Human Touch

Lucky Town	Tunnel of Love After several years at the top of the rock world, Springsteen pulled back the reins on Tunnel of Love--a lot, not just a little. Members of the E Street Band played on the album but seldom in full-band arrangements. Then, too, there are the deeply conflicted songs--"Brilliant Dis...	The Ghost of Tom Joad Bruce Springsteen followed his muse on this haunting 1995 release. Perhaps that's why it barely made a dent in the marketplace, even while it thrilled the faithful who were willing to take another dark, Nebraska-like journey with him. It's abundantly clear that Springsteen had be...	Magic Thirty-five years as a justifiable rock musician allows Bruce Springsteen an opinion on the state of over-the-air radio, and he takes it--and takes the medium to the woodshed on the ruthless "Radio Nowhere." The opening smash sets the tone, with the ageless Boss wondering, "Is th...	Nebraska Hot on the heels of The River, his commercial breakthrough, Springsteen's decision to release the stark, demo-quality Nebraska seems downright perverse. But the genius of the album is unmistakable--with just an acoustic guitar and his howling harmonica to back him, Springsteen te...
The River Despite the acclaim accorded Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, this is the album that broke Springsteen into the big leagues, thanks to "Hungry Heart," then his most pointedly commercial song; it had new fans swooning but some old ones grumbling for the "poetic" Sprin...	Born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. is an album painted in big, broad strokes. But it was still too subtle for some--namely politicians who tried to tap the title track as a jingoistic anthem when it is in fact a bitter diatribe by a Vietnam War vet whose country forgot him. The rest of the album...	The Rising Although it seemed the Boss had put writing rock anthems behind him after Born in the U.S.A., his longtime fans knew if any artist could write anthems addressing September 11, 2001, and not make them sound jingoistic, it would be Bruce Springsteen. The numerous anthems on his muc...	Darkness on the Edge of Town The pain of a protracted legal battle with his former manager and the release of being allowed to record again after a three-year layoff are equally apparent from the piercing hard rock and harsh lyrical content of Darkness on the Edge of Town. Betrayal and hard work that comes t...	The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle If Springsteen's debut, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. revealed just how ambitious a talent he was, it also fell just short of realizing those ambitions. No such problem with this, his second album. The Dylanesque wordplay is there, but with more narrative detail, as on "4th of...

SPRINGSTEEN PLAYING ROCK N ROLL
This CD has always been underrated because it is an album without the E Street Band but is actually a very good CD. It contains several good songs including the title tune and is a nice companion to "Lucky Town", which was released at the same time. Though it lacks the E Street Band, it is still Bruce Springsteen playing rock n roll and that is hard to ignore. I continue to listen to the CD today. It might not rank with BUSA or RIVER but it ranks above TOM JOAD and THE RISING and bridges a long gap before MAGIC was released last year. I exclude TRACKS and other releases of old material between 1995-2006 in that opinion. Any fan of Springsteen's cannot go wrong purchasing this CD.

understated classic..
okay, so I'm a Springsteen die-hard and can't find fault with any of his recordings. This one came out in liason with LUCKY TOWN. HUMAN TOUCH is a great song that came out when Bruce was going throught some difficult personal stuff. So this collection is introspective but not as dark as some of his other work. All in all, good stuff.

His worst album by far, but still decent... 2 1/2 Stars
Springsteen is my favorite artist, but this album is easily his worst. If you are, for some reason, dying to by an album released by Bruce in 1992, I'd recommend you get Lucky Town, which is quite superior, though still not on the same level as the rest of his catalog. There are still some keepers here though. The title track is vintage U.S.A/Tunnel of Love era Springsteen, which is one reason it was so out of place within the mainstream in 1992. However, it's a great song. The real mystery of this album is the studio version of Real World. When he first performed it in 1990 (two years before) at the Christic Benefit, he played it by himself, accompanied only by his piano. It was a showstopper, and instantly considered by most of his fans as good or better than anything on Born in the USA. It was put on the same level as the best tracks off of Tunnel of Love, and possibly even on the same level as his outputs between 1973 and 1982, when his run from The E Street Shuffle through Nebraska were considered timeless rock and roll classics, both by critics and his fans. The album version, however, is so overproduced that it almost ruins the song, where if you heard that version only you'd probably just skip it, without realising how good of a song it could be. The rest of the album has a couple of decent tracks, but all suffer drastically from the production. The biggest problem of this album, along with the production, however, is the amount of filler. None of Springsteens' previous album contained this much uninspired filler.

One of the Boss's Undervalued Gems
Let's get something straight right off the bat: there is damn good music on this CD, of the kind you don't hear too much of these days, even from Springsteen himself: honest, joyful, good old-fashioned rock and roll with, at least, two or three should be classics: "I Wish I Were Blind," which deserves to be in the pantheon of Springsteen's songbook; "A Man's Job," just good, fun rock and roll; and the terrific "Roll of the Dice" (check out the terrific piano playing, which hearkens back to the "Born to Run" days). Also, check out the lyrics, which are strong and heartfelt. The 4 star rating is because I basically agree with some reviewers who feel that some combination of "Lucky Town," released at the same time in 1992, and this effort, might have yielded a true classic - and without some of the filler songs that mar a masterpiece. This is true, but that takes nothing away from the several terrific songs on this CD - it's the Springsteen we really miss these days, who has produced two recent duds, with none of the heart and soul of some of these tunes. This is a no-brainer, really, for Springsteen fans, and anyone looking to hear terrific music. Just put on "Roll of the Dice" and I defy you not to feel happy and defiant all at the same time. Bring back the Boss with more songs like these!

Human touch is a classic of the 90's
Bruce's album Human Touch reflects all the happiness of the early 90's and if you really listen to it, it's a great album. From the first song it just rocks right out of the speakers. Bruce's telecaster solos interwoven throughout the album give it an especially nice touch... I would recommend it to anyone who wants to feel HAPPY and start dancing around the room to a little of Bruce's Best music.