Web posted on:
Thursday, November 12, 1998 9:34:28 AM EST

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- I've been referencing Bruce Springsteen, almost on a daily basis, for over half my life. So, as far as I'm concerned, the release of his career-spanning, four-CD box set, "Tracks," is a religious event. Something on the order of spotting the Virgin Mary, except that this Mary hops off the front porch, climbs into a waiting car, and disappears down Thunder Road.

This is the one fans have been waiting for, literally for years -- 56 previously unissued cuts (plus 10 hard-to-find B sides) that Springsteen, in his pathological perfectionism, never included on his official albums. Many have been available -- usually in crummy condition -- on bootlegs, but Springsteen has re-mastered the original tapes for this release, selecting the songs that he thinks have best weathered the test of time.

Though always an eastern shore cult artist, it's interesting to note just how long it took Springsteen to connect with a huge national audience. As exhilarating as it is to my ears, there's vast evidence of what the snag was on the first two discs of "Tracks." When I was growing up, you were mostly viewed as some kind of bozo if you fell for Springsteen and his urgent car/night/fire metaphors. His broadly gestured humanism embarrassed people, requiring, as it did, actual commitment on the part of the listener.

Then the unfairly maligned "Born in the USA" juggernaut (Given the chance, wouldn't you be Elvis for a couple of years?) blasted him into the stratosphere.

"Tracks" travels the road not taken in the Boss's dramatic 25 year trajectory from bar-band poet to 12-cylindered mega-stardom ... and then back to self-consciously quieter solo ruminations. The fascinating thing about Springsteen is that, more than any other pop star, he fully understands his place in the history of the music. He is, above all else, an incredibly hard-working, talented fan of rock 'n' roll.

His mindfulness of the creative chain snaking from Woody Guthrie to Chuck Berry to Dylan and Lennon is a major element of what his albums are about, political and socioeconomic issues aside. "Tracks" further cements his rightful place in that lineage because, even in the outtakes, he knew where his obsessions fit into the puzzle. He belonged there. He took the lessons he'd absorbed over the years to create his own path, at a time when the original trail seemed to be leading to a dead end.

Over the course of "Tracks," you can hear Springsteen wrestling with his tendency towards overt emotionalism. Whereas other artists try to expand on their vision with each new release, Springsteen started methodically cutting back -- first lyrically, and then musically -- and has continued to do so since "Darkness on the Edge of Town." That's certainly a brave thing for a popular artist to do, but, for all its obvious sincerity and ambition, his most recent album, "The Ghost of Tom Joad," is basically the toothpick that's been whittled out of a fondly remembered redwood.

That former bigness of spirit is why then-critic Jon Landau famously called Springsteen "rock & roll future" after seeing one of his routinely passionate live performances in 1973. Springsteen sparked imaginations by looking back as he simultaneously barreled ahead, full-throttle down the American cultural highway. We needed him to drive, and a great many of us were ready to pile in and take the ride. His was a music of possibilities.

One hopes that those possibilities will reemerge in his work after this grab-bag visit with the unbridled urgency of his youth.