studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...
by American singer-songwriter
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originato ...
, released on October 9, 1987. Although members of the E Street Band occasionally performed on the album, Springsteen recorded most of the parts himself, often with drum machines and
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
s. While the album's liner notes list the E Street Band members under that name, Shore Fire Media, Springsteen's public relations firm, does not count it as an E Street Band album and 2002's '' The Rising'' was advertised as his first studio album with the E Street Band since ''
Born in the USA
''Born in the U.S.A.'' is the seventh studio album by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released by Columbia Records on June 4, 1984. It topped the charts in nine countries, including the US and UK, becoming his most commercially su ...
Tougher Than the Rest
"Tougher Than the Rest" is a song by Bruce Springsteen from his 1987 '' Tunnel of Love'' album. It was released as a single in some countries, following " Brilliant Disguise" and the title track, but was not released as a single in the United ...
", and " Spare Parts" were all released as singles.
Background
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' writer
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''.Julianne Phillips, and his decision to leave the E Street Band. Pareles said that most of the songs on the album were about the difficulty of mature love rather than Springsteen's earlier
arena rock
Arena rock (also known as AOR, melodic rock, stadium rock, anthem rock, pomp rock, corporate rock and dad rock; ; ) is a style of rock music that originated in the mid-1970s. As hard rock bands and those playing a softer yet strident kind of po ...
anthems to the working man. ''Tunnel of Love'' songs were described as "midtempo ballads or pop-rock hymns". "Brilliant Disguise" has been called "a heart-wrenching song about never being really able to know someone".
On the B-sides of vinyl and cassette singles, outtakes like "Lucky Man", "Two for the Road" and a 1979 track, "Roulette" were included. On the EP that accompanied the 1988 tour, Springsteen included album cut "Tougher Than the Rest", but included another ''
River
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...
'' outtake, "Be True" a rearranged, acoustic "Born To Run", and a cover of
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
's "Chimes of Freedom".
Commercially the album went triple Platinum in the US, with "Brilliant Disguise" being one of his biggest hit singles, peaking at #5 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, "Tunnel of Love" also making the top 10, reaching #9, and "One Step Up" reaching the top 20 at #13. The 1988 Springsteen and E Street Band Tunnel of Love Express tour would showcase the album's songs, sometimes in arrangements courtesy of the Miami Horns.
Amusement park tunnel of love memorabilia was provided by the
National Amusement Park Historical Association
The National Amusement Park Historical Association (NAPHA) is an international organization dedicated to the preservation and enjoyment of the amusement and theme park industry – past, present and future.
NAPHA was founded in 1978 by a former ...
to be used on the record sleeve of the ''Tunnel of Love'' single. A cover of "All That Heaven Will Allow" was a minor hit single for country band
the Mavericks
The Mavericks are an American country music band from Miami, Florida. The band consists of Raul Malo (lead vocals, guitar), Paul Deakin (drums), Eddie Perez (lead guitar), and Jerry Dale McFadden (keyboards). Malo and Deakin founded the band ...
in 1995.
Music videos
Irish filmmaker
Meiert Avis
Meiert Avis is an Irish music video and commercial director. Avis has directed videos for artists such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Avril Lavigne, Paramore, Alanis Morissette, Flyleaf, Jennifer Lopez, New Found Glory and Josh Grob ...
directed the music videos for "Brilliant Disguise", "One Step Up", "Tougher Than the Rest", and "Tunnel of Love". The videos were shot on location in New Jersey, including Asbury Park. The intensely personal "Brilliant Disguise" video broke new ground on
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
, being a single shot without edits. The video of the title track was nominated for five
MTV Video Music Award
The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honour the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video categor ...
s, including Video of the Year and, paradoxically, Best Editing.
Critical reception
In a contemporary review for ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'', music critic
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
wrote that, apart from the humorous opening track and the clichéd track that follows, ''Tunnel of Love'' is "convincing, original stuff—it zeroes in on fear of commitment as a pathology and battles it." He particularly praised the album's introspective second half in his consumer guide for ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'', saying that it showed Springsteen's decency and ability for self-examination. ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' magazine's Steve Pond said that ''Tunnel of Love'' is "a varied, modestly scaled, modern-sounding pop album" rather than a
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm ...
album and felt that its unromantic tales of love are similar to Springsteen's socially conscious work about broken promises and dreams in America:
In ''The Village Voice''s annual Pazz & Jop critics poll, ''Tunnel of Love'' finished second in the voting for the year's best album. Christgau, the poll's creator, named it the third best album of the year in his own list. In 1989, the album was ranked #25 on ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's list of the "100 Best Albums of the Eighties" while in 2012, the same magazine ranked it at #467 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 1998, ''Q'' magazine readers voted ''Tunnel of Love'' the 91st greatest album of all time.
Writing for ''America Magazine'', Catholic priest and sociologist Andrew Greeley argued that this album exemplifies the American Catholic imagination. In a 2014 article for '' Grantland'', Steven Hyden said ''Tunnel of Love'' remained Springsteen's "most underrated record" among fans but in his own opinion, Springsteen's best lyrically. "You really shouldn't be allowed to hear this record until you've been married for a few years", Hyden wrote, "though at that point it might strike a little too close to home. If
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 – 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, producer and playwright. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, his films are known as "profoun ...
had been born in Freehold and cut his artistic teeth at the Stone Pony, he would've made this record in place of ''
Scenes From a Marriage
''Scenes from a Marriage'' ( sv, Scener ur ett äktenskap) is a 1973 Swedish television miniseries written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Over the course of six hour-long episodes, it explores the disintegration of the marriage between Mariann ...
''. Totally '80s production aside ... this album represents the heaviest blues of Springsteen's career. The songs are about men and women who flirt, have sex, fall in love, get married, get bored, have sex with other people, and wind up stuck in the middle of that dark night from the second disc of '' The River''."
Track listing
Unreleased outtakes
While more than 80 songs were said to have been recorded for Springsteen's previous album, only 19 are known to have been recorded for ''Tunnel of Love'', with 12 making the album's final cut. "Lucky Man" and "Two For the Road" were released as B-sides, and later on the '' Tracks'' along with other outtakes such as "The Honeymooners," "The Wish" and "When You Need Me." "Part Man, Part Monkey" was also recorded during these sessions and played live on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour. Although that version remains unreleased, it would be re-recorded during future album sessions and eventually released. "Walking Through Midnight" is the only other unreleased song which was co-written by
Southside Johnny
John Lyon (born December 4, 1948), better known by his stage name Southside Johnny, is an American singer-songwriter who usually fronts his band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.
Southside Johnny has long been considered the Grandfather of ...
who recorded the song for his own album, 1988's ''Slow Dance''.
*"Part Man, Part Monkey"
*"Walking Through Midnight"
Personnel
Musicians
*
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originato ...
–
lead vocals
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
,
backing vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...
,
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...
s,
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of ...
,
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica in ...
,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
sound effect
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
acoustic piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
on "Brilliant Disguise",
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
s on "Tunnel of Love"
*
Clarence Clemons
Clarence Anicholas Clemons Jr. (January 11, 1942 – June 18, 2011), also known as The Big Man, was an American musician and actor. From 1972 until his death in 2011, he was the saxophonist for The E Street Band.
Clemons released several ...
–
backing vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated ...
on "Tougher Than the Rest", "Spare Parts" and "Brilliant Disguise"
*
Nils Lofgren
Nils Hilmer Lofgren (born June 21, 1951) is an American rock musician, recording artist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Along with his work as a solo artist, he has been a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band since 1984, a memb ...
– guitar solo on "Tunnel of Love", backing vocals on "When You're Alone"
*
Patti Scialfa
Vivienne Patricia Scialfa ( ; born July 29, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Scialfa has been a member of the E Street Band since 1984 and has been married to Bruce Springsteen since 1991. In 2014, Scialfa was inducted into ...
– backing vocals on "Tunnel of Love", "One Step Up" and "When You're Alone"
* Garry Tallent – bass guitar on "Spare Parts"
*
Max Weinberg
Max Weinberg (born April 13, 1951) is an American drummer and television personality, most widely known as the longtime drummer for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and as the bandleader for Conan O'Brien on '' Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' ...
–
drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...
on "All That Heaven Will Allow", "Two Faces" and "When You're Alone"; percussion on "Tougher Than the Rest", "Spare Parts", "Walk Like a Man", "Tunnel of Love", and "Brilliant Disguise"
* James Wood – harmonica on "Spare Parts"
Technical
* Toby Scott –
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
*Tim Leitner, Roger Talkov, Squeek Stone, Rob Jacobs – engineering assistants
*
Bob Clearmountain
Bob Clearmountain (born January 15, 1953) is an American recording engineer, mixer and record producer. He has worked with many major acts, including Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Toto, Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams, with whom he has a ve ...
– mixing
*Mark McKenna – mixing assistant
*Jay Healy – mixing assistant on "Tunnel of Love"
*
Bob Ludwig
Robert C. Ludwig (born c. 1945) is an American mastering engineer. He has mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists including Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Que ...
– mastering
*Heidi Cron – mastering assistant
*Sandra Choron – art direction
*
Annie Leibovitz
Anna-Lou Leibovitz ( ; born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer best known for her engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polaroid photo of Jo ...