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Bruce Springsteen / The Album Collection, Vol. 1 (1973-1984)

By Paul Sinclair

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Springsteen_AlbumCollection_CDpkgshot

Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings will release Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 in November, a CD (and vinyl) box set of remastered editions of the first seven Bruce Springsteen albums recorded for Columbia Records between 1973 and 1984.

The collection will be issued as a CD box and a 180g vinyl box set. All of the albums are newly remastered from the analogue master tapes (five for the first time ever on CD) and all seven are making their remastered debut on vinyl.

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Vinyl box

The seven albums are recreations of their original packaging and the set is accompanied by a 60 page book featuring rarely-seen photos, memorabilia and original press clippings from Springsteen’s first decade as a recording artist.

Acclaimed engineer Bob Ludwig, working with Springsteen and longtime engineer Toby Scott, has remastered these albums, all newly transferred from the original analogue masters using the Plangent Process playback system.

The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 is released on 17 November 2014

8CD Box

Vinyl Box

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Albums included:

  • Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)*
  • The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street
  • Shuffle (1973)*
  • Born To Run (1975)
  • Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)
  • The River (1980)*- 2 LP/ 2CD
  • Nebraska (1982)*
  • Born In The U.S.A. (1984)*

*denotes first time remastered on CD

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39 Comments

39 thoughts on “Bruce Springsteen / The Album Collection, Vol. 1 (1973-1984)”

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  7. Just after purchasing the vinyl box set for 97 euro on the Irish site of wowhd.co.uk while they have one of their 15% off sales. Don’t think you can do much better.

    1. Thats a very good price Mark, that should have been a deal of the day if you ask me.

      I’ve just picked one up on Amazon Germany for €139.99 plus shipping, works out at around £115 delivered to the UK

  8. The whole Brooooce! back catalogue on vinyl and cd needed remastering desperately they all sounded so zingy and metalic and out dated with more hiss than a cobra in the background on some of the earlier recordings. The ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Darkness at the Edge of Town’ remasters of recent years give you a clue as to what can be achieved they have been cleaned up to the highest of standard. The latest releases have mini reproduction sleeves and the most up to date remastering by Bob Ludwig who has a tremendous reputation and pedigree. Buying second hand vinyl is an absolute mine field unless they have been played a couple of times on good Hi-Fi equipment looked after and treasured which then can be classed as near mint. Most of the vinyl I’ve purchased over the internet advertised as nm looks as though it’s been cleaned with a brillo pad and used as a coffee coaster. The latest Brooce! vinyl box looks a winner but wait until Amazon UK drop that ridiculous price tag it should be available around £100 in the run up to Chrimbo (damn! I’ve mentioned that word)

    1. You are correct. Most of the people who are commenting are missing the point. This is not a repackage of the first albums as a promotional ploy, but an entire reengineering of their sound quality transfer from the original analogue tapes to the absolute latest digital technogy. Ironically they liked the digital outcome so much that they used the digital tracks to transfer to vinyl.

      Only Darkness and B2R were previously reengineered but not with this latest machine so even their updates should be noticeable. However the biggest winners will be The River and The Wild, The Inocent and The E Street Shuffle. Those should now really sound great! Even Born In The USA I have read sound much better.

      From reading about the process one should get a more dynamic sound yet all timing flaws within the recording process have been minimised. I think we shall see more of these reengineerings coming out.

    1. Fan has a point …but…when buying near mint vinyl from ebay and discogs you find that your idea of near mint is different to most sellers. I have purchased a number of “near mint” early (1st 2 albums) springsteen vinyl from these sources and yet to get a near mint copy. If you don’t live in Europe or the US, the net is the only real source. I would love to rummage through all these $1 bins that get mentioned. I just sold a bulk lot of 50 Lp’s to a guy as VG+ which I have purchased over the last 2 years as near mint on ebay and discogs.

  10. With the super box sets of the Born To Run, Darkness and the River coming in November I doubt if I bother with this box- at least not until it drops in price. I really would’ve loved to have seen super box sets of the first two albums.

  14. Everyone needs to read this article:

    http://www.backstreets.com/remasters.html

    You are all wrong to some degree or other. The Japanese mini-lps, whose packages are GREAT, were NOT remastered.

    “All seven of the albums are newly remastered, FIVE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, and all are making their remastered debuts on vinyl.”

    “The initial Mastered for iTunes batch did not include The River or Nebraska; those two remasters will be available here for the first time.”

    Ludwig: “Do they sound different? Absolutely!” Ludwig declares. “If I didn’t already have them, I’d go out and buy the new versions — and this is from a fan, not a marketing person.”

    These are not a cash-in. This has needed to happen for a while.

  15. From what I’ve been able to figure out, many of Springsteen’s albums were quietly remastered somewhere along the way—no “remastered!” hype sticker, and no change in Columbia’s catalog number. The telltale sign appears to be the presence of “www.brucespringsteen.com” on the tray card; the disc inside (Darkness on the Edge of Town) sounded remarkably loud for what should otherwise have been a CD issued in the 1980s.

  16. Just a reminder that The River is on 2 CDs not one.
    I suspect that while 2 of the albums [so far] have box sets already, I’m guessing that only The River and Born In The USA will eventually have box sets. the others aren’t strong/popular enough.
    Oh right now, the box set is about *2 at amazon.ca.

  18. Please, no more boxes with the same cds !
    I would like the specials editions from : The River, Nebraska and Born In The U.S.A. with outtakes, demos and live versions !

  19. I love the Boss but come on, there’s nothing here we don’t already have. Just another way of trying to get us to shell out for something we’ve bought before (I’ve had The River on vinyl, tape AND CD to take just one example) and as for ‘re-mastering’, if you’ve got a decent system then most of the time you don’t need it anyway and it often ruins an analogue recording by making it too harsh. These boxes are fine for those who are latecomers to an artist but to the fan…

      2. In that case, cheaper to buy the previous box set, unless people want to pay more for a different looking box and a book. I would rather save money, plus the look of the previous red design box was much nicer.

    1. I notice this box set has an extra disc to the 2010 release so maybe they feel the need to charge more because of that, although it seems a lot for one more CD that probably cost a few pounds to make.

      1. I got many of the Japanese remasters back in 2006 when Tower was closing, and try as I might, on my mid-level system I could not tell if they were remastered. I believe that a discussion on SHF concluded that they were *not* – – the draw with these $50 releases was they recreated the original LPs in mini-CDs really nicely. Trust me, I was hoping for Japanese-quality sonic improvements but didn’t/don’t hear any.

      2. These are brand new remasters – take my word for it. I have this info from two very reliable sources. The 2005 Japanese reissues were not remastered, you might be surprised to hear. They were just notched up a tone and packaged like the original LP with liner notes in English and Japanese. I have The River and Born In The U.S.A. from this series. The mastering credits are the same as the original CDs. These new 2014 reissues in this new box set is the very first time these albums have been remastered properly for CD (apart from Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town which were remastered for the box set versions of those albums in 2005 and 2010). Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town have been remastered again for this new 2014 album box set release and they have not used the same remasters again from 2005 for Born To Run and from 2010 for Darkness On The Edge Of Town. It’s also worth noting that these new remasters (sourced from the Plangent Process transfers and remastered by Bob Ludwig) are also available in 24bit/96kHz high resolution (The River 44.1kHz and Nebraska 192kHz) via download from HDtracks, but only for people in the US. I’ve managed to get my hands on the high resolution copies and they sound out of this world, especially the first two albums.

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