Greatest Hits

Performer: Bruce Springsteen
Artist: Flo & Eddie; Jeff Porcaro
Distributor: MSI Music Distribution

Notes: Personnel includes: Bruce Springsteen (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, harmonica, keyboards, bass, percussion); Steve Van Zandt (acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, background vocals); Nils Lofgren (guitar); Clarence Clemons (saxophone, percussion, background vocals); Roy Bittan (piano, Fender Rhodes piano, keyboards, synthesizer, glockenspiel, background vocals); Danny Federici (piano, organ, keyboards, glockenspiel, background vocals); David Sancious (keyboards); Garry Tallent (bass, background vocals); Randy Jackson (bass); Max Weinberg (drums, percussion, background vocals); Jeff Porcaro (drums, percussion); Ernest "Boom" Carter (drums); Patti Scialfa, Flo & Eddie (background vocals). Producers include: Bruce Springsteen, Mike Appel, Jon Landau, Steve Van Zandt, Chuck Plotkin. Engineers: Louis Lahav, Jimmy Iovine, Neil Dorfsman, Toby Scott. Includes liner notes by Bruce Springsteen. "Streets Of Philadelphia" won 1995 Grammy Awards for Song Of The Year, Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Song Written Specifically For A Motion Picture Or For Television. "Streets Of Philadelphia" was also nominated for Record Of The Year. You can grumble about the early romps that aren't here--what, no "Rosalita"?--or about your favorite B-side not being included, but the fact is these are the songs that have lasted through Bruce Springsteen's first two decades, and you could hardly ask for more Springsteen on a single disc. This really is the cream. The four blockbusters that open GREATEST HITS weren't actually hits--"Born To Run" peaked at #23 on the charts, "Badlands" didn't break the top 40, and the other two weren't singles at all--but they laid down the rules for all the hits that followed and they've remained concert and rock radio staples. "Born To Run" wraps a restless American dream into one of the most rollicking rock 'n' roll singles ever made; the latter couple find the dreamer waking up and finding real folk struggling with that dream everywhere he looks. What follows is one of the greatest strings of singles to ever deal head-on with that confrontation between dreams and realities. The four new songs on GREATEST HITS find Springsteen finally finding a way to incorporate his E Street Band--which hadn't performed on a studio album for 11 years before this--into his current infatuation with mellower, though no less hard-hitting rock. "Murder Incorporated" is actually an E Street outtake from 1982, and it's an all-out, searing track. The others, all 1995 recordings (though "This Hard Land" was also written in the early eighties) form a cycle about unrealized dreams, in love, friendship and life.

Rolling Stone (4/6/95, pp.60-61) - 3 Stars - Good - "...GREATEST HITS comes across as a collection of familiar songs, each stellar in its own right...with the grafted-on bonus of four new tracks recorded with the E Street Band..." Entertainment Weekly (3/10/95, pp.66-67) - "...Arranged chronologically, the set winds its way through Springsteen's musical and emotional journey. It's still an invigorating trip..." - Rating: B+

Bruce Springsteen came out of New Jersey in the early 1970s sounding like a cross between Bob Dylan and early Tom Waits, backed by the rambunctious E Street Band. After toughening up his sound, Springsteen created his 1975 masterpiece, BORN TO RUN, which garnered critical acclaim for its blend of Spectorian grandeur and street poetry. Nine years later, BORN IN THE U.S.A. made him a worldwide superstar with its beefed-up stadium-rock sound. Along the way, he's produced such low-key acoustic-based milestones as NEBRASKA and THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD, never losing the blue-collar ethos that is central to his vision. His 2002 album, THE RISING, is considered one of the finest artistic responses to the 9/11tragedy produced in the event's immediate aftermath.

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