The Essential Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen, Bruce (CD 2003)

Bruce Springsteen himself needs no introduction. But this two-CD anthology of the man does, as it seems to be advertising itself as a definitive compilation of the Boss, when in fact it is nowhere near close to that.

Conventional wisdom on Mr. Springsteen says that the man is really an album-oriented artist and is thus hard to summarize in a compilation, even a two-CD one. That argument may be born out by the disastrous attempt at a single disc Greatest Hits a few years ago. While The Essential Bruce Springsteen may seem like a good choice for the very casual Springsteen fan on first notice, it's hard to imagine them not growing to like Springsteen enough that they will want to go back and get the original albums.

The aforementioned Greatest Hits had superb song selections. But was missing a lot. Remember Springsteen classics like "I'm On Fire" and "Prove It All Night"? Neither of those were on that album.

Neither of them are on The Essential Bruce Springsteen and that is an atrocity pure and simple. Also missing from the anthology are hits like "Cadillac Ranch", "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", "Backstreets", "Johnny 99", "Highway Patrolman", "I'm Going Down", "If I Should Fall Behind", "My Hometown" and a ton of others (No "Pink Cadillac"! That's a crime pure and simple.)

On the other hand, what IS on here is very good. Also, unlike Greatest Hits, this one doesn't ignore Bruce's first two albums. From Greetings From Asbury Park NJ and The Wild The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle we get classics "Blinded By The Light", "Spirit In The Night" and "Rosalita".

From there, we get into the hits from Born To Run onward. There we see many Springsteen staples such as "Thunder Road", "Badlands", "The Promised Land", "Hungry Heart", "The River", "Atlantic City", "Born In The USA", "Dancing In The Dark", "Glory Days", "Brilliant Disguise", "Human Touch", "The Rising", "Mary's Place" and so on. Also, give this one points for including the previously unreleased (except on the 2001 "Live In New York City" album) "American Skin" and "Land Of Hope And Dreams".

Of course the main reason many hardcore Springsteen fans will have for buying this collection is the inclusion of a bonus disc of rarities. These rarities included here are actually quite good. They include songs like the title theme to Dead Man Walking and a live rendition of the previously unreleased hard rocker "Held Up Without A Gun" as well as live covers of Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped" and Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas". Here are all the tracks included on the bonus disc.

1. From Small Things (Big Things One Day...)
2. The Big Payback
3. Held Up Without a Gun [live]
4. Trapped [live]
5. None But the Brave
6. Missing
7. Lift Me Up
8. Viva Las Vegas
9. County Fair
10. Code of Silence [live]
11. Dead Man Walkin'
12. Countin' on a Miracle [Acoustic]

Overall the bonus disc is quite good, although most serious fans will already have most (if not all) of what is on the other two discs.

So all of the material on this collection is quite good, albeit a lot of good material is missing. The main problem we run into is that Springsteen, despite having a ton of hits, is not a singles artist per se. Every good Springsteen album deserves to be heard in its entirety, even his lesser ones have a few good songs on them (thinking specifically of Human Touch here).

So one gets a sense that this collection was intended to be Springsteen's version of Neil Young's near-perfect Decade collection. However it misses by a small margin and is closer to the two-CD Very Best Of Elvis Costello from a few years ago. In other words, it's full of good music and is a good introduction to the Boss. But one should not just buy this and think they have all the Springsteen they'll ever need. Buy this one, and then buy Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, The River and Nebraska. From there, proceed to Born In The USA, The Rising and The Wild, The Innocent And The E Street Shuffle. Fine albums all of them.

So while The Essential Bruce Springsteen may come nowhere near to living up to its premise of being the definitive Springsteen collection, it is still a fine collection of great American rock and roll.