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
the E Street Band behind once he put the
Born in the U.S.A. tour in the history books. The blockbuster success of
Born in the U.S.A. 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 left
the E Street Band as
Born started its ascendancy, while his 1985 marriage to
Julianne Phillips quickly curdled.
Springsteen 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
The Album Collection: 1987-1996, Vol. 2.
Between 1987 and 1995,
Springsteen only released four studio albums --
Tunnel of Love, the twin records
Human Touch and
Lucky Town, and
The Ghost of Tom Joad -- 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
Springsteen, illustrating how he wasn't quite sure how to move forward.
Tunnel of Love 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
Springsteen -- but its essential unease opens the door to years when
Bruce wasn't comfortable being the Boss.
Nowhere is that truer than
Human Touch, an album constructed like a big early-'90s blockbuster that was immediately undercut by the simultaneous release of
Lucky Town, a record that remains ragged underneath its polish. The 1993
In Concert -- which was the first official
Springsteen 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.
The Ghost of Tom Joad, often compared to the stark
Nebraska, isn't quite austere, but it does show how
Springsteen was striving to reconnect with the muse that powered him through his glory days, so it serves as an unlikely cousin to the
Blood Brothers EP, where he starts to rev up
the E Street Band again.
The Album Collection: 1987-1996, Vol. 2, 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
Tunnel of Love,
Human Touch, and
In Concert 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
![Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) [180 Gram Vinyl]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602547658562_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) [180 Gram Vinyl]")
![Brothers and Sisters [LP]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602537287987_p0_v3_s90x140.jpg "Brothers and Sisters [LP]")
![Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 [LP]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0889854415518_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 [LP]")
