BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: TUNNEL OF LOVE (1987)
1) Ain't Got You; 2) Tougher
Than The Rest; 3) All That Heaven Will Allow; 4) Spare Parts; 5) Cautious Man;
6) Walk Like A Man; 7) Tunnel Of Love; 8) Two Faces; 9) Brilliant Disguise; 10)
One Step Up; 11) When You're Alone; 12) Valentine's Day.
There are two ways to think about Tunnel Of
Love. The first one is that this is one more unexpected career twist —
after the thunder, the sweat, the blood-pumping of Born In The USA, The
Boss just flushes the «Rambo rock» down the drain and goes all adult
contemporary on us. The second way of thinking is that this is simply where The
Boss... grows old. Take a mental snapshot of the man in the ʽDancing In The
Darkʼ video — then, with that snapshot still in active memory, take a look at
this album cover. Two different people. Heck, he almost looks like Vincent Vega
in that outfit and with that particular posture.
Thing is, I can easily live with either way of
thinking, or with both at the same time, but in either case Tunnel Of Love
is simply not very good. Going introspective, personal, and depressed after the
flamboyant extravert show that was Born In The USA is all very good, but
in 1987, it just does not look like Bruce was all that ready for such a
metamorphosis. He really was depressed, worn down by his «pop idol»
image as well as devastated by the collapse of his first marriage, but he was
not able to channel his depression into music — the songs on Tunnel are
as simple and straightforward as they used to be, but now they're just
depressed. And boring.
The synthesizers on Born In The USA may
have had crappy Eighties' tones, but when you are caught in that kind of
frenzy, let's face it, you don't really give a damn about the synth tone. The
album suffered from mediocre production, but more than made up for it in terms
of drive, energy, and hooks. Not so on these songs. Electronic drums,
«dinky» lead keyboards and «heavenly» synth tones in the background dominate
the turf here, and what does it all have to do with Bruce Springsteen? The
title track is a bland dance number that could have been sung by Kim Wilde,
with each one of the above-mentioned elements present, and some awful metallic
guitar solos to complete the picture. Even the lyrics, which many critics have
praised, are nothing special — "You've got to learn to live with what you
can't rise above / If you want to ride on down in through this tunnel of
love". Not very original, if you ask me.
The recording was originally planned to be a
Springsteen solo recording, before he relented and let some of the E Street
Band members to sit in — a misguided decision, methinks, because with Bruce,
it's either all the way or no way at all. Maybe if all the tracks were
completely acoustic, just the man and his guitar Nebraska-fashion again,
it would have produced a stronger impression because of the intimacy. But when
I listen to a decent track like ʽBrilliant Disguiseʼ, I can't help thinking how
much better it would have been with a full-hearted rather than half-hearted approach
— more guitars, louder drums, a wild sax solo, some shouting, the band wilding
out, and who cares about the lyrics being so personal? He did let other
people play on the track anyway, didn't he? And not going all the way, he let
it get limp. And who knows, he might have had another ʽBobby Jeanʼ in
his pocket here. The accompanying minimalistic video, shot in black and white
and featuring the man adding live vocals to an acoustic track, is offset by the
bland musical backing — if it is a song of such personal strength and depth,
why is it so blandly arranged and so devoid of any decent musical hooks?
Fact is, if it were a record by anybody other
than Bruce — Sting, for example, not to mention Bryan Adams — critical
attention would probably pass it by. However, as this was a dark, deeply
introspective album following the man's biggest success to date, it was tacitly
decided that Tunnel Of Love would be endorsed: it is, after all, so
tempting to have the big guy first scatter his thunder and lightning around,
then suddenly let you in on his deepest secrets, make himself vulnerable, open
up his bleeding heart and disclose to the public that even the People's
Champion has his own personal problems that tie into human, not social
relations. And this temptation was stronger than simply admitting that ʽTougher
Than The Restʼ and ʽWalk Like A Manʼ are lazy, poorly written, crappily
arranged ballads that cannot be said to contain more «soul» than any given
adult contemporary ballad of the decade — unless your position is that any
track on which Bruce Springsteen opens his mouth already got soul a-plenty.
Re-reading my old vitriolic assessment of this
record years ago, I thought that, heck, I myself am one year older now than
Bruce was when making this album, maybe the reaction would be different this
time — but it wasn't. I do not find the atmosphere of Tunnel
particularly seductive, captivating, or intriguing; I do not find any interest
in its melodies; I have no frickin' idea why so many people reward it with so
many stars as if it were the ultimate breakup album. I have no idea why
ʽValentine's Dayʼ drags on for so long, or what exactly the swamp rockin'
ʽSpare Partsʼ is doing here (I wish I could call it the best song on the album,
but that would probably get dogs snappin' at my heels). I feel sorry for the
guy circa 1987, but I am also glad that he made it out very easily — all it
took was realizing that fellow musicians make better wives than models (but
don't tell Keith Richards, or there'll be a violent Telecaster battle somewhere
out in space). So no hard feelings whatsoever, but a thumbs down all the same: as an artistic statement, Tunnel
Of Love is bland and boring, and as an entertainment package, it does not
even begin to exist.
Nice review, George. I'm with you on this one. Bruce doesn't play to any of his strengths here. The sound is wispy and toothless, and the songs are under-written. I like your point that it could be a Sting album. It was a bold step, given that the public was primed for something completely different, but it was still a misstep.
ReplyDeleteIf it were a Sting album, it would at least have a greater assortment of chords.
DeleteSo now we all can calculate your age ....
ReplyDeleteI think it remarkable how you get more tolerant. I'm more than a decade older than you but if anything only got less with the years. There's quite some stuff I loved years ago but now have a much lower opinion of.
I've mixed this with USA and some of the era's work from Tracks, and I think the material sounds better as a counterbalance to some of USA's excesses (I still had to substitute the acoustic version of USA's title track for the original). Listened to by itself, I agree, this album is too bland.
ReplyDeleteWould you mind sharing the tracklist with us? I'm kinda interested now!
DeleteSure. As I looked again, I see that a couple of the tracks were from his following solo albums, which I thought were good and which fit in with the feel/themes of USA and ToL.
DeleteHuman Touch
Tunnel of Love
One Step Up
I'm on Fire
Dancing in the Dark
Johnny Bye-Bye
Glory Days
Downbound Train
My Hometown
Tougher Than the Rest
Cautious Man
Over the Rise
If I Should Fall Behind
Brilliant Disguise
Bobby Jean
No Surrender
When You're Alone
Valentine's Day
When You Need Me
Born in the U.S.A. (demo)
Turn Out the Light
This Hard Land
Having grown up in the tri-state area, I had Bruce Springsteen shoved down my throat on a daily basis by my otherwise favorite radio station. The cult only got worse when Born In the USA became such a huge hit. So the first album that got me to really appreciate Bruce was this one, mostly because all the "new fans" hated it. Here's my take:
ReplyDeletehttp://everybodysdummy.blogspot.com/2013/09/bruce-springsteen-9-tunnel-of-love.html
I only quite recently got around to listening to this (entire) album, and I think it's really good. It's sort-of a good example of "80s' music" -- it sounds very 80s (not good), but makes it work (good). 'Brilliant Disguise', 'Tougher Than The Rest', and 'Walk Like a Man' are some of Bruce's best-ever songs. The record as a whole is easy to listen to, melodically strong, and lyrically solid. I like how it's almost a Bruce solo-album, but with 80s' flourishes. It's a one-off, basically.
ReplyDeleteI do think 'Ain't Got You' is an inappropriate opener, however, and the album might have benefited from a little more instrumental diversity and one or two more uptempo tracks, but overall I think this is a solid 4-star recording, especially given the "weak" period in popular music it derives from.
The songs are stronger than the production. A problem partially remedied by many fine covers by other artists. Country singers seem particularly attracted to "Tougher than the rest". Elvis Costello did "Brilliant disguise", Kenny Chesney did a nice "One step up".
ReplyDelete"Tougher than the rest" poorly written? I don't agree with you. It's a beautiful ballad. Maybe the arrangement is too eighties; try Emmylou Harrys versión and tell me it's not a beautiful song.
ReplyDeleteTomine
This album is rather schizophrenic, musically. On the one hand, we got more of the mushy, low synth tones of the prior album. These make some of the ballads sound especially dreary – “Walk Like a Man”, “Valentine’s Day”, “Tougher Than the Rest”. As for the more synthpoppy, upbeat tracks, only the intro to the title track piques any interest, in a Phil Collins/”Invisible Touch” sort of way. These are oddly juxtaposed with more stripped down songs like “Spare Parts” and “Two Faces”. This makes the album his most disjointed, by far.
ReplyDeleteEveryone seems to fall all over themselves praising the lyrics here, but I don’t think Bruce has anything particularly insightful or original to say about the topic. “Two faces have I”? “When you’re alone, you’re nothing but alone”? Seriously? This is supposed to be depth? And we get a couple of rip-offs – the title and sentiment of “Walk Like a Man” (the Four Seasons); and the catchy and sort of funny “Ain’t Got You”. Nonetheless, it’s all been said before, in the blues song of (almost) the same title (covered by the Yardbirds) and the infinitely more dynamic Temptations track “I Can’t Get Next You”.
Only a critics’ darling like Brucie could get away with this. Overdub Collins’ voice on these same tracks, and it would have been trashed as treacle. There is some OK stuff here, actually, but I agree with you. Why?