Nebraska album art.
Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen should need almost no introduction. He wrote about the every-man and connected with people on personal levels, which was something that very few of his contemporaries could muster. His albums, Born To Run (1975) and Born In The U.S.A. (1983) are both considered his masterpieces, but he has plenty of other acclaimed albums. His 1982 effort, Nebraska, is one of them.
When the album was recorded, Bruce started out with rough demos that just included guitar, voice, mandolin, and harmonica. He then got the E-Street band together and recorded the album with the full orchestrations. However, he felt that despite what the other band members thought, the demos just simply sounded better. He decided to release the demos as the official album, shelving all the full-band versions of the songs. The songs were played live in these versions during various tours of Springsteen's career.
Despite what many fans would like to think, the "Electric Version" has never been released. Springsteen claims that he personally does not want to release it, thinking the album was perfect the way it was left. This has left many fans disappointed, as even the few bootlegs that feature material from the Nebraska sessions are just expansions of the released demo recordings (which included some early versions of material that would be featured on Born In The U.S.A.).