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NEW YORK (Zagat/B. Springsteen Website) - A
Bruce Springsteen album has topped a new poll to find the most popular album of all time. Springsteen's Born to Run (1975) beat The Beatles, U2 and
Pink Floyd to take first in the Zagat
Music Guide to the most popular 1,000 albums.
The Beatles' Abbey Road and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band took second and third place.
The list, voted by 10,500 music fans, praised Born to Run's "promise of the endless Saturday night". It also said the Springsteen album, which features songs such as Born to Run and Thunder Road, had a "cinematic vision of American teen-age romanticism".
Springsteen's 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town, one of his more sober, reflective albums, was at number seven on the list.
Zagat's ten most popular albums
1. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
2. Abbey Rd - The Beatles
3. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles
4. The Joshua Tree - U2
5. The White Album - The Beatles
6. Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
7. Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen
8. Revolver - The Beatles
9. Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
10. Achtung Baby - U2
Publisher Tim Zagat, known for producing books rating restaurants, hotels and music, said he hoped the list would cause debate amongst fans. "I hope there is some controversy. People can argue until the cows come home over whether Mozart was a better songwriter than Bob Dylan.
"But just that you are juxtaposing Dylan and Mozart catches you by surprise and makes you think."
Zagat judges had to whittle down an original list of 2,500 albums to the top 1,000, voting for their five favourite records and rating others they were familiar with.