Consumer Guide Album

Bruce Springsteen: Chimes of Freedom [Columbia EP, 1987]
If the title cut on this live charity record invests Dylan's protest with an aura of sacred majesty, the other three invest honorable Springsteen copyrights with an aura of sacred cow. Supposedly, his "reinterpretations" of his own "classics"--acoustic "Born To Run," E Street "Tougher Than the Rest"--have a demythologizing effect, but years of enormous rooms have finally taken their spiritual toll; the self-importance he's always accused of drips from his all-American drawl like Vitalis off a D.A. He's staved off this fate for as long as he has with modest strokes like Nebraska, and it's conceivable he'll come up with another one. Then again, this was probably supposed to be another one. B-