The Album Collection Vol 2, 1987-1996

This set is excellent and well worth investing in. Tunnel of Love is one of his best records and sounds better than ever, although I am not a fan of splitting these albums over two discs. Human touch was, until Working On A Dream, his worst album. With some great songs it suffered from stodgy production and over-wrought arrangements. It has its share of classics – often unheralded songs such as With Every Wish, Cross My Heart, Soul Driver and I Wish I Were Blind, but some real dross which made it the first non-essential Bruce album in my opinion and the first time quality control really slipped (Tracks and even 18 Tracks have subsequently made this worse). Lucky Town, on the other hand, is a lean, immediate, highly listenable album with some of his best and under-rated songs – If I Should Fall Behind, The Big Muddy, Better Days and the fantastic Souls Of The Departed are the core of an under-rated, fantastic album which is more considered and diverse than it is often given credit for (rubbish cover picture, though!).Lucky Town made the follow-up live album, MTV Plugged, even more risible. Stodgy arrangements, an embarrassingly, cringe-worthy opening track, and very little to offer except an interesting version of the previously unreleased Light Of Day. It was made even worse as it, in my view, impacted negatively on Bruce’s legacy as a live performer by offering a bland interpretation of some not very good songs with a few stodgy classics thrown in. The worst thing, though, was that if Bruce has genuinely performed an acoustic set – as we have since seen in 1996 and in particular in 2005 – then we could have had ne interpretations of some of the Human Touch songs in particular. A really disappointing, and wasted, opportunity which one would hope is fixed in the future with archival releases.The Ghost Of Tom Joad is, in retrospect, one of the better sounding albums here as I felt its sound was vastly improved. The songs are still excellent. It is a tough listen – harsh, depressing and oppressive but rewarding and an album that puts Bruce’s social conscience front and centre even more so than Nebraska. Strangely, I never found it as immediate as Nebraska – a better collection of songs – but still a wonderful album again featuring a number of immediate classics which swam against the tide of what was expected in the 90s of Bruce, particularly given two of the previous three albums.The two EPs remain curate’s eggs with some interesting tracks and performances. But, for me, the real disappointment of a box set like this is that it failed to create something new from the often fairly disparate and seemingly random tracks Bruce released in the 1990s. One thinks of:Remember When The Music – from The Harry Chapin Tribute (recorded 1987, released 1990)Viva Las Vegas – from The Last Temptation Of Elvis (1990)Gypsy Woman – from A Tribute To Curtis Mayfield (1994)Streets Of Philadelphia – from Philadelphia Soundtrack (1994)Missing – from The Crossing Guard Soundtrack (1995)Hungry Heart (Berlin 95 Version) (1995)Dead Man Walkin’ – from Dead Man Walkin’ Soundtrack (1996)Lift Me Up – from Limbo Soundtrack (1999)There are other tracks (Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips!) and maybe eight songs is a bit much, and some of these are on the recent Record Store Day Greatest Hits vinyl and also on the 2003 Essential Bruce Springsteen CD and download, but wouldn’t have been great to have an EP containing at the very least Missing, Dead Man Walkin’, Gypsy Woman and Lift Me Up, in this box set to show the diversity and experimentation in Bruce’s much as the decade progressed? This is my only gripe about this set – it is incomplete and could easily have presented a different narrative for what many consider to be a lost decade. It is anything but. These are very rare tracks to find on vinyl and would have been perfect for this set.Many will be familiar with these albums but the remastering makes them sound wonderful. The packaging is excellent, as others have commented on, but I don’t feel it has the same quality as the first box set. Still, that’s nit-picking! A diverse and more progressive collection than is often perceived, and far from the “lost decade” many talk about.One other point is that the superb Live 75-85 box set seems to have been forgotten about in the remastering series. Hopefully we see it again in a fresh new master. But what next? An expanded vinyl box set of Tracks / 18 Tracks would be fantastic.Tunnel Of Love *****Human Touch **Lucky Town ****Live MTV Plugged *The Ghost Of Tom Joad *****Chimes Of Freedom EP***Blood Brothers EP***Overall ****

I appreciate these are expensive but they do sound tremendous and the quality of the box set and packaging is excellent. The albums are proper 180 gram vinyl and the sleeves are quality paper and the correct size for the bigger vinyl to easily slip in and out. Not every box set I own took that into account! The small booklet that accompanies it is well put together and has a scrapbook look about it. Not everyone will be interested in these at this price but if you are a big fan which I am and you can stretch the budget to afford these I would highly recommend!

Poor presentation lets this set down badly. We all have our own opinions on the records included so I'm not going to go into those in depth what is important is the quality of the set. The excellent re-mastering makes these discs worthwhile but unfortunately the presentation is very poor for any box set never mind one so highly priced. The discs are presented in slightly oversized sleeves made of thin card and don't have the "comfy" fit that most LP's have. Inner sleeves are made of card and are, conversely, slightly too small increasing the risk of scratching. No protective polythene or paper inners are provided. Worst of all, however, is the vinyl itself. It's not a solid 180gm but something less (probably 150 or even 140gm) and so lacks rigidity (it's quite floppy).

The records sound great but the pressings aren't the best. quite a bit of surface noise, and a bit of the dread non-fill (where you hear a ripping sound, where the vinyl hasn't filled the grooves properly).disappointed.By the way I bought the first box set and the pressings were perfect.

Overpriced and it should have had Greatest hits included not sold own it's own for RSD just another rip off but what's in the box is great

Great collection of vinyl albums in a collectors box at a superb price

...'nuff said.

The Boss not quite his best albums but a superb box set none the less.