playing in the background. I suppose it’s the lyrical tone. The guy is super poetic. He’s a great songwriter and comes up with amazing lyrics throughout, but the overall tone feels a bit cheesy to me. But cheesy can be good. And I do think this is one of the better cheesy albums out there. I have a little issue with the production, too. Not even an issue as such, more an observation. I was reading about it because I was trying to work out why the whole thing sounds so muddy. Apparently, he was going for that Phil Spector Wall of Sound style, and I don’t think he quite achieves it. He’s got a big, big sound, but it’s all kind of crushed into the middle. The mid-range is so busy that everything sounds muddy. There’s very little happening at either end of the frequency spectrum. It’s just mid-range the whole way through, and that got a little grating to listen to. In fact, one of my favourite songs on the album is Meeting Across the River, simply because it takes a breath. It doesn’t feel like such an onslaught. To me, the Wall of Sound has to be almost ethereal. Listen to Wah-Wah by George Harrison on All Things Must Pass. That bit when the horns come in and the vocalists are screaming “wah-wah.” That’s the Wall of Sound to me. There’s so much texture and so many layers of repeated sound that it all melts into one. There’s almost no definition to it. You can practically feel your way through it. It’s a physical sensation listening to that sound. Born to Run is going for something like that, but it’s almost more of a homage than a proper realisation of it. It never quite gets there, and I think the album’s sound suffers a little for it. It’s not a bad-sounding album, but to my ears, he misses the mark a bit. But anyway, feck all that. It is a good album. The songs are great. Pretty much all of them are great. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out is my favourite. It sounds like it could have been a Moondance-era Van Morrison song, and I think that’s a great sound. So that’s my fourth Bruce Springsteen album. I know there’s one more left on the list. Probably looking forward to a bit of a break from The Boss, to be honest with you.

An all-time magnum opus. He took a huge cut and touched all the bases.

Album number : 47/1089 Songs known going in : 1 Favourite song : night Rating 4/5

It's just so fucking boring, same song every time, and why does he keeps shouting at me?

Lol.. y vamos para bingo

Hmm... Unfortunately this just didn't do much for me, at all. Disapointing as I was keen to get to know Springsteen better. 4/10

This albums is like the most uplifting and grandiose chord progressions built into songs to make a crowd go wild. I think it probably influenced a lot of the modern tropes of church music that moves people. I think I need more listens to this to truly embrace it, as its production was a but jarring at first. Still pretty good, didn’t move me like nebraska did

Thunder Road might be my favourite song of all time, it always makes me well up in a way nothing else does. I think the thing with Bruce is you have to buy into the act as it were. If you don’t take his working class hero image at face value, then the whole thing falls down and it just appears cynical. This is probably true for a lot of artists, but it’s maybe more applicable with the Boss. This probably gets more prescient as the years go by. Anyway, this is probably my 3rd fave of his, and is a classic in my eyes

nope

Ooh look at me, I'm Bruce Springsteen and I make white guy blues rock with the depth of a puddle and the same level of appeal as getting sepsis. In fact, not even that. If I got sepsis I'd at least get a day off work. Characterless crud. Like if you took Meat Loaf, made him 300% less raunched up and 5x cringier. Divorced dad rock for the silent generation

Just a breezy album of hits. Really playful energy and the wall of sound made up of the keyboards, bells, and horns creates such a full and picturesque feeling throughout. While I prefer Born in the USA, I find this album more consistent and cohesive. The feeling of the title track is just unmatched. It really makes me want to get up and run off into the sunset. I feel like I can't say much else other than the fact that it's just an extremely great sounding album all the way through.

pretty good

"Please! Not another Bruce Springsteen album! Not today!" Such was my reaction when the album generator gave me "Born to Run." Having listened to "Born in the U.S.A." a few days earlier (man, this guy really likes being born), I was not looking forward to this album. While I wouldn't necessarily say I liked it, it is definitely significantly better than "Born in the U.S.A." I like the piano all over this album, and the bass does some interesting stuff too. I also actually like Springsteen's voice here, which couldn't be said about the other album. But besides some songs having one or two added and/or missing elements, the rest of the album was just not very interesting. To my ears, the songs still sound the same. They also are using way too much echo on everything, which I guess is foreshadowing "Born in the U.S.A." sounding like it was recorded in a power plant cooling tower. I know the title track is a hit for a reason, but that definitely was my least favorite song here. I went into this album expecting it to be the title track 8 times in a row, and I'm glad I was wrong. There's still three more Springsteen albums on the 1001 albums list, so maybe I'll be surprised again in the future. If, gun to my head, I had to recommend a Springsteen album, I would undoubtedly say this over "Born in the U.S.A." ----- #0019 Heard on: 7 Oct. 2026 Rating: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (250 / 339) Favorite track: Jungleland Least favorite track: Born to Run

This is Springsteen's breakthrough album released in 1975 and is considered a classic. It's classified as rock and roll, pop and R&B. He has some good songs but I personally think he's overrated. He can't sing well and the songs in general are bit too long and overly dramatic. The E Street Band is good, especially Roy Bittan on piano. However, I'm sick of Clarence Clemmons' saxophone. It annoys me as much as Bob Dylan's harmonica. Tops songs, probably more from nostalgia than actually liking them, are: Thunder Road Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out Born to Run Jungleland

Dad hates him, I don't mind him