Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

by Kevin Quigley

Greatest Hits (1995) ***

The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003) *****

Greatest Hits (2009) US Version *** / UK Version ****

Collection 1973-2012 (2012) *** 1/2

The Essential (2014) ****

Distilling an artist like Bruce Springsteen down to a single best-of collection is always going to be a bit of an exercise in futility.  He’s had such a long and fruitful career with high-water marks in nearly all periods that choosing representative tracks becomes trickier than with an artist who may have peaked early and only had a smattering of interesting tracks since.  Some artists can go by the strict rule of “greatest hits” (including maybe a few deep dips into album-track territory for breadth and depth), but that’s harder for Springsteen. The man’s nearly unprecedented commercial singles success hit in the years 1980-1988, with more success in full albums before and since.    

That was mainly the issue with Springsteen’s first compilation, 1995’s Greatest Hits.  Well, and the fact that it was a single disc.  I discovered Springsteen in 1993, during the height of the Human Touch/Lucky Town days, after he broke up the E Street Band and moved to California and “betrayed everyone.”  I remember reading in the Dave Marsh book Rocklists that those two albums were the first “flops” of his career, basically insinuating that if the E Street Band hadn’t been fired, things would have been awesome.  Who’s to say?  They weren’t really flops, either; Human Touch went to #2 and Lucky Town went to #3, and despite what you say about the “other band,” Lucky Town is a kickass album and Human Touch has its moments.  At they time, they were the most recent Springsteen, so I felt a pull toward them.  Then Greatest Hits came out in the wake of “Streets of Philadelphia” being a weird smash hit, and that was my newest Bruce.  But even though it was super cool to hear “Badlands” on the Top 40 radio the day it came out, and the compilation went to #1, even I knew there were issues with it.   

Even exemplary single-disc collections (The Beatles’ 1, for example) leave out a lot of important and vital tracks, and Greatest Hits isn’t exemplary.  While it’s a rush for the compilation to start with “Born to Run,” it completely ignores Springsteen’s first two albums.  The tracks it does select tend to go for the “best-of” definition rather than the “greatest hits” definition: “Badlands” from Darkness on the Edge of Town is a better track than “Prove It All Night,” but “Prove It” was a higher-charting single.  “The River” wasn’t a single at all, but it’s one of his most recognizable songs.  The decision to select four songs from Born in the USA on an 18-track retrospective tilts the selection way too hard toward a single period.  The reason this whole compilation was released was to give “Streets of Philadelphia” a legitimate place in Bruce’s canon, so that was fine … but placing four “new” tracks at the end of a compilation that could have been more thoughtfully curated in the first place feels like a misfire.  (Even though, yes, “Secret Garden” became an even more unexpected success later and earned its place.)

Moving on: Sony’s Essential line of retrospectives has been pretty spot-on, and Springsteen’s first foray into the realm of multi-disc compilations was no different.  It corrected all the mistakes of Greatest Hits, starting with the inclusion of the first two albums and choosing important tracks from Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle appear.  It’s hard to argue with “Blinded by the Light” as the kickoff here; it’s no “Born to Run,” but it not only contextualizes Springsteen’s early career, it’s also the original version of the song whose cover went on to be the first #1 single written by Springsteen (Manfred Mann’s version is way more produced and more nonsensical, maybe in a good way). 

The smartest thing about the compilation is in the subtle ways it functions as a representative of Springsteen’s catalog.  Springsteen has recorded his fair share of killer title tracks (“Working on a Dream” notwithstanding), and this collection makes use of all of them up to that point.  Thus, if you pick up Essential, you’re already on your way to making that subconscious leap toward the albums bearing these songs’ names: Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born in the USA, Tunnel of Love, The Ghost of Tom Joad, and so on.  There are some quibbles with this – is “Nebraska” really a better song than “Reason to Believe” or “My Father’s House” to include on a compilation like this? – but on the whole, the choice makes sense for both this collection and for what it does for the back catalog. 

The choices here are all smart: three tracks from USA (the title track, “Dancing in the Dark,” and “Glory Days,” dropping “My Hometown”) highlight the importance of that album in Springsteen’s career without overwhelming things.  “Jungleland” is an excellent, bombastic, third selection from Born To Run and fits in well with the early epics on Disc 1.  Additionally, a quiet critical re-evaluation of 1992’s Lucky Town had been underway; where much of Human Touch was over-produced and felt clunky, Lucky Town – written and recorded simply in two weeks, with minimal overdubs – had long felt like the appropriate link between Tunnel of Love and The Ghost of Tom Joad.  Accordingly, it gets two tracks here, as opposed to Human Touch’s sole selection.

Because Springsteen remains a vital, ongoing artist, and because both 1999’s E Street Band reunion and 2002’s The Rising put Springsteen back in the minds of the general public, this compilation also needed to expand to include the seven years since the 1995 disc.  While three songs from The Rising feels a little like overkill (“Mary’s Place” is a great song, but even though it’s a return to his “epic” songwriting style, it feel a little weaker surrounded by “Lonesome Day” and the title track), capitalizing on Springsteen’s newest success allows for some indulgence.  The two tracks from the “Reunion Tour” concert CD Live in NYC – “Land of Hope and Dreams” and “American Skin” – were vastly important to his continued status as an artist with something to say.  Both were brand-new songs unavailable elsewhere (though studio versions would crop up on later albums) and the latter was a scathing political song that drummed up some controversy before The Rising cast him (again) as a national hero.  The placement of those live tracks – at the end of the second CD – is a little suspect; might it have not been better to let The Rising stand as his most recent statement, especially since the Reunion tour came before? 

Other, minor issues: nothing here from his expansive Tracks box set (or the minor 18 Tracks supplement).  Nothing from Live 1975-1985, even though that set yielded two singles, one of which – “War” went to #8 on the charts (and a good case could be made for his rightly beloved version of “Jersey Girl.”)  Some Top 40-charting singles are missing: “Fade Away,” from The River, “I’m On Fire,” “I’m Goin’ Down,” “Cover Me,” and “My Hometown,” from Born in the USA, “One Step Up,” from Tunnel of Love, “Better Days,” from Lucky Town, and “Secret Garden,” Springsteen’s last Top 40 song, from Greatest Hits.  It’s a testament to the strength of this collection that none of those particularly feel missing.  This is an incredibly strong collection, regardless of any extras Springsteen might have put on.  However, he went ahead and did one better, including a whole new disc of odds-and-sods – stuff from movie soundtracks, one-offs, some missing tracks.  Finally, you could get “Trapped” on a Springsteen album!  All in all, there was stuff here for the dilettante and the hardcore fan. 

His next compilation, in 2009, was met with a firestorm of controversy; its release exclusively through big-box conglomerate Wal-Mart was met with quite a lot of negative publicity.  It was seen as a direct slam against his image as the champion of the common man and woman he’d long cultivated.  Springsteen actually later apologized for approving the set, saying, “It was a mistake … We were in the middle of doing a lot of things, it just kind of came down and really, we didn't vet it the way we usually do.”

Taking the set as a set into account regardless … well, it’s not exactly a weak compilation, but it’s a little wonky.  Specifically billed as by “Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band,” it automatically works against inclusion of any solo work Springsteen had done, or work with any other band.  Thus, nothing from Nebraska, Tunnel of Love (which technically included the E Street Band), Human Touch, Lucky Town, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Devils & Dust, or We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.  Or Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, which I guess they counted as a solo project.  Also no “Streets of Philadelphia” and, oddly, no “Secret Garden,” an actual greatest hit that was an E Street Band track.  So there are large swaths of Springsteen’s career not covered by this weird collection, but the major success of 2007’s Magic meant they could include the song “Radio Nowhere” … which is good, but not nearly the most representative song from that album.  (“Girls in Their Summer Clothes” and “Long Walk Home” would have been far better.)  The most curious aspect of this set is that it’s only twelve tracks long?  Why?  I mean, seriously, you have room for eighteen tracks and you deliberately cut out six potentials? 

We know eighteen tracks could have fit, because there’s a UK version of this set, and it has eighteen tracks. Also, they seem far more thoughtful choices: “Blinded by the Light” is back so the disc doesn’t begin with The Wild, the Innocent; “The River” is included, “I’m On Fire” shows up (making this the second Greatest Hits single disc set with four Born in the USA tracks, but the selection feels a lot less egregious in this set, given its broader scope), and “Long Walk Home” joins “Radio Nowhere” as the representative Magic tracks.  Curiously, this set follows Essential’s lead and included two live tracks – these from 1975-1985: “Because the Night,” and “Fire,” the latter of which was actually a single (which sadly broke Springsteen’s string of Top 40 hits he’d been accumulating since “Hungry Heart” in 1980.)  So while there are two fallow periods not included (1986-2002, and 2003-2007), the UK version is far more representative of Springsteen’s career as a whole.

However, as a single-disc best-of, you can’t really beat Collection 1973-2012, released, weirdly, only in Australia and the UK.  Although once again leaving off anything from Greetings, this 18-track set hits many of the high points of Springsteen’s long career, both as a bandleader and a solo performer.  Updated to include 2009’s Working on a Dream and 2012’s Wrecking Ball, nearly all the studio records are represented in some fashion, aside from Greetings, Lucky Town, Devils & Dust, and We Shall Overcome.  Perhaps the curators figured they could skirt albums by including eras, as Greetings and The Wild, the Innocent came out in the same year and Human Touch and Lucky Town came out the same day.  But why no Devils, Springsteen’s first solo acoustic #1 album? Some of the latter choices are a little confusing, too: why “Radio Nowhere” instead of “Long Walk Home”?  Why “We Take Care of Our Own” instead of the long-awaited studio version of “Land of Hope & Dreams”?  And why, oh why, “Working on a Dream” instead of “What Love Can Do” or “This Life”?  Or “Kingdom of Days”?  Or “Life Itself”?  Literally, nearly every other choice would have been a better one.  If you’re trying to rehab the perception of Working on a Dream as a weak album, you can’t use the title track to do it.       

Curiously, 2015 saw a re-release of Essential, with a radically altered track listing and the loss of the “bonus” disc 3.  (“Trapped” is no longer on a Springsteen album!)  The live tracks are also dropped, and the set has been expanded to include all of Springsteen’s post-Rising output.  The changes are fascinating; gone, apparently, is the need to include all the title tracks: “Nebraska” is gone, but “Johnny 99” is in; “Tunnel of Love” has disappeared in favor of “Tougher Than the Rest” and “One Step Up”; no more “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” (noooooo!) but we’ve got “Prove It All Night” – the actual greatest hit from the Darkness record. 

There are now two more songs from The River – “Out in the Street” and “The Ties That Bind” (the fact that a retrospective River box set titled The Ties That Bind came out later that year make these inclusions obvious).  Greetings’ “Blinded By the Light” and “For You” are missing in favor of “Growin’ Up.”  No more “Jungleland”; instead, we get the shorter – and arguably more famous – “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Lucky Town again gets two songs, but neither are the ones on the original compilation – now it’s “Better Days” and “If I Should Fall Behind.”  Weirdly, while “Secret Garden” was a big hit from Greatest Hits, Springsteen chose to include “Murder Incorporated” instead, maybe because it’s a big concert favorite.  No additions from The Ghost of Tom Joad, “Mary’s Place” from The Rising is gone, and “Human Touch” is now the shorter single edit.

Most fascinating are the selections from the post-Rising era.  For the first time, tracks from Devils & Dust make it onto a compilation like this: the title track and “Long Time Comin’” – both stellar choices.  Once again, “Radio Nowhere” is, bafflingly, the only representative track from Magic, and Working On a Dream gets an astounding three tracks: while “The Wrestler” is one of Springsteen’s best songs (though was, technically, a bonus track on Dream) and “My Lucky Day” makes sense, the title track could have been excised completely to make room for more Magic.  Or anything from Seeger Sessions, which gets no inclusion here.  Nothing from The Promise, either; Springsteen’s “from the vaults” record featuring tracks written or recorded in the time between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town should have gotten some notice.  Plus: only one song each from Wrecking Ball (“We Take Care of Our Own, when the title track or “Land of Hope & Dreams” would have been far better) and High Hopes (“Hunter of Invisible Game,” which is a fine choice, but “Dream Baby Dream” would have been a better encapsulation of the era … and I would have picked “This Is Your Sword,” even though it’s not that popular.)

In final estimation, the Essential discs are the way to go if you’re interesting in dabbling in Springsteen and want a rounder picture of the man before deciding with of the albums to start with.  Though it’s now outdated, in terms of breadth and depth, you can’t really get better than 2003’s Essential, especially with that bonus disc.  While some of the latter-day inclusions of the new Essential set are somewhat suspect, it’s a worthy update that hits almost all the studio albums (sorry We Shall Overcome).  If you are interested in Springsteen enough to only get a single-disc set, seek out Collection: 1973-2012.  You’ll miss some key tracks, but there’s only one dud on the whole collection.