Favorite and/or Best Springsteen album?

Born in the USA is the album that made me a fan so it holds a bit of nostalgia for me as well, but when compared to his other works, it pales.
But to get to your question, it's the romantic in me that loves the themes on this album. The music and lyrics on songs like Better Days, Leap of Faith, Living Proof, and My Beautiful Reward are just uplifting for me. Local Hero is another standout track on this album. The Big Muddy is probably the weakest song on the disc.
I enjoy a lot of the stuff on The River, it contains one of my Top 10 Bruce songs (The Price You Pay), many of the songs are fun, but overall it doesn't lift me or change my mood like Lucky Town can. A lot of fans point to Tunnel of Love as a favorite and call it his relationship album. There's no denying Tunnel has a ton of strong songs, but they're mainly about questioning relationships or having doubts about them.
Right now I'm happily married and a father so I connect so well to the material on Lucky Town as well.

 

With Backstreets the power of the live versions (especially the 76-78 versions that had the extended coda) take the emotion of the song to an entirely new level.
For Jungleland, the live versions when Clarence was on, bring the song to the next level from an emotional and energy perspective.
For Racing in the Streets (probably one of my Top 5 Bruce songs), the beauty of the live versions, especially with the extended codas at the end, are spectacular, like this one, which I was there for:

 

For me, Blood Brothers is a top 20 song and I think that the rewriting of the last verse for the Reunion Tour (which is just classic wishy-washy Bruce) obscures just how good it is. I also can't believe that the people he fired a few years years earlier happily recorded that particular song with him for Greatest Hits.

 

Don't know if I'd put it Top 20, but it is up there.

Seven years passed between the firing and the recording of Greatest Hits. I guess time heals that pain when dealing with someone you've known for 20-25 years.

But the additional verse for the final show of the reunion tour added some emotional punch to it. Don't know if it obscured how good it really is. The alternate rock version take (which appeared on the mini-CD that came with the Blood Brothers documentary when it was first released) obscures how good the song really is.

Brief summary for those that haven't heard them all:

The alternate rock take:

The version that was released on GH:

(sorry there's a damn commercial before it starts)
The version from the reunion tour Webster & I are talking about:

 

damn you, joe! i was bawling like a baby by the end, as i do every time i play it from any of his shows ... i have a half-dozen renditions in my 'favorites' powerful work on the ivories leaves me crying every time. i can count on it whenever i'm in need of a good emotional cleansing. :'( :'( :'(
hard to top the '78 tour rendition, when he was into introducing the 'new' songs. this from the wonderland in san franciso i
is on the famous bootleg concert tape and made the 'great hits' album:

he did two sets back then. the first set on that tough concluded with 'racin' in the street' into 'thunder road' and then 'jungleland.' that trifecta spoiled me for life!!

 

Nebraska as a single, interlocking album is my favorite. So much so that I put it up there with Pet Sounds, Revolver and Blonde on Blonde in that category of album I can't listen to in pieces. I have to listen to it in its entirety.

 

Those '78 versions were tremendous, especially that one.
Now I'm curious to see your album list.

 

do you mean bootleg stuff? the tapes are all buried in a box in the garage. i an only play tunes on my laptop these days and have no form of stereo equipment anymore. i know, it's pretty pathetic.

 

I like WIESS, Born to Run and Darkness in my top 3.

Wild takes you on a crazy ride.

I wonder which of his albums have the best writing if you were just going by the written word. It might be Tunnel of Love.

 

I bought Darkness on the Edge of Town on the advice of a classmate's brother and it remains my fave album. Still love Born to Run and saw him for the first time on The River tour and still really enjoy that album (even if it is probably three or four songs too long). Haven't listened to Nebraska in its entirety in ages, same with BITUSA (probably because it was played to death upon its release). Always liked Tunnel of Love, might have to give that a listen some time too. been a long time since I listened to that one too. Human Touch and Lucky Town held little interest for me upon their release, I suspect that hasn't changed.

I suspect a thread on best/fave Springsteen bootlegs would generate some discussion.

 

I mean official releases - unless I missed your list earlier in this thread.

 

Nearly every show since '99 has been put out as a bootleg and in the last year or two there have been significant upgrades to 70s shows as bootleggers' master tapes have worked their way into the trading pool after being remastered for amazing sound quality.
But I'm guessing the 70s shows would dominate that conversation.