Excellent article Alex. You make a strong argument and case for The River being his best especially on song placement. I only put Darkness first if I really have to put them in order of favourites. In reality the quality of Springsteen’s body of work is so good (minus a couple of course) that it is hard to choose the best for me. Point Blank is exceptional and if he had included Roulette and Stray Bullet then it would have been the icing on a fantastic cake. However that might have caused issues with song placement that you so eloquently discuss in the article.