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Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska is a different kettle of fish to most other singer/songwriter albums. This album is recored using a TASCAM 4-track tape recorder. It features a solo Springsteen on vocals, guitar, harmonica, backing vocals and an occasional tambourine. It sounds like it was recorded in a small, dark room - a sense of claustrophobia, partly due to the dark lyrics, pervades the whole album. Despite the sparse arrangements, Springsteen manages to fill the room with these songs...

I've never heard anything else like this album (except perhaps Loudon Wainwright III's Last Man On Earth, which I've only had for a year or two - but that album features a full band, so it's an interesting comparison). There are many other dark albums around, but this one is thick and cloudy too. I'll have to have another listen to Springsteen's other dark album The Ghost of Tom Joad and see how it compares with this one.