Born in the U.S.A.

Several songs began on the Nebraska cassette, and most of the album came from band sessions at the Power Station in May 1982. Dave Marsh wrote that the night they cut the title track was when they knew they had started an album. Between 70 and 90 songs were recorded over two years. Van Zandt left the band in this period, and Bobby Jean and No Surrender grew out of their friendship. Dancing in the Dark was written in early 1984 after Landau said the record still needed a single.

It went to number one in America and Britain, spent 84 weeks in the American top ten, and was the best-selling album of 1985 in the United States. Critics voted it the best album of 1984 in the Pazz & Jop poll, and Stephen Holden heard a sad, serious record about the end of the American dream. Pitchfork called it the misunderstood peak of his imperial era. Springsteen himself has written that, apart from the title track, he has always felt some ambivalence about its songs.