Detours from E Street: Ranking the 5 Best Bruce Springsteen Albums Recorded Without His Longtime Band

Perhaps because the first mental image that comes to mind when many people think of Bruce Springsteen is of him on stage, it’s hard to separate him from the E Street Band, the legendary collection of players usually standing behind him. Yet there have been many times throughout his career when Springsteen has recorded albums without them.

For this list, we chose albums where E Street Band members weren’t used on any more than a handful of tracks. You might be surprised at the classic albums Bruce has recorded when venturing away from the familiar environs of E Street.

5. Lucky Town (1992)

At the end of the ‘80s, Springsteen told the E Street Band that he wouldn’t be needing their services for a while, instead going into the studio with mostly new musicians (E Street keyboardist Roy Bittan notwithstanding). He released a pair of albums on the same day in 1992.

Human Touch featured the new players but a less-than-stellar (by Springsteen standards) bunch of songs. The other release, Lucky Town, was much more like it, with the Boss handling much of the instrumentation himself. Rockers like the title track and “Living Proof” were wiry and tough, while ballads like “If I Should Fall Behind,” “Book of Dreams” and “My Beautiful Reward” found Bruce at his most soulful. If you’ve written off this album because of your disdain for the “Other Band” era, you should give it another try.

4. The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)

There were some token appearances on this record by E Streeters Danny Federici and Garry Tallent. But this was mostly a DIY-type record from the Boss, which makes sense because the material is mostly stripped-down. It finds Springsteen in storytelling mode, often peering into the lives of those marginalized by society in haunting fashion.

“The Line” is a stunning look at the border crisis told from the perspective of a man charged with policing the situation, while “Galveston Bay” detailed a Vietnamese immigrant’s efforts to live life peacefully in a Texas town that doesn’t trust him. Springsteen treats every subject with trademark dignity and empathy. The Ghost of Tom Joad isn’t an easy listen, but it’s for darn sure a rewarding one.

[RELATED: Remember When: Bruce Springsteen Cuts the E Street Band Loose and Forms “The Other Band”]

3. Wrecking Ball (2012)

Springsteen did include a few songs here (the title track and “Land of Hope and Dreams”) that he’d already played live with the E Street Band, which explains why Steven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg show up on these tracks. But Wrecking Ball mostly was born of a collaboration between Springsteen and producer Ron Aniello, and they concocted a stomping sound that managed to sound Depression-era retro and relevantly modern all at once.

Springsteen turned his critical eye toward the income gap on many of the tracks here, including furious castigations of the unsympathetic rich on “Easy Money” and “Death to My Hometown.” Album-opener “We Take Care of Our Own” rocked with a ferocity that Springsteen hadn’t summoned in years. The ingenious closing track, “We Are Alive,” imagined an army of the wronged dead rising up to wreak vengeance on behalf of the downtrodden. For a guy who could have mailed in an album with his tried-and-true sound, this album was a refreshing and thrilling surprise.

2. Western Stars (2019)

Springsteen’s thematic sound for this record (again created with the collaboration of Ron Aniello) was the shuffling country-pop essayed by folks like Fred Neil and Glen Campbell (and a cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy” was included in the filmed version of the album). The setting allows Bruce to simply revel in the songcraft of it all.

These are some of the rangiest melodies he’s ever written, as big as the plains that some of the characters inhabit. The character sketch songs are great, but even better are some of the more personal weepers on the album’s second half. “Somewhere North of Nashville” is the lament of a heartbroken Music Row wordsmith, while closing track “Moonlight Motel” might just rank among the top ten songs the man has ever recorded.

1. Nebraska (1982)

Springsteen fans know well the tale of how he recorded this stunning song set onto a cassette with just an acoustic guitar in hand, intending these versions to be used as demos. When the E Street Band tried to embellish them, the results were never as convincing as the originals, and so the demos became the album.

But it’s not just the stark nature of the recordings that stands out. Setting aside the magical realism of some of his past work, Springsteen writes songs here that are harrowingly real. Whether he’s telling the stories of others (the title track, “Highway Patrolman,” “Atlantic City”), or diving into his own childhood trauma (“Mansion on the Hill,” “My Father’s House”), he writes with fierce honesty and sings with simmering emotion. Since everything eventually gets released, we’ll probably one day hear the so-called “Electric Nebraska” sessions. However, it’s hard to imagine them coming anywhere near what Springsteen did with these songs on his own.

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