"Best of" Bruce Springsteen?

On April 19th, Bruce Springsteen will release a new greatest hits compilation titled Best of Bruce Springsteen.  Best of… is touted as “staples of Bruce’s live shows, best-selling breakouts, and recent releases together in one set for the first time,” (emphasis mine) while the sticker on the album’s front cover declaims that the release is, “A CAREER-SPANNING HITS COLLECTION” “featuring 19 Classic Tracks.” 

It is 2024, and the entirety of recorded music – definitely the entirety of Bruce Springsteen’s officially-released material – is available to anyone with an internet connection. Even if you believe that music fans, especially folks who are newer to E Street, are open to the kind of direction and guidance provided by a greatest hits compilation, this release does not provide it. What it actually is is a hodge-podge of 18 Springsteen originals that lack the gravitas of the original greatest hits (or even the successive ones), and will confuse anyone trying to use this release as a starting point or reference guide. Shall we take a look?

The best thing I can say about this is that it is presented chronologically and by that I mean that one does not have to strain oneself to determine why these songs are in the order that they are in. The problem is that it's unclear from this tracklisting what story is being presented with this release. If we go back to the marketing copy, what’s supposed to be remarkable about this release is that it is a combination of 1) live staples 2) “best-selling breakouts” (I don’t even know what that means and I worked in the record industry for a decade) 3) recent releases (nothing from OTSS is on here and that is the most recent release last time I checked) 4) all of these particular songs are together on one record. 

Literally no one ever thought "I wish I owned an album that had 'Secret Garden’ on one side and 'Streets of Philadelphia' on the other,” except for Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau. Bruce is very proud of "Secret Garden" for some reason that goes beyond its placement in Jerry Maguire. He’s referred to it as “darkly erotic” and I refer to it as “trying way too hard for a guy who literally doesn’t have to try hard at all.” “Secret Garden” has been performed in concert just five times; it went gold, so one could put it into the “best-selling” bucket, but I would have rather seen “American Land” or “Waiting on a Sunny Day” on this record in place of “Secret Garden.” It is incredibly dated, but both Bruce and Mr. Landau were absolutely convinced that “Secret Garden” would have been a gigantic hit. Clearly, someone still feels that way, because it is 2024 and here it is again.

This tracklist feels like it was compiled by throwing an axe at Bruce's catalog and where it hit is what got chosen. You’ve got the mega super enormous hits next to “Badlands,” which absolutely wins the “staples of Bruce’s live shows” award. But then there’s “Atlantic City,” which was on the 1995 OG Greatest Hits, but the last time you could reliably call it a staple of the live show was back on the Born in the USA tour. “Human Touch” is a staple of the live show in my dreams (showing up once in 2024 does not make it a staple, trainspotters), but regrettably it has only been performed 20-some times since 2000 across multiple tours. “Brilliant Disguise,” from 1988’s Tunnel of Love, has had better luck, with 42 appearances within that same time frame, but which of the three categories above is it supposed to fit into?