It's been a long time since Springsteen has been hip, if he ever was. His coolness was in question even back in the '70s, despite the grudging thumbs-up ("Springsteen is all right") Lou Reed gave him on the live album Take No Prisoners. The aging population that loves "real rock 'n' roll" are his biggest supporters, from rock critic turned producer/manager Jon Landau through biographer Dave Marsh and on down. If Springsteen partied with Warhol, the photos are rarely anthologized.
Springsteen is neither glamorous nor mysterious, but as this three-disc compilation demonstrates, he is an extremely talented and important artist. Assembled as part of Columbia's Essential repackaging of its signature artists, The Essential Bruce Springsteen is a fine introduction to his work and it atones for the shoddy 1995 compilation Greatest Hits (12 tracks are common to both). The previous Hits collection was both too brief, and poorly selected. The Essential stretches 30 of Springsteen's best-known songs over two discs and then adds a third of odds-and-ends.
Springsteen's career has been a series of attacks and retreats. He stormed out of the gate in 1973 on Greetings from Asbury Park as a word-drunk boho who spent as much time in Manhattan as he did on the Jersey shore. Manfred Mann and Greg Kihn made "Blinded by the Light" and "For You" into hits by omitting words, smoothing out Springsteen's chaotic phrasing and tightening the rhythm. The original versions here are loose and elastic as they come, with rubbery drumming by early E Streeter Vinnie Lopez that was the polar opposite of Max Weinberg's robotic thud. The race for the rock 'n' roll prize picked up steam later that year with The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, but here, Springsteen traded some of the goofy Dylanesque wordplay of his debut for detailed, romantic character studies that borrowed from Van Morrison. When Tom Waits described Springsteen's songs from this period as "little black and white films," he was talking about material like "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)". And there has never been a bar band rave-up quite like "Rosalita", which is structured like a suite without losing any of its whiteboy R&B; energy.
The final phase of Springsteen's early charge was the 1975 album Born to Run, where he openly stated that he was trying to make the greatest rock album of all time (later he clarified that what he was shooting for was Phil Spector producing Roy Orbison with words by Dylan). Songs like "Born to Run" and "Jungleland" are overblown to a degree that some find comical (here is the structural template for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell). It's true, these songs swirl and build and jump from one discrete section to the next, and who now would try and get away with the line, "I wanna die with you, Wendy, on the street tonight in an everlasting kiss"? (Andrew WK, maybe.) This is rock mythology as gospel music, and there is no possible way to appreciate it other than to give yourself over to it completely.
Darkness on the Edge of Town from 1978 was the first retreat. Springsteen's lyrical focus darkened as his sound became leaner. This was the record in which Springsteen saw economy as a storytelling virtue, perhaps in emulation of fiction writers he admired like Flannery O'Connor. Unfortunately, Darkness is probably the album served most poorly by Essential. The omission of "Racing in the Street" is puzzling, considering that it's one of Springsteen's best ballads and also manages to turn the mythology of "Born to Run" completely on its head. "Candy's Room" is one of his best rock songs and should have replaced "Promised Land".
The two-disc album The River is difficult to pull from for an anthology. It was something of a summary of what Springsteen had done to that point, its upbeat frat-rock cuts alternating with country weepers. The Essential chooses "Hungry Heart" and "The River", one great song from each end of the spectrum. Obvious choices, certainly, but sensible. "Hungry Heart" was Springsteen's first Top 10 single and he followed that popularity by drawing inward and recording the solo acoustic Nebraska, the album that has certainly become the indie rock favorite in Springsteen's catalog. He was at home with the four-track years before it became an indie cliché, and he was writing stark, superbly focused songs that people have been covering ever since. "Nebraska" and "Atlantic City" are the two represented here, again completely obvious choices but ones that make the most sense for a Springsteen newcomer.
The second disc of The Essential picks up with "Born in the USA". At some point after Nebraska, Springsteen decided to kick his career back into high gear. His sound got huge, he became versed in the ways of MTV (though his videos were awful), and he basically lived in stadiums for a couple years. Born in the USA has little to recommend to an indie purist but listen to "Dancing in the Dark" and it's easy to hear why it was so popular: Springsteen's melodic gift was at its peak. The Essential adds "Glory Days", which I never liked (I would have swapped it for "I'm on Fire", the album's subtlest moment), and the title track, about which little remains to be said. It was ironic but the patriots loved (and love) it.
After the deluge of Born in the USA, Springsteen laid low for a good ten years to make quieter music and eventually raise a family. Tunnel of Love from 1987, recorded largely alone at his home studio, is Springsteen's most underrated album and certainly his last great one. The title track has the booming synth-pop sound of the preceding record, but Springsteen is painting with a finer brush and dealing with emotion in the abstract. "Brilliant Disguise" is perhaps Springsteen's finest lyric, a sharply observed mediation on vulnerability and self-doubt. The two albums Springsteen released in 1992 were the weakest of his career, and Essential rescues the titles cuts and "Living Proof" from the heap (though only "Human Touch" approaches the best of Tunnel of Love).
Springsteen peaked melodically in the early 80s, but he's compensated for his weaker tunes since by becoming a more skilled storyteller. The Ghost of Tom Joad has the stark sound and detail of some Nebraska songs, but the title track, represented here, lacks a tune that sounds like it has always existed. The events of 9/11 energized Springsteen, calling him back to the spotlight for his first record with the E Street band since Born in the USA. I like the melody of "The Rising", but it sounds an awful lot like Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner", and "Mary's Place" doesn't have nearly enough of a hook for a song about a party. As demonstrated on these songs and the live tribute to Amadou Diallo, "American Skin (41 Shots)", Springsteen addresses big contemporary topics with nuance, but it's tough to listen to songs repeatedly when you know they're connected with a single real-life event.
The bonus rarities disc is spotty but has awesome highs. It's great to finally have Springsteen's dynamic live cover of Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped" on CD, which was previously released only on the USA for Africa album (it was a radio staple in 1985). The slow, gentle "Lift Me Up", which Springsteen recorded for a John Sayles film, has an ungodly beautiful falsetto and perhaps Springsteen's best melody of the 90s. I could do without the cover of "Viva Las Vegas", however, and "Code of Silence" is a Springsteen rocker on autopilot. But that's why they're a bonus. The meat of this collection is enough to chew on for a lifetime. The two discs get the Springsteen story as right as is possible in 150 minutes, and if they don't work, then Springsteen is definitely not for you.
