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

It was bound to happen after about 35 different releases. I was anticipating it from the moment they had released so many of them it had began to be a trend. They had already reached Bob Dylan, Sly Stone, Johnny Cash, The Clash, Miles Davis, and even Men At Work. I didn t know how it was going to be done, or what was going to go into it, but damned I was when I finally saw it for myself. It is here, it is now...

...it is THE ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN! Did I say that out loud?

Much like the retrospective releases of Dylan, Davis or Cash, it is impossible to have 2 CDs do complete justice to Springsteen s fruitful career, from the early gems he unleashed in 1972 with Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ all the way up to recent times with his excellent post-9/11 ruminations of The Rising. It s a catalog so rich in gems that you can make your own Top 50 list of the artist s best songs, and it s a shame VH1 hasn t made such a countdown. From all these years, he has matured from a scrappy poet with a mouthful of syllables and songs laced with imagery and odd rhyming patterns to a breakthrough mega-star to respectable singer/songwriter to American rock idol and back to megastar and beyond as well. He has recorded 12 respectable studio albums, played hundreds of awesome live shows, won over the masses, defied critical jitters, sold over 50 million units, and has been the prominent reason for why real good rock n roll lived on even in the age of disco and new wave.

And this is the best they can do: 2 discs and 30 songs in total. This can be seen as both an expansion and re-imagination of The Boss 1995 single disc hits collection, one that represents everything in his collection including his earlier material yet also manages to find its own faults. Come on people, JUST 30 SONGS! These better be essentials else my money wasn t well p*ssed away! You know Johnny Cash released a boxed set just to chronicle the greatest hits, and even Journey had one as well, but Springsteen s prized multi-disc packages remain testaments to live material and outtakes. Oh well, let s cross our fingers.

I did find a lot of Springsteen s absolute best here. There are at least five essentials from Springsteen s early E Street Band. I m talking drummer Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez and pianist David Sancious in the band with Bruce, saxman Clarence "Big Man" Clemons, bassist Garry Tallent and organist Danny Federici (although he didn't show up 'til "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle," he is a mainstay). From 1972 and 1973, we get Blinded By The Light, For You, Spirit In The Night, 4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy), and Rosalita (Come Out Tonight).

The first and third songs are Springsteen essentials, and classics in their own right, but they didn't catch on right away in 1972. Blinded By The Light was a single, and it flopped like a fish in a seizure. It wasn t until 1976, after Born To Run hit, when these songs came back to kick some a**. Unfortunately, it wasn t Springsteen s versions: Manfred Mann s Earth Band had truncated both songs, although they did memorably expand upon Blinded, and had a couple of hits with said songs, the aforementioned song hitting number one. But both songs shine with the original Springsteen versions.

Blinded By The Light is a rollicking rocker with rickety but awesome drumming by Vini Lopez, buoyant sax work by Clarence Clemons, a solid organ backdrop by David Sancious, thick anchoring licks from Garry Tallent and Bruce! When not puncturing the beat with hard-hitting guitar jabs and licks, he s spitting out lyrics with mad abandon, punching out a line such as The avatar said blow the bar, but first remove the cookie jar/ We're gonna teach those boys to laugh too soon with husky urgency. There s so much of this wordplay going on that you re bound to lose your head. There s a more relaxed and jazzy feel to Spirit In The Night, and Springsteen sounds more assured and less strained, with backing vocals accompanying him and his band catching most of the poetry in their sound. For You is more urgent, a perfect showcase for the talents of both Lopez and Sancious, who would later leave the E Street Band behind, both driving this hard-hitting sound while Springsteen gets back to vocal gymnastics and wildly interesting lyrical metaphors, like Crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak/Reveal yourself all now to me girl while you've got the strength to speak.

But oh that E Street Shuffle. The two songs representing that are stellar stuff. 4th Of July, Asbury Park is all about Springsteen s acoustic rhythm, electric melody dubs, and seductive vocals that make even the most ordinary summer boardwalk carnival action sound alluring: Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers so fast, so shiny, so sharp/And the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark. I also dug Springsteen s gripe about getting on that Tilt-A-Whirl on the South Beach Drag, a mildly hilarious moment in a song brimming with omniscient descriptions and poignancy. The lush qualities of that number are eschewed in the final classic selection, Rosalita, a song alive with up tempo R&B fire that is for the most part dominated by Clarence Clemons sax work, which solos, augments, and drives the rhythmic fire of the band, who design one hell of a bridge section. But Springsteen lets loose here, losing himself in rapture and a joyous abandon like he s not letting love lie bleeding in his hands, young love at that matter. The instance where he rebels against Rosie s parents because the record company gave me a big advance! is awesome, and the song is brimming with cheeky observations ( Dynamite s in the belfry, baby, playing with the bats ) and matter-of-fact declarations ( I ain t here on business, baby, I m only here for fun/And Rosie you re the one! ). To me, no collection is complete without this number.

But Lopez and Sancious left the band, and they had to pick up Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan to fill their places, and they do a good job. As Springsteen s arrangements had gotten more cohesive and tighter, these two musicians helped bring the sound richness, as demonstrated with the first Born To Run selection, Thunder Road. Coming on like operatic rock, with Roy Bittan s classically-trained piano foundation given brief accompaniment by Springsteen s harmonica, Springsteen s character aches for love ( Roy Orbison singing for the lonely/Hey that s me, and I want you only ) and promises a dream ride down the two lanes lying out there like a killer in the sun. However, it s not all youthful abandon: Springsteen notes The door s open, but the ride, it ain t free, and develops a line which will be built upon and woven into subsequent material: It s a town full of losers, I m pulling out of here to win. The verdict isn t certain, but the song ends well enough with the Big Man blowing out a coda. This is more of a paean to despair and desire than a song about a joyride, and with a driving rhythm such as this, you might simply just be too busy rocking out to notice.

Born To Run acknowledges the dead-end life and insane desire to escape, maybe a justification for the Thunder Road journey, maybe not. Musically, it s the best rock song Phil Spector never produced, a romantic rhythm driven by a sharp guitar line, tinkling piano, and sharp support from drum and bass sections. The mid-section rocks out with a sax solo, but bows into a dreamy break where he gets to similar lyrical matter to that of E Street Shuffle : The amusement park rises bold and stark, kids are huddled on the beach in a mist/I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight in an everlasting kiss. All the while, the pressures of a dead-end world burden on their shoulders, where the Highway s jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive and there is a need to be free that can t be denied. The arrangement supports the majesty of the lyrics in every note, and the result was Springsteen s first hit.

The nine minute-plus Jungleland is one great big epic, opening orchestral and turning into a Thunder Road cousin with Roy s piano and Bruce s resonating voice, all about the Magic Rat and his sleek machine picking up love and running from the law. A couple of minutes later, the song rises into ferocity, and what seems like another lyrical trip down the Boardwalk of Love instead places us squarely in Jungleland, the city of loss: even as the visionaries dress in the latest rage and the kids war off with rock and roll in the streets, the night has its price: The Rat s own dream guns him down as shots echo down them hallways in the night/No one watches as the ambulance pulls away or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light. The saxophone solo in the center is more of a strong dramatic respite, supporting the background strings and piano, until a revelation seems made. Lyrically and vocally, Springsteen seems more like Dylan, doing less singing than commentating, and brings a stirring conclusion wailing away until the imminent stop.

Badlands is the first of three prime cuts from the awesome '78 release Darkness On The Edge Of Town, a strict rock number where the romanticism is completely burned away, and where Roy Bittan s piano and Max Weinberg s drum lick are a more martial arrangement than ever before, Springsteen s guitar easily more angry and venomous in their licks and chords as well. That outside pressure is getting much more harder to take as you age, and if the kids who grew up in the streets "Born To Run are aging, they aren t aging gracefully: Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland/Got a head-on collision smashing in my guts man/I'm caught in a crossfire that I don't understand...Baby, I've got my facts learned real good right now/You better get it straight, darling/Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king/And a king ain t satisfied till he rules everything. The characters hold on to their hopes and dreams in the possibility they can spit right in the face of the Badlands: You gotta live it everyday/Let the broken heart stand as the price you gotta pay/We ll keep pushin til it s understood, and these badlands start treating us good.

The other two selections are really good, but might have some shaking their heads perhaps because they expected Prove It All Night or Candy s Room. The excellent Darkness On The Edge Of Town takes the tempo down to a haunting pace, and from a musical and lyrical perspective embodies every bright spot in that entire LP in one 4:30 piece, and as much as it was a proper final number on the parent album, it serves a justifying single selection here. However, The Promised Land might be that one exceptional track some people might want to rid of, a song that is slower, more owing to a heartland/country sound even as the solo still rocks out with guitar and saxophone. In some way, it recites the same sort of longing as Born To Run and Badlands, as the narrator wants to break from the normal reality of working and cruising for something more, a chance to leave the heartbreak and disillusion for something more. It works so well, that you might not care they re missing four other songs.

More confusing is selecting the right tracks to represent The River, that hulking 20-song monster from 1980 that concluded the thematic trilogy posed by Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town and also showed a more loose pop/rock feel that some felt was overshadowed. The same two songs that showed up on the 1995 compilation make a return appearance here, The River and Hungry Heart, but these are essentials, mind you.

The River still arrests me to this day, a stark ballad owned by Springsteen s doomed vocals, acoustic figures, and harmonica outbursts. If Racing In The Street showed up here, you could follow Thunder Road to that song and then tie that one to The River. This track in particular is a grim ballad visiting the same characters, the unnamed speaker and high school sweetheart Mary, whom would take a drive to dive, the river perhaps being that serene balance between young dreams and grown-up responsibilities. But reality is bitter: Mary s pregnant, the boyfriend s stuck in the Union working a nowhere construction job, and the marriage is not represented by wedding day smiles or walk down the aisle. All hopes are as dry as the river, but no matter how hard he tries to forget, he reminisces on the better days holding her by the reservoir. Is a dream a lie if it don t come true, or is it something worse, sings Bruce at the close of verse three, before he moans a goodbye vocal riff.

Hungry Heart was the man s first Top 10 hit, however, and that was due to a more effervescent feel that pays homage to 60 s pop and doesn t delve into any complex lyrical matter, instead just emphasizing the passing of love and the desire to be back in it. For the most part, the vocal harmonies and organ licks seem like a beautifully retro gesture, and Bruce sounds considerably different, but sells the song anyway.

But lookout! The next stop is Nebraska, which is the first real solo album in Springsteen s canon, 10 songs that play like demos but are actually full-fledged songs, only without the assistance of a full band. This was a risky move to say the least, and it wasn t welcomed by the mainstream, but just try to keep your spine straight when you hear Nebraska and Atlantic City, two tracks built upon acoustic guitar and harmonica and sounding like material from a lost Bob Dylan nightmare album. The first song is a bone-chilling ode to Charlie Starkweather, who killed 11 people in 5 states with girfriend Caril Fugate by his side, only to fry in the chair at the age of 19: From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a sawed off .410 on my lap/Through to the badlands of Wyoming, I killed everything in my path/I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done/At least for a little while, sir, me and her we had us some fun. The second track is loaded with anguished vocals both forefront and background, set in the gambling boom in South Jersey and following one man s desire to take his wife out of town following a shameful and illegal act that no doubt was mob-related and illegal. Hey, it s like Bruce sings: Down here it s just winners and losers, and don t get caught on the wrong side of that line/Well, I m tired of coming out on this losing end.

Disc two of this set picks up on Born In The U.S.A. and beyond, with three of the key hits from that album, which in turn also churned out four more. Born In The U.S.A. is a song legendary for all the weirdest reasons. Ronald Reagan saw this as a dedication to the red, white and blue, but Bruce was really p*ssed off at his country with this one: angry for sending off to die in Vietnam, killing his happy brother, and shunning him out of the world come his return back home, leaving him with no job, no security, no future. It s cynical, but sounds like an anthem, its unforgettable synthesizer melody and Max Weinberg s impressive drum assault sticking out like red-eye.

If Born In The U.S.A. was too bitter for your taste, maybe the barroom rock masterpiece Glory Days will prove an antidote. With its bluesy but up tempo rhythm driven by Danny Federici s slick organ, background vocals by the one and only Steven Van Zandt, and another punchy rhythm from drummer Weinberg, Springsteen uses his first two verses to talk about old friends who rehash the past, but then dreads this happening to him in the stripped-down third verse. Dancing In The Dark was the oddest touch on the entire album, it s rhythm solely the result of Roy Bittan and Danny Federici s keys, as well as Max Weinberg s thundering beats. The result was something of a pure 80s single, albeit a more superior and infectious one, and indeed it missed topping the charts by an inch. It s all about a restless young man who dances to the radio, ponders his image and his life, and wants to belong in that something happening somewhere, and indeed, what young man hasn t felt that feeling at least once.

Springsteen won his first Grammy in 1987, with the reflective LP Tunnel Of Love providing the opportunity. Written as a confessional of all the emotional trappings about love, mistrust and disaster, the album spawned two Top 10 hit singles, both featured here. Title number Tunnel Of Love is a moody piece which featured Roy Bittan s assistance on keyboards and background vocals from Patti Scalfa. Basically owing its prowess to Bittan s work, as well as some queasy guitar licks, Springsteen has fashioned a metaphorical piece that sucks any soft romanticism from the carnival ride we know from the title and replaces it with grim understatements: There s a room full of shadows that gets so dark, brother/It s easy for two people to lose each other/In this tunnel of love. Equally stirring in its emotional make-up is Brilliant Disguise, a haunting piece driven by acoustic/electric guitar chords, as well as a rhythmically sturdy drum track. This was the album s lead single and a respectable hit, not what many expected from the blue-collar hero who ruled 1984-85, especially with Bruce s sharp dissection of a troubled suspicious mind: I heard somebody call your name from underneath our willow/I saw something tucked in shame underneath your pillow I m just a lonely pilgrim, I walk this world in wealth/I want to know if it s you I don t trust/Cos I damn sure don t trust myself.

After disbanding with the E Street Band, he worked on a solo album in 1989, but over the course of two years had recorded enough material for two albums. Like Guns N Roses did before him, Springsteen released two individual albums in the same week, but they refused to top to charts. The first was Human Touch, represented here by the lone hit Human Touch. Keeping Roy Bittan on keyboards, but adding studio musicians Jeff Porcaro and Randy Jackson on drums and bass, Human Touch bares a similar moody atmosphere to that of Tunnel Of Love, only it allows for Bruce to flex more muscle on guitar, as he yearns for one simple act of physical contact with a loved one: Tell me, in a world without pity, do you feel what I m askin s too much/I just want something to hold on to/And a little of that human touch. This is the choice representative of that album, which many consider to be one of his lesser efforts.

The second album was Lucky Town, the result of finishing one album and churning out another. From that album are the churning rocker of faith and redemption, Living Proof, and the more country-based Lucky Town, which concerns getting past the misfortune of victory that was just failure in deceit These are, in reality, simple album tracks, seeing as how the album was represented by two singles (the rock hit Better Days and the stellar Leap Of Faith ) that are eschewed in favor of these tracks. But since those two albums are the only Springsteen studio LPs I actually lack, I found both of these songs nicely representative to their parent albums, and didn't mind the loss of those singles.

The pace picks up however with the awesome Streets Of Philadelphia, written and recorded solely by Bruce for the soundtrack of Jonathan Demme s Philadelphia motion picture. Both a cold, repetitive drum machine beat and equally unnerving keyboard touches allow the Boss to sing in vulnerability and resignation, perhaps from the point of view of the lead character in the movie, who is slowly dying out to his dismay. It got Bruce an Academy Award in 1993, and that s just unbelievable. In 1995, Bruce Springsteen released The Ghost Of Tom Joad, a mostly-acoustic album inspired by real life events that picked up where Nebraska left off. The Ghost Of Tom Joad is a bluesy acoustic guitar-and-harmonica track about a man who distances himself from the horrors of reality to set up a campfire and conjure up a hero from the Steinbeck universe.

It took four more years until Bruce reunited the E Street Band (with Steven Van Zandt and replacement Nils Lofgren back on the crew) and three more after that to record an album, although it took a tragedy to do so. In the face of the World Trade Center tragedy, he cut The Rising, an LP which was the first consummately excellent work he made since 1987, and won Grammy nominations all around. The rousing title anthem The Rising did manage to chart on the Hot 100, the Mainsteam Rock Singles, the Adult Contemporary and Top 40 Mainstays charts, but never really caught a fire like it should have. It rocks with a raw fervor that matches some of the best tracks from Born In The U.S.A., opening with delicacy but rising itself to the challenge of being a hard-rocking jam, with Bruce, Van Zandt and Lofgren providing three distinct guitar tracks that pack a powerhouse intensity, not unlike Max Weinberg s rim shots. The bridge slows the tempo down back to a similar dreamy groove laced with harmony vocals and Bruce reaching an epiphany of his dream of life. It s such a powerful rocker, you have to listen hard to hear Clarence Clemons wailing sax or the keyboard work of Bittan and Federici in the mix.

Mary s Place (not the prequel to "Born To Run" but more of a tribute to Sam Cooke) opens like a genuine country song, but then rocks with a organ riff and rowdy rhythm section that harks back to the old E Street days, with Clemons shining sax solo, R&B guitar power, cutting piano chords and the rabble-rousing chorus chant of Meet me at Mary s place, we re gonna have a party. This retro blast paves way for another track that follows the same rockin pattern The Rising achieved, the second single Lonesome Day, which opened the original album like gangbusters but stands alone as one solid rocker, with all members of the E Street posse playing their parts with passion and fire, from Steve and Patti s background vocals to Weinberg and Tallent s jubilant rhythm to...well, you get the picture. It simply rocks! Lyrically, it eschews a sort of divine wisdom from an ordinary heartbreak, something that only Bruce can pull off in a song as hard-hitting as this.

Disc two concludes with two original tracks from the 2001 Live In New York City double album. The first was the controversial American Skin (41 Shots), which was a protest piece written for Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant shot to death by policemen despite not carrying any weapons. The chant of shots cuts through the nerves more than the angry rhythm of the actual music, and Bruce s anger lies simply lies in the horrible fact that you can get killed just for living in your American skin. There is grief and horror in this track, but Land Of Hope And Dreams carries back to the theme of older Springsteen tracks: faith in dreams and the desire to hold onto them. The arrangement is slow, but not as maudlin as American Skin, instead comforting in Bruce s desire for his darlin to hop on the train with him to that promised land. The hero of the Darkness On The Edge Of Town world finally makes it to the other side at last.

Granted, there s a lot of stuff missing, from Growin Up and It s Hard To Be A Saint In The City to Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out and Backstreets to Prove It All Night and Adam Raised A Cain to Fade Away to My Hometown and I m On Fire to even One Step Up or Pink Cadillac or Secret Garden or My City Of Ruins. May I remind you of the absence of material from any of the Boss s boxed set releases, Live 1975-1985 or Tracks ? We have room enough for a third disc worth of stuff here!

But read the brief liner notes Bruce offers, since they tell you something I couldn t say better myself: "In any body of work there are obvious high points. The rest depends on who's doing the listening. Where you were, when it was, who you were with when a particular song or album cut the deepest." THE ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN may not capture all of Bruce s classic songs, from personal favorites to fan favorites to obscure singles ("57 Channels (And Nothin On) rings bells) and those long-awaited rarities (live version of Because The Night, anyone?), but it captures everything Bruce stood for and provides almost every essential track you can squeeze onto two discs. A five-star compilation this is, faithful reader, and I m not counting that bonus disc inside.

Yes, the bonus disc. Limited copies of this sucker contains 12 additional tracks worth of rarities, lost cuts, alternate versions, unreleased tracks, and other items that didn t make it to Tracks (you d think he might have enough for a second boxed set, but I didn t mind one disc). The lyrics are reprinted, and there are small blurbs relating to the origin and/or inspiration of the song.

From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come) is a pseudo rockabilly rave-up outtake from The River sessions, and was eventually covered by Dave Edmunds in 1982. Speaking of 1982, after Nebraska, Springsteen made a little home recording of another swinging track, The Big Payback, which is an awesome little ditty about a man fed up with his railroad job and eventually turns to crime. Odd enough subject matter, but not odd enough to rock out with. The lost B-side Held Up Without A Gun [inspired partly by the song You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) ] surfaces here in a hot, short live version from Uniondale, NY, on New Year s Eve 1980, and it comes and goes in 1:21 but is a welcome treat nonetheless. Also presented live from the tour for The River is a brooding and atmospheric cover of Jimmy Cliff s Trapped, which showed up on the We Are The World compilation LP but was one of a few quality tracks on that dated (and O.O.P.) 1985 release.

An unreleased gem from the sessions for Born In The U.S.A., None But The Brave is a slow-tempoed electric ballad set in the bars and 70's circuit in Asbury Park, and has that haunting lost love feel to it. Missing was Bruce s foray into playing with a drum machine, but also added synthesizer and lyrics, and the result was a track which Sean Penn ended up placing in his film The Crossing Guard. Also from a soundtrack, John Sayles 1999 Limbo, Lift Me Up was written to end that film, and it features Bruce Springsteen singing falsetto, so I m not sure whether this is a rarity or an oddity, since it works for it s lush soundscape, but sounds odd when the Boss is singing in high register areas. No big deal: Bruce sounds alright running through a rockin 1993 cover of Viva Las Vegas, which has a hot country feel, but still knows how to kick butt.

The time warp shifts back to 1983 and post- Nebraska with one song from a batch of acoustic takes he recorded in California, County Fair, which is a rich and reminiscent song about an end-of-summer fair on the outskirts of town, where the feeling of love is so strong that by the end, he wishes he d never have to let this moment go. Code Of Silence was written with Pittsburgh rocker Joe Grushecky in 1997, but appears here from a 1999 NYC live show with his E Street Band. It s a powerful little nugget that works well here, with Springsteen s shredding solo and Clarence Clemons own little moment on sax. Dead Man Walkin is presented here from Tim Robbins film of the same title (well, there s a g used at the end of the title of the movie), and I appreciated them bringing it here, as it is a dark and very unnerving piece. Finally, an acoustic country blues version of Countin On A Miracle is brought to life, which was previously used in film form as a close to live shows for The Rising tour. Bruce once again plays with his falsetto, and the result is yet another strange creation, but a nice addition nonetheless.

The overall quality of this disc is highly impressive, and hardcore fans should definitely grab a hold of it. But it works well for those who d rather a career retrospective; not only will they get THE ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, but they ll also get a taste of the kind of material they might wish to explore with the Tracks boxed set or just by simply picking up individual albums. Like I realized, it works to have basically all of them, but even then this 3-CD release is a real keeper.

P.S.: This is my 200th review, and I didn t believe I would even get past 195 for some time. Anyway, I ll hopefully be kicking out more jams in due time, and I even have a list of potential product reviews. Thanks to all the folks in the Web Of Trust, and I m proud to have been selected Top Reviewer in the field of Movies. Why don t I make to music as well?