Eco-friendly reissue of effective career overview

Several of Legacy’s two-disc Essential releases have been upgraded with a third-disc and plastic-free eco-friendly packaging. In Bruce Springsteen’s case, the original 2003 Essential set already included a third disc of rarities, and all three discs are reproduced here verbatim. The only difference with this 3.0 reissue appears to be the new quad-fold cardboard case. That said, Springsteen’s Essential — 1.0 or 3.0 — is an effective overview of a career that couldn’t be summarized to everyone’s satisfaction in only three discs. Disc one samples tracks from 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. through 1982’s Nebraska, disc two samples from 1984’s chart-topping Born in the U.S.A. through 2002’s The Rising, and disc three provides odds ‘n’ sods from throughout Springsteen’s career, many officially unreleased anywhere else. The collection highlights seminal works with the E Street Band, solo recordings, hit singles, live tracks and soundtrack contributions, providing an overview that’s musically inviting to Springsteen neophytes and debate-inducing to long-time fans. What’s missing easily compares to what’s here, but such is life with a compilation; there’s not enough room to capture everyone’s favorites, and Essential’s producers haven’t tried.

By sampling in chronological order from Springsteen’s releases, the first two discs compact twenty years into two hours, flashing through two decades of artistic development. The set opens with Springsteen’s love of wordplay in full bloom, stuffing immense wads of vocabulary into the rhymes of “Blinded by the Light,” “For You” and “Spirit in the Night.” His poetry turns to romantic imagery on “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” and the E Street band’s epochal sound finally comes to the fore on “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run,” and “Badlands,” with Clarence Clemons’ husky sax swelling alongside the band’s propulsive rhythms. Springsteen’s urban landscapes of last-chance lovers and desperate adolescents are cinematic in form and epic in length stretching well past the two-minutes-thirty of AM radio hits. Starting with 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town the selections develop a sense of Springsteen’s introspection and social conscious, including the class distinctions of “Badlands” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” the restless wandering and despair of “The Promised Land,” and the hard-scrabble fatalism of “The River.” Even The River’s hit single, “Hungry Heart,” with the Turtles’ Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan providing sunny harmony vocals, is based on themes of dissatisfaction and leaving. The darkness turned absolutely bleak on Nebraska’s 4-track demos, with the title track’s first-person rendering of spree killer Charles Starkweather, and the fatalistic crime and corruption of the grim, pre-makeover “Atlantic City.”

Disc two opens with the similarly dark title track to Born in the U.S.A., but pumped up with a pounding, radio-ready rock arrangement. Like many of Springsteen’s upbeat works, the lyrics are at odds with the music’s anthemic qualities. Max Weinberg’s drumming pounds out oversized studio beats for the nostalgic “Glory Days” and the synthesizer riffed “Dancing in the Dark.” Three years passed between the massive success of Born in the U.S.A. and its follow-up, Tunnel of Love. The latter album is a more personal effort, with Springsteen choreographing members of the E Street Band, rather than gathering them together for planned sessions. The album’s title track comments on the unexpected complexities of married life, and the Brill Building baion-beat “Brilliant Disguise” expresses painful uncertainty and ambivalence.

Another five years passed before Springsteen issued the 1992 album pair Human Touch and Lucky Town, and neither advanced his legend. As a songwriter, he still had something to say, but musically he drew from generic rock production. Of the two, Lucky Town is more engaged, and the two songs here, the title track and “Living Proof,” resound with poetic word craft and emphatic vocals. The following year’s soundtrack contribution, “Streets of Philadelphia,” stripped Springsteen’s sound to a drum beat and synthesizer wash. Its stark arrangement and subdued vocal reflect the emaciation of the film’s protagonist, but also echo Springsteen’s earlier themes of desolation, desperation and loss. Two years later he’d return to the Americana-themed works of Nebraska with the modern day dust bowl folk songs of The Ghost of Tom Joad. The confusion and dislocation Springsteen had expressed on Born in the U.S.A. turned to anger and bitterness, as a decade further along the problems of the underclass had been swept further under the rug rather than improved.

Springsteen toured Tom Joad as a solo acoustic show in 1995 and 1996, and then went silent until a 2000 live reunion with the E Street Band. The reunion in New York City is documented here with the social documentary “American Skin (41 Shots)” and the optimistic and inclusive declarations of “Land of Hope and Dreams” that provide a contrarian’s response to Woody Guthrie’s “This Train is Bound for Glory.” The question of whether Springsteen and E Street would reunite for studio sessions was answered with 2002’s The Rising, the full band’s first album since 1984’s Born in the U.S.A. The title song is a classic Springsteen anthem, with a sing-along revivalist chorus that belies the lyric’s dire story of a firefighter’s tragic climb of the bombed World Trade Center tower. The celebratory soul of “Mary’s Place” recalls the band’s early work, but without the dark undercurrents of “Lonesome Day.”

While the first two discs survey Springsteen’s albums, disc three provides the collector’s bait of rarities, alternate takes and live versions unavailable on other official releases. The disc opens with a 1979 studio take of “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come),” a tune Springsteen gave to Dave Edmunds and released in his own voice only on this set. It’s followed by the Nebraska-era solo rockabilly “The Big Payback,” a raucous New Years live take of “Held Up Without a Gun” and a 1984 live cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped.” The Born in the U.S.A. outtake “None But the Brave” offers a classic E Street memory of Asbury Park’s 1970s rock ‘n’ roll bars. The mid-90s drum-loop lined “Missing” found Springsteen experimenting, as did his falsetto vocal for “Lift Me Up,” the latter from the soundtrack to John Sayles’ film Limbo. There’s a by-the-numbers cover of “Viva Las Vegas,” a live version of the otherwise unreleased rocker “Code of Silence,” an off-the-cuff solo country-blues rendition of The Rising’s “Countin’ on a Miracle,” and Springsteen’s stark title track for the film “Dead Man Walking.” The disc’s greatest surprise is the otherwise unreleased post-Nebraska “County Fair,” an unusually sentimental ode that drifts away in an unresolved musical tag.

Springsteen’s short liner notes acknowledge that this set couldn’t possibly please fans weaned on the original albums. There’s simply too many emotional connections between times and places and people and songs to capture in forty-two tracks. Instead, the first two discs provide a convincing view of Springsteen’s greatness, and a quick tour through many of the endless highlights of his catalog, while disc three offers up rarities that demonstrate what he leaves in the can is often more compelling than other artists’ best work. All three discs provide a map to the additional treasures awaiting listeners who take on Springsteen’s full catalog, and Bob Ludwig’s remastering is particularly sweet on the earlier albums’ selections. The set’s 44-page booklet includes extensive production and musical credits, photos, and full lyrics for each song. If you’re not ready to snap up Springteen’s first eight albums plus The Rising, this is a great place to get a sample. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]