The Promise
by Bruce Springsteen
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Bruce Springsteen bestography
The Promise is ranked 17th best out of 162 albums by Bruce Springsteen on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Bruce Springsteen is Born To Run which is ranked number 81 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 14,248.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to The Promise on YouTube
The Promise track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 80 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
The Promise rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 3 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  swed | Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s | 100/100 | 0 |
| 2026 |  zags7000 | Top 100 Music Albums of 2010 | 35/100 | 3 |
| 2026 | glynspsa | Top 99 Music Albums of 2010 | 23/99 | 4 |
| 2026 | Johnnyo | Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s | 58/100 | 9 |
| 2026 | juanr1096 | Top 100 Music Albums of 2010 | 24/100 | 4 |
| 2026 | Johnnyo | Top 72 Music Albums of 2010 | 14/72 | 4 |
| 2026 | saltysurprise | Top 41 Music Albums of 2010 | 16/41 | 3 |
| 2026 |  Tamthebam | Top 90 Music Albums of 2010 | 48/90 | 2 |
| 2026 | blueandthemoon | Top 72 Music Albums of 2010 | 25/72 | 3 |
| 2026 |  Glitterboiii | Top 50 Music Albums of 2010 | 17/50 | 3 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 66 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 319 | |||
The Promise collection
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The Promise ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 150 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 07/04/2026 07:12 | Exist-en-ciel | 16,259 | 70/100 |
| ! | 06/19/2026 11:42 | cicadelic | 14,178 | 73/100 |
| ! | 03/26/2026 22:45 |  cestuneblague | 8,271 | 80/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 3% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 77.3/100, a mean average of 76.9/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 77.6/100. The standard deviation for this album is 12.8.
The Promise favourites
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The Promise forum mentions
The Promise comments
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This album should be much higher on the Bruce Springsteen list!!! Much Much Much higher! This album is pretty good especially for a B-sides album.
jhuik TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/22/2012 03:27 | #58522 | TOP COMMENT
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Considering that these are by and large rejects you have to say (as so often), wow, what an artist.
It is a strong album but a few songs should not hev been sung by Bruce. Even if he wants to sing like Roy Orbison he can´t sing Someday. A pity that my favourite cut of the song The Promise isn´t here.
Very good album, especially when you consider these were the scraps that did not get their own album in the 70s.
The promise, could be called, lightness on the edge of town. Consisting of tracks recorded at the sessions for, darkness on the edge of town, you can see why these tracks didn't make it on to the final album, they're too light, throwaway even. Some tracks though, are superb. I find the version of, racing in the street, superior to the one on, darkness, although I do concede that the one that did end up on that LP, is the correct decision, the version here wouldn't have felt right. Elsewhere there are finally studio version's of, because the night, and, fire. There are a lot of songs that are earlier incarnations of later tracks, featuring lyrics that were later to be found on other songs. There are some fun songs in, I gotta get that feeling, and, rendezvous. Some people on this website seem to think that these songs are 'rejects', they are not 'rejects', they are songs that weren't right for, darkness, Springsteen wanted to make a moody album, so most of these songs wouldn't have felt or sounded right, that's why they were left off, they are certainly not 'rejects'. Having said that at least one of those tracks should have replaced the weak, factory, which is the one song that lets, darkness, down. Either way, all in all, the promise, is another piece of the, darkness, puzzle, but it's also an album in it's own right.
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