BTR and Other Great Albums

It was just announced here that a special re-release of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" album will be coming out in November. BTR, which was actually Springsteen's third album but his first to receive wide airplay and gain him popular acclaim, was originally released thirty years ago this month.

Besides being one of my personal favorites, BTR is also one of those rare rock albums which can be viewed as a "virtual" greatest hits. I.e., every individual song on the album has received a reasonable amount of airplay, if not on "hit" radio then on album/classic rock stations. To achieve this feat requires a singular combination of artist talent, popularity, and staying power, as well as other practical factors like timing and the album having a small number of songs.

Other than the Beatles, who are of course in a class by themselves in that every song they've ever written got (and still gets) on the radio, only a handful of rock artists have ever had an album that fits this category, even with minor "stretching" (e.g., I have heard "Meeting Across the River" from BTR on the radio, but pretty rarely).

So here's my initial list of, other than Beatles, what I consider "virtual greatest hits" rock albums. Of course, there are many other complete albums on which I personally love every song, but by no stretch can some of the songs on each be said to have gotten any significant airplay. Actual greatest hits collections or re-compilations are of course also excluded:

• "Born to Run", Bruce Springsteen
• "Who's Next", The Who
• "Bat Out of Hell", Meat Loaf
• "More Than a Feeling", Boston
• "Rumors", Fleetwood Mac

Honorable Mentions: "The Stranger" and "52nd St.", both by Billy Joel. Each of these albums has maybe two songs (out of 10 or so) that didn't get airplay. So they almost fit the category, but not quite.

If you can think of others, please send comments and I may update the list if I agree.

UPDATE: A couple of other albums that meet the "almost" category, in that only 2 or 3 songs don't get regular airplay, as suggested in comments and elsewhere:

• "Joshua Tree", U2
• Self-titled albums 1 and 4, Led Zeppelin
• "Jagged Little Pill" Alanis Morissette

UPDATE #2: "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd was one I forgot - it definitely belongs on the list! Thanks, David!