Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska / Tunnel Of Love / The Ghost Of Tom Joad (CD)

All Music Guide

This threedisc Bruce Springsteen set combines 1982's bleak and startling Nebraska with 1987's Blood on the Trackslike treatise on the heart's miscommunications, Tunnel of Love, and 1995's survey of blue collar dreams gone bad, The Ghost of Tom Joad, into one package, and taken together, these three albums have surprisingly little to say to each other, although on the surface they may appear to be cut from the same cloth. What all three share, perhaps, is their insularity. At any rate, Springsteen fans will already have all three albums, as well as undoubtedly strong opinions about each one. It makes sense to pick up each of these separately and not spend a whole lot of time puzzling over how they might all fit together. They're the three bleakest statements Springsteen has ever recorded. So there you have it.

- Steve Leggett, All Music Guide