Appearing nearly four years after its predecessor,
The Album Collection: 1987-1996, Vol. 2
chronicles
Bruce Springsteen
's difficult middle age, an era that began with 1987's
Tunnel of Love
and ended in 1995, when the release of the haunting
The Ghost of Tom Joad
was complicated by the first stirrings of the reunion of
the E Street Band
.
Springsteen
left
behind once he put the
Born in the U.S.A.
tour in the history books. The blockbuster success of
felt like a culmination of everything he worked toward in the previous decade, but he found himself at loose ends, not helped by shifts in his personal life: his brother-in-arms
Steven Van Zandt
as
Born
started its ascendancy, while his 1985 marriage to
Julianne Phillips
quickly curdled.
swiftly found a lasting love in
Patti Scialfa
-- the pair married in 1991, just two years after his divorce from
Phillips
-- but it still took
Bruce
a long time to find his artistic footing, and those years in the wilderness are chronicled on
.
Between 1987 and 1995,
only released four studio albums --
, the twin records
Human Touch
and
Lucky Town
, and
-- which means this box is buttressed by the 1993 live set
In Concert/MTV Plugged
and two EPs, 1988's
Chimes of Freedom
and 1996's
Blood Brothers
. Adding this ephemera accentuates the essential yearning fueling this era of
, illustrating how he wasn't quite sure how to move forward.
is the masterpiece of this era, a record that is by some measures his most candid. It's so good, it seems like it would belong with the group of albums captured on the first
Album Collection
-- the final undisputed great record from
-- but its essential unease opens the door to years when
wasn't comfortable being the Boss.
Nowhere is that truer than
, an album constructed like a big early-'90s blockbuster that was immediately undercut by the simultaneous release of
, a record that remains ragged underneath its polish. The 1993
In Concert
-- which was the first official
album to capture a concert in its entirety -- opens with the cheerfully ribald "Red Headed Woman," a tip of the hat to
Scialfa
that also signals how he was starting to right himself, to bring his different sides into balance.
, often compared to the stark
Nebraska
, isn't quite austere, but it does show how
was striving to reconnect with the muse that powered him through his glory days, so it serves as an unlikely cousin to the
EP, where he starts to rev up
again.
, like its predecessor, contains albums remastered via the Plangent Process, and the audio is as full and rich as its companion; where the '70s albums were given muscle by remastering, these '80s and '90s records are stripped of their digital brightness and seem warmer and fuller. If the decision to make
,
into double LPs means they're slightly cumbersome listens, they nevertheless sound wonderful, and that's the ultimate reason for acquiring this box: these records have never sounded -- or have been presented -- better than they are here. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine