Bruce Springsteen Album-By-Album

Springsteen's weakest album. After five-year layoff, his songs are lugubrious and out of focus, overplayed by a slick L.A. studio band without the human touch of the E Streeters. A big letdown.

HIGH POINT: Human Touch, for the anguished way he sings the line "What you don't surrender/Well, the world just strips away."