Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Live/1975-85 (1986)

In late 1986 and early 1987, I often went to the music/electronics section of the Walmart in Commerce, Texas and eyeballed the 5 LP box set of this release, wondering if it was worth the money and would it properly feed my music addiction. I hadn't yet purchased a CD player - that would happen about a year later. The price for the set at the time was around $23 which was $30 more than this poor college student had on hand. The set was never purchased, but many years later, I inherited this CD set from one of my wife's cousins and here we are.

The release on Monday, November 10, 1986 (just in time for Christmas shopping!) was an event, with many stores selling out immediately. The box set debuted at #1 on Billboard's album chart - a rare occurrence at the time. Springsteen is great performer and if you like all his music, this was a prize. However, since I'm admittedly not a hard core fan, I'm of the opinion that listening to the whole thing is a slog (disc 2 in particular) and could have easily been pared down into an epic single disc release. It's taken me three days to get through the set this time. But I guess the words "brevity" and "Springsteen Live" don't belong together so I'll just be moving along now.

Press of the time:

• Stereo Review: "Exhausting, exhilarating, moving, funny, raunchy, majestic"
• Rolling Stone: "the ultimate rock-concert experience of the past decade finally packaged for living-room consumption."
• High Fidelity: "represents as ambitious and fully realized a vision of what has become the American Dream as has been witnessed over the last ten years."
• Smash Hits (7½ out of 10): "Is it worth £25? For the Springsteen fan, yes - it's a wonderful present to give yourself."
• CashBox: "An unparalleled event."
• Billboard: "Superior in every respect"
• Robert Christgau (A-): "There isn't one of its ten sides that excites me end to end, and there isn't one I couldn't play with active pleasure now or five years from now. If anything, it isn't long enough."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #1
• Billboard Pop CD: #1
• CashBox: #1
• CashBox CD: #1
• Rolling Stone: #1

Tracks: Here's my suggested track listing for the aforementioned "epic single disc release"

Side A:

• Thunder Road
• Hungry Heart
• Two Hearts
• Fire
• Cadillac Ranch

Side B:

• War (gotta get the single on there. It peaked at #8 pop, #4 rock)
• Born in the USA
• Born To Run
• Tenth Avenue Freeze Out

CD/cassette bonus track:

• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Which isn't too far removed from the promo-only LP issued by Columbia: https://www.discogs.com/release/4853200-Bruce-Springsteen-The-E-Street-Band-Live1975-85. Now if that album had been released commercially, I wouldn't have hesitated in buying the LP or cassette in 1986.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: see above

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
Greatest Hits (1995)
Tunnel Of Love (1987)

Blog post #2050

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel Of Love (1987)

"LOST SUMMER OF MARK" WEEK (AUGUST 14-20, 2022)

Note: this release was originally purchased as a CD which was either sold, stolen, traded or lost, then replaced by another CD.

His best song may be Born To Run, but Tunnel of Love is my favorite Springsteen tune and has been since I first heard it on the radio or saw the video on MTV. Even though this was one of the first dozen CDs I ever purchased, I haven't heard the whole album all the way through since the late '80s, so let's give it a spin and see how much I've forgotten over the past decades.

Press of the time:

• Robert Christgau (A): "By depicting the fear of commitment as sheer terror, he does the impossible: renews L-O-V-E as pop subject."
• Smash Hits (7 out of 10): "most of the time he sounds almost tender"
• Billboard: "this is masterful work"
• CashBox: "Springsteen has confounded expectations yet again"
• Rolling Stone: "its simpler sound is perfectly suited to the more intimate stories Springsteen is telling"
• Stereo Review: "I suggest you hear this one immediately"

In The Village Voice's annual 'Pazz & Jop' critic's list, this album placed at #2 for 1987. In 1989, the album was ranked #25 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Best Albums of the Eighties."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #1
• CashBox: #1
• Rolling Stone: #1
• Billboard Pop CD: #1
• CashBox Top CD: #1

Tracks:

1. Ah, now I remember - things get off to a brief but rousing start with the ol' Bo Diddley beat on Ain't Got You that relies almost solely on Bruce's powerful vocal performance.
2. I'd like to hear Tougher Than The Rest with softer mix because it's a nice tune. Maybe I'm just spoiled to the acoustic EBTG cover. I dig the twangy guitar solo here.
3. I have no memory of All That Heaven Will Allow, but that Latin-lite groove is certainly infectious.
4. Spare Parts sounds a lot like Ain't Got You but over a straight-ahead beat and thicker instrumentation. Good rocker, especially when it kicks in after the first chorus.
5. Bruce switches into Bob Dylan mode in Cautious Man. Not my thing.
6. I like the pop sensibilities of Walk Like A Man with Max Weinberg providing the relentless rim clicks that represent the footsteps underneath the simple but effective synth pads.
7. Title track. That's the stuff.
8. Yikes! The lyrics of Two Faces hit a little too close to home for this guy back in '88. Confession is good for the soul, I guess. I like the music, though, which is so similar to the following track as to essentially be an intro to it.
9. I know Brilliant Disguise was the big hit lead single, but to me it's just alright, particularly the lackluster chorus. Maybe Bruce was enjoying a little residual chart success leftover from the previous album?
10. Probably my second favorite cut on the album. I like the simplicity of One Step Up and often sing "one step up and two steps back" to myself whenever the need arises in my everyday life. Fortunately, those words don't apply to my marriage as they did to Bruce's at the time he wrote them.
11. When You're Alone is pretty bland filler, especially considering what comes before it. A lot of repeated lyrics here which is sometimes done for emphasis and is other times simply lazy songwriting.
12. The album ends quietly - as it should - with Valentine's Day, a lilting, melancholy waltz about longing and love, basically summing up the themes of the album.

Song	Hot 100	Rock
Brilliant Disguise	5	1
Tunnel of Love	9	1
One Step Up	13	2
Spare Parts	-	28
All That Heaven Will Allow	-	5

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I bought a copy of this CD in early 1988 and had visions of impressing the young ladies by picking them up in my '85 Olds with my new Sony portable CD player cranking out some Springsteen tunes. At the time, I was particularly enamored with a member of my college's basketball team and had our first date all planned out in my mind. I talked to this woman on the phone, but things never really progressed beyond that. I have no idea if she was interested in dating me, but things quickly fell apart when I discovered she was a single parent of a toddler and I - aged 21 years, terribly naïve and immature - was terrified by that fact. Looking back, it all turned out for the best for all involved. I don't recall if that portable CD player ever impressed anybody, probably because the thing skipped whenever you hit even the shallowest pothole, despite the included "car mounting plate."

And don't even get me started on my "bolo tie phase" of 1987-88.

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
Greatest Hits (1995)

Bruce Springsteen - Greatest Hits (1995)

Other than the four new songs tacked on to the end, this compilation now plays like the Cliffs Notes version of The Essential Bruce Springsteen. It's mistitled - there's at least 8 'hits' missing - it's more like it should have been titled "Bruce Springsteen: Favorites Plus Four" Don't get me wrong, I dig most of it and Springsteen's legendary status is well-deserved, I'm just disappointed because it could have been better. With 7 top ten singles, the Born In The USA album could be a greatest hits release in itself so picking tracks from that one would be a difficult task, but I'm really missing the title track from Tunnel Of Love, Springsteen's last great single (yeah, I said it).

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #1

Tracks:

Song	Hot 100	Rock
Born to Run	23	-
Thunder Road	-	-
Badlands	42	-
The River	-	-
Hungry Heart	5	-
Atlantic City	-	10
Dancing In The Dark	2	1
Born in the U.S.A.	9	8
My Hometown	6	6
Glory Days	5	3
Brilliant Disguise	5	1
Human Touch	16	1
Better Days	16	-
Streets of Philadelphia	9	25
Secret Garden	19	-
Murder Incorporated	-	14
Blood Brothers	-	-
This Hard Land	-	-

Top 40 omissions: Prove It All Night (#33), Fade Away (#20), Cover Me (#7), I'm On Fire (#6), I'm Goin' Down (#9), War (#8), Tunnel Of Love (#9), and One Step Up (#13).

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)

Bruce Springsteen - The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)

E Street Band member Clarence Clemons died the other day at the age of 69. This reminded me that I have only one Springsteen release, this 3 CD set. This seemed like the right time to listen to it. I was never a big Springsteen fan, but I enjoyed his sound and energy from time to time. I admire his ability to maintain his 'working man' image while charging $200 for concert tickets and $40 for concert tees. Not many people could get away with that mess. This collection contains my favorite Springsteen song, Tunnel of Love, but I wish it also contained Pink Cadillac, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, and 57 Channels. The CD booklet just contains lyrics; I'd expected more from such a retrospective.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #14

Tracks:
Disc 1: For me, the highlights here are Blinded By The Light, Rosalita, Born To Run, and Hungry Heart, probably the first Springsteen song I ever heard. Has there ever been a better rock and roll song title than Thunder Road? I know I'm supposed to like Jungleland, but it's just too overly ambitious for my tastes. While I can appreciate the work, it's difficult to get through his dark, pessimistic work like The River, Nebraska, and Atlantic City.

Disc 2: The first four tracks, Born In The USA, Glory Days, Dancing In The Dark, and Tunnel Of Love are right in my wheelhouse. Human Touch is Tunnel Of Love redux, so I like it, but things soon go dark again with the Oscar & Grammy winning Street Of Philadelphia and continues with The Ghost Of Tom Joad, and songs from Springsteen's reaction to the events of 9/11/2001, The Rising. The song Mary's Place owes a great deal to Sam Cooke's Meet Me At Mary's Place; Springsteen should have given Cooke a writing credit at the very least. There's also a live version of American Skin, a song about the NYPD 1999 police shooting death of Amadou Diallo. This song is very moving and well done, but geez, I can't take much more of this. Very depressing. Fortunately, things turn optimistic for the final track, a live recording of Land Of Hope And Dreams, an upbeat this-train-is-bound-for-glory kind of song.

Bonus disc: I've said it before: I don't buy greatest hits compilations to discover new music. Yet here we've got live tracks, covers, b-sides, demos, soundtrack filler, and other previously non-released tracks. This disc no doubt included to give the hard core fans something new to buy from $pring$teen. I'll leave it for them, because it doesn't do much for us casual fans. There's a decent live cover of Jimmy Cliff's Trapped that originally appeared on the 1985 We Are The World album. There's also a fun cover of Viva Las Vegas, but that's a hard song to mess up. The rest, like I said, is for hard core Springsteen completists only (and there's millions of those). Contrary to the CD title, these tracks are hardly essential.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: The first Springsteen album I heard in its entirety was 1982's Nebraska. Since my taste at that time leaned more towards New Wave techno-pop, you can imagine how much I disliked Nebraska back then. Of course, I loved the mid '80s stuff, and even owned the Tunnel Of Love CD. I wonder whatever happened to that. After purchasing that CD, I starting wearing bolo ties because of the cover pic of Springsteen.

In the summer of 1985, my friend Brett worked at a K-Mart and had access to the huge 3'x5' promotional posters that record companies would ship to stores. Thanks to him, I had a huge Born In The USA poster in my dorm room for a year or two, but then gave it away for whatever reason. I shoulda kept it. I just looked on eBay and saw one being offered for $149. It looked like the one below.

Thinking of Clarence Clemons reminds me of his recurring role on the TV series Nash Bridges and his 1985 single You're A Friend Of Mine with vocals by Jackson Browne.