Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

Discovery

Daft Punk

Electronic music as comforting and familiar as classic rock.

The album’s biggest singles—“One More Time,” “Harder Better Faster Stronger,” “Digital Love”—were as useful to wedding DJs as they were to pop philosophers. And the rest—the faux-metal guitars of “Aerodynamic,” the sci-fi daydream of “Veridis Quo,” the UK garage showcase of Todd Edwards on “Face to Face”—glimpsed down dozens of stylistic alleyways without disrupting the album’s course. “Electronic music”—a term that always suggested the future, however vague—was demonstrated to be as familiar and comforting as classic rock, and no less real in its depth of feeling.

“Their take on funk, disco, soft rock, or ’80s pop never sounds nostalgic. It’s more like a dream of the future. In every Daft Punk song, you can hear timeless musical techniques.”

Chilly Gonzales

producer and collaborator

You can easily trace Discovery forward to EDM and the continuing entwinement of techno and rock. But you can also trace it back to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Pet Sounds and Smile: music that took pop seriously as art, but also recontextualized older, seemingly uncool styles in ways that felt progressive and fresh. Most of all, though, Daft Punk wanted to be universal. And as implausible as it may have seemed for two French men in robot helmets, Discovery got them there.

Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen

Distilling epic narratives into timeless anthems turned a young star into The Boss.

Bruce Springsteen envisioned his third album as a song cycle that starts at daybreak and ends at dawn, with the harmonica in “Thunder Road” acting as reveille, and with “Jungleland” at the end bringing the curtain down. In between, there’s plenty of drama, with Springsteen’s vivid characters getting into trouble down dark alleys, where they fight for freedom (or, at least, redemption).

“I always try to speak to my times in the way that I best could.”

Bruce Springsteen

His first two albums had featured epic tales populated with wild characters. But with Born to Run, he finally cracked the code on how to tighten those stories, making them easier to absorb. Springsteen would later pinpoint the title track as the moment he learned to successfully combine power and emotion—lyrically and musically—in a shorter form, while still delivering the same impact. Built like a grittier, more fantastical version of Phil Spector’s infamous Wall of Sound, Born to Run manages to feel at once exhilarating, heartbreaking, thoughtful, and tragic—the defining moment for Springsteen as a performer and as a songwriter.

Apple Music 100 Best Albums

Discovery

Born to Run