One of the truly great pieces of Art in American recording history, NEBRASKA explores the dark stories of the characters who chose to take to the road in THE RIVER.

They hit middle America and go crazy. Simple as that.

These are stories of killers and cops, truck drivers and, frankly, people who have been driven to such a degree that they can no longer find their way through the comprimises and grey areas that they find themselves swimming in.

I've always been fascinated by Springsteen's phrasing on NEBRASKA. "Me and her went for a ride, sir." There's always that "sir," or "mister," and the wording is sparse. To me, these songs sound like death row confessions.

To me, "Atlantic City" ranks as one of Springsteen's finest moment, a tough-as-nails story of a man comprimising his own morals/ethics in order to get himself and his wife out of a dying town--and considering the unimaginable in order to finance their escape. But he still needs to console himself, rationalize his decision, before he can live with it:

"I've been looking for a job but it's hard to find. Down here it's just winners and losers, and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line. Well, I'm tired of coming out on this losing end. So honey last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a little favor for him...but I guess everything dies baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies one day comes back..."

NEBRASKA is not a fun-time party album. It's dangerous to listen to it in your car at 3 a.m.. But it is a piece of perfection, a story of the cultural decay Springsteen and his characters found in the USA in 1982, stories of desperate people in bad situations. It is a record that will be just as vital and important in 100 years as it was upon it's release.

NEBRASKA is true Art of the highest order.

After The River became Bruce's first number one album, "Hungry Heart" became his first top ten song and a hugely successful world tour, one would expect his next album to be in a similar vein to keep up the momentum. Instead of a River clone, Bruce did a complete 180 and released the dark, brooding Nebraska. Bruce at the time was listening to Woody Guthrie and other depression era folk & blues artists and this album reflects those sounds. The album consists basically of just an acoustic guitar and harmonica and explores subjects such as murder, crime, loss and loneliness. The songs are all sung in the first person and that gives them an intimacy that is rarely felt from an album. Bruce would explore dark subjects on later albums ("Born In The USA" was original recorded for this album), but he never recorded them in such a bare and stark nature. On this album, Bruce asks alot of questions and dares you to search for answers. The search is well worth the time and effort.

My confession: I listened to this album for the first time around 1990 based on a friend's recommendation, and I was instantly converted. I had previously taken part in the backlash against Bruce Springsteen, the backlash that followed the stunning commercial success of "Born in the USA." "Nebraska" set me straight and gave me insight into what a masterful storyteller Springsteen is.

This album is Bruce all alone, without the E Street band. The songs are quiet and honest with a rough quality, and each one tells a story about people who somehow got left out of the American dream. "Used Cars" is the most touching to me, telling a child's perspective on his father's purchase of a used car, which is a powerful symbol of the family's lack of status or hope. "My Father's House" is equally powerful.

"Nebraska" is the clear predecessor to "Tunnel of Love." "Born in the USA" really seems like an aberration in Springsteen's musical development when you consider that it was released in the time between these two albums. Don't get me wrong. "Born in the USA" is a great album. But "Nebraska" is softer and far more haunting.

At a risk of seeming sacrilegious...

Hold these as self evident truths of Real Rock 'N' Roll:

* There is nothing wrong with down-beat music which addresses the lot of the desperate and down trodden. In fact, it's pretty cool.
* There is nothing wrong with simple musical construction. Mostly, the more simple its construction is, the more appealing popular music is. Case in point: Bob Dylan always beats Yes.
* There is nothing wrong with murder balladry. It has a great tradition in popular and folk music, from Leadbelly to Nick Cave.
* There is nothing wrong with home recorded records. In the rock canon, they're usually pretty special - pared back, honest, brutal, completely lacking in studio trickery.

Do the maths, therefore, and you will conclude that, in Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, you have a genuine rock classic.

And so, scores of Amazon reviewers before me will tell you, you do. Recorded in his bedroom with a four track tape player, there are no drums, no blaring electric guitars - in fact it's the boss, his blues harp, his wooden top guitar, and some sort of echo effect, singing Gritty Lyrics about a small time punk in Nebraska who kills in a fit of desperation and ends up in The Chair.

Springsteen sets up a mood which drips desolation, no question about it. But I don't buy it. As usual, his lyrics are mumbled, so unless you listen very hard, it's pretty difficult to tell what's going on. And he mumbles them in a monotone, a lot of the time. A dull, nasal monotone. Now, it's all very well having a simple musical construction, but there does need to be some construction: for lengthy periods on Nebraska, the melody is so scant it disappears. Songs - even the last song - don't end as much as just tail off, as if Springsteen can't be bothered thinking of a way to kill them.

And, though I risk a deluge of abuse in saying so, there is this sense I just can't rid of that it is all a little contrived. The self-image that Bruce Springsteen has carefully painted is squarely the working class, working man, but can you imaging such a man having any truck with this sort of liberal, hand-wringing dirge? And isn't all this bitter rumination about the brutality of life at the violent end of Reaganomics just a little too literate - a little too sophisticated - for Springsteen's natural constituency? Doesn't he speak for the same people who missed the irony in Born In The USA, and voted Republican anyway?

Nebraska checks all the right boxes, but cynically. In terms of a lyrical statement (let alone a musical one) it fails to impress: despite its subject matter and mood, there's nothing especially indelible about this record.

Thoroughly over-rated.

This is one of those albums where the power does not lie in volume, but in the lyrics. I'm a newcomer to The Boss and his music. I thought I'd might as well give Nebraska a shot, and I must say, as I was reading the lyrics along with the music, the emotions in The Boss's words hit you hard. The indifference of the character on the song Nebraska, who's about to be executed, saying "...and I killed everything in my path", haunts you with it's soft, almost eerie delivery. It's a perfect intro of what's to come in the next 40 minutes on the album.

These songs are all about people driven to desperation through tough times, wishing they had more, and never has Bruce passed on these stories more effectively. The wording of the lyrics is guaranteed to have you picturing the stories unfolding, the best example being "Highway Patrolman", a story that would make anyone feel pity for the main character.

Musically, the songs are perfect in their demo quality style. The stories are really what the focus of this album is, and the emotions that come from these stories are where the impact of this album lies, the guitar and harmonica providing just the right texture for these songs, giving them a dusty, black and white feel.

This album is my favorite Springsteen album because it is that rare album that hits you harder with just a guitar, harmonica, and lyrics, than any fully produced, full band album ever could.