COUNTDOWN: Top 50 Music Albums Of All-Time.

According to Robert Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), Born in the U.S.A. may have seemed more conservative than Springsteen's previous work but it showed him evolving on what was his "most rhythmically propulsive, vocally incisive, lyrically balanced, and commercially undeniable album".

AllMusic's William Ruhlmann interpreted the album as an apotheosis for Springsteen's reoccurring characters from his past albums and said that Born in the U.S.A. "marked the first time that Springsteen's characters really seemed to relish the fight and to have something to fight for".

Richard Williams was more critical in a retrospective review for Q magazine, writing that Springsteen had exaggerated his usual characters and themes in a deliberate attempt at commercial success. Williams added: "The decision by someone who grew up in the '60s to exploit the American flag on the cover and to bury the anti-war message of Born In The USA beneath an impenetrable layer of clenched-fist bombast ... was, in the era of Reagan and welfare cuts, downright irresponsible."

The title track has become one of the most misunderstood songs in popular music. According to Greg Kot and Parker Molloy, the chorus of the song gave the feel of a positive, patriotic anthem, but the lyrics depicted the difficulties and marginalization working-class Vietnam veterans had to face returning to their country. Written during the early 1980s recession in the United States, "the crestfallen verses mock the empty slogan in the chorus", Kot said. Because the lyrics were overlooked, the song was used by politicians during rallies, campaign events, and victory speeches.

In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Born in the U.S.A. number 85 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and 86 in a 2012 revised list.

In 2013, it was named the 428th greatest album in a similar list published by NME. 

The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It has sold over 30 million copies.

The Edge had been listening to electronic dance music and to industrial bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, Nine Inch Nails, the Young Gods, and KMFDM. He and Bono advocated new musical directions along these lines.

In contrast, Mullen was listening to classic rock acts such as Blind Faith, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix, and he was learning how to "play around the beat".Like bassist Adam Clayton, he was more comfortable with a sound similar to U2's previous work and was resistant to proposed innovations. Further, the Edge's interest in dance club mixes and drum machines made Mullen feel that his contributions as a drummer were being diminished.

Producer Lanois was expecting the "textural and emotional and cinematic U2" of The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, and he did not understand the "throwaway, trashy kinds of things" on which Bono and the Edge were working.

Compounding the divisions between the two camps was a change in the band's longstanding songwriting relationship; Bono and the Edge were working more closely together, writing material in isolation from the rest of the group.

U2 found that they were neither prepared nor well-rehearsed, and that their ideas were not evolving into completed songs.The group were unable to reach consensus during their disagreements and felt that they were not making progress. Bono and producer Lanois, in particular, had an argument that almost came to blows during the writing of "Mysterious Ways".

During one tense session, Clayton removed his bass guitar and held it out to Bono, saying, "You tell me what to play and I'll play it. You want to play it yourself? Go ahead."

With a sense of going nowhere, the band considered breaking up. Brian Eno visited for a few days, and understanding their attempts to deconstruct the band, he assured them that their progress was better than they thought. By adding unusual effects and sounds, he showed that the Edge's pursuit for new sonic territory was not incompatible with Mullen's and Lanois' "desire to hold on to solid song structures".

Ultimately, a breakthrough was achieved with the writing of the song "One". While working on "Sick Puppy"—an early version of "Mysterious Ways"—The Edge played two separate chord progressions sequentially on guitar at Lanois' encouragement, and finding inspiration, the group quickly improvised a new song that became "One". It provided reassurance and validated their long-standing "blank page approach" to writing and recording together.

"At the instant we were recording it, I got a very strong sense of its power. We were all playing together in the big recording room, a huge, eerie ballroom full of ghosts of the war, and everything fell into place. It was a reassuring moment, when everyone finally went, 'oh great, this album has started.' It's the reason you're in a band—when the spirit descends upon you and you create something truly affecting. 'One' is an incredibly moving piece. It hits straight into the heart."

 —The Edge, on the recording of "One"

The album has been affiliated with progressive rock, pop, heavy metal, hard rock and avant-pop.It contains a diverse range of influences including folk, skiffle, British camp and music hall, jazz and opera.Each member wrote at least one song: five of the songs were Mercury contributions, four were written by May, and Taylor and Deacon had one song each.The closing track was an instrumental cover of "God Save the Queen", the British national anthem, for which May was credited as the arranger.

For their first two albums, much of Queen's songwriting combined contemporary progressive rock and heavy metal, which led to a "Led Zeppelin meets Yes" description of the band.However, starting with Sheer Heart Attack, Queen began drawing inspiration from their everyday lives, and embraced more mainstream musical styles, a trend which A Night at the Opera would continue. Lyrical themes ranged from science fiction and fantasy to heartbreak and romance, often with a tongue in cheek sense of humour.The Winnipeg Free Press noted that the group blended "clever, often poignant lyrics with attractively-arranged melodies".

"I did discipline myself... Take vocals, because they're my forté – especially harmonies and those kind of things. On Queen II we've gone berserk. But on this album I consciously restricted myself. That's brought the songwriting side of it across, and I think those are some of the strongest songs we've ever written."

— Freddie Mercury

"It has a couple of the heaviest things we've ever done and probably some of the lightest things as well. It's probably closer to Sheer Heart Attack than the others in that it does dart around and create lots of different moods, but we worked on it in the same way we worked on Queen II. A lot of it is very intense and very ... layered."

— Brian May

The first songs recorded for Rio were demo recordings of "Last Chance on the Stairway", "My Own Way", "New Religion", "Hungry Like the Wolf", and "Like an Angel", all recorded at EMI's Manchester Square studio in August 1981,along with demos of "The Chauffeur", "Save a Prayer", and "Lonely in Your Nightmare" recorded by engineer Bob Lamb at his home studio.

"My Own Way" was originally released as a single in November 1981, with "Like an Angel" as the B-side. The single version had a production influenced by disco and American R&B. It was re-recorded for the album with a significantly different arrangement and production.The rest of the album was recorded in the early months of 1982 at Air Studios in London with producer and engineer Colin Thurston.

The band experimented with different sounds to record the album. On the song "Lonely in Your Nightmare" John Taylor plays fretless bass to give the bass a more melodic sound. The ballad "Save a Prayer" was built around a delicate and complex sequencer track. "New Religion" has been described as containing "a rapping, schizophrenic Le Bon in conversation with a funky rhythm section". The intense "Hold Back the Rain" was edited down from the original almost ten minute recording. "The Chauffeur" is an all electronic piece created by Nick Rhodes with lyrics and vocals by Simon Le Bon.

The recording of the album also included the use of various sound effects such as tapes played in reverse (the opening of "Rio"), the sound of ice cubes dropped into a glass and excerpts from a BBC recording of nature sounds ("The Chauffeur").

In 2000, Rio was ranked #98 in Q magazine's "100 Greatest British Albums". In 2003, it was listed at #65 in the NME "100 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2004, CMJ ranked it as #1 in their "Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1982". In 2008 it was ranked 24th best British album of all time in a joint HMV Q poll. It ranked #95 in Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1980s, and is included in the list 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

In April 2013, Rio was voted number 3 in BBC Radio 2's Top 100 Favourite Albums of all time.

Three decades later, bassist John Taylor still held the album in high regard. "The writing on Rio is fantastic, all out. Essential Duran Duran," he recalled in his 2012 memoir, In the Pleasure Groove. He also had high praise for the band's musicianship. "Every one of us is performing ... at the absolute peak of our talents," he wrote. "There is no showboating. Every part is thoughtful, considered, part of a greater whole."

Deleted User wrote: »

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The album's goal, set out by Lange, was to be a hard rock version of Michael Jackson's Thriller, in that every track was a potential hit single.Songs were therefore written with this concept in mind, disappointing heavy metal fans who clamoured for a straight sequel to Pyromania. One song, "Love Bites", was already mostly written in the vein of a country ballad by Mutt Lange when he brought it to the band's attention.

While Pyromania contained traces of Def Leppard's original traditional heavy metal sound found on their first two albums, Hysteria removed them in favour of the latest sonic technology available at the time (best displayed on "Rocket", "Love Bites", "Excitable", and "Gods of War"). As with Pyromania, every song was recorded by every member in the studio separately instead of the whole band. The multiple vocal harmonies were enhanced by Lange's techniques, even pitching background vocals on all tracks. Guitar parts were now focused more on emphasising melody than hard rock's more basic and clichéd riffs.

The band used the Rockman amplifier, developed by guitarist Tom Scholz from the rock band Boston, to record the album. Engineer Mike Shipley described the Rockman as "a ****ty little box" with "a godawful sound" that "had no real balls to it", but it was used because the other amplifiers used had an excessively "crunchy" sound ill-suited to layering guitars and which Lange did not think was "commercial" enough.

In addition, all of the album's drum sounds were samples recorded by Lange and the engineers, then played from the Fairlight CMI. In a 1999 interview with Mix Magazine, Shipley noted, "Pyromania was done the same way, on cheesy 8-bit Fairlight technology where we had to figure out how to record everything at half speed into the Fairlight to make it sound like it had some tone to it, and we'd be stacking up a bunch of snares and bass drums." Shipley also noted that the drum sounds were dealt with last because each song's structure could change so radically, and because of technical difficulties. This unique approach sometimes led to painstaking lengths of time in the recording studio.

The smash single, "Pour Some Sugar on Me", was the last song written but was quickly finished within two weeks. In sharp contrast, the final version of "Animal" took almost a full three years to be developed but was not as successful as other singles despite reaching number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Their best-seller to date, it sold in excess of 30 million copies globally and 12 million in North America, standing out as the "51st best-selling album ever in the states." Hysteria spent 96 weeks in the Top 40-a feat shared only by Born in the U.S.A.

Much of the album was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, whereas "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Livin' on a Prayer", "Without Love", and "I'd Die For You" were co-written with Desmond Child, and "Wild in the Streets" was by Bon Jovi alone. This was the first time Child worked with Jon and Richie. He came to New Jersey, where they worked on the four songs in Sambora's mother's basement.

Jon Bon Jovi explained, "I liked what Bryan Adams had done with Tina Turner so I suggested we do something similar: I write a song for someone like her, and then we do the song together. But that got changed, and our A&R guy came up with Desmond's name ... He hasn't tried to change what we are, but to refine it slightly; to suggest extra ways that we could wring a bit more out of what we had."

Jon Bon Jovi was initially reluctant to include "Livin' on a Prayer", believing it was not good enough. Guitarist Sambora convinced the singer it was a hit in the making, and so the band rerecorded it, releasing the second version on the album.

Slippery When Wet was met with mixed reviews. Writing in The Village Voice in September 1987, Robert Christgau said, "Sure seven million teenagers can be wrong, but their assent is not without a certain documentary satisfaction. Yes, it proves that youth rebellion is toothless enough to simulate and market. But who the hell thought youth was dangerous in the current vacuum? Would you have preferred the band market patriotism? And are you really immune to 'Livin' on a Prayer'?"

In 1990 in Rolling Stone, Jimmy Guterman thoroughly berated the band and the album. "Jon Bon Jovi and his band serve up condescending sentiment, reducing every emotional statement to a barefaced cliché – either because they think that's all their audience can comprehend or because that's all they can comprehend. On Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi sounds like bad fourth-generation metal, a smudgy Xerox of Quiet Riot."

Nevertheless he album is ranked 44th in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the Definitive 200 albums of all time and has sold over 28 million copies worldwide.