Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Greatest Hits is Bruce Springsteen's fifth compilation album, released as a limited edition first in the United States, Canada and Australia on January 13, 2009, exclusively through Wal-Mart retailers.

History

The album is a collection of some of Springsteen's hit singles and popular album tracks through the years. Springsteen released a similar Greatest Hits album in 1995. Unlike the previous release, this album is billed to "Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band", the first time Springsteen's backing band has been credited with a compilation release. As such, it contains no Springsteen material recorded between 1984 and 2002, during which period he did virtually no studio recording with the E Street Band. Springsteen's association with Wal-Mart drew puzzled reactions from the media, given the singer's longtime support for labor causes and the company's longtime anti-union actions. Huffington Post writer Tony Sachs pronounced the release one of the "top five boneheaded music industry moves of 2008", while The Wall Street Journal wrote that it reflected the duality of "the liberal singer-songwriter and the commercial juggernaut recording artist." Longtime Springsteen writer Charles R. Cross said that fans were now more accepting of such blatant commercial strategies given the overall slump in the music business. Nevertheless, the release did draw criticism from some fans as well as from labor union activists and independent record store owners. In response, Springsteen manager Jon Landau said, "[L]et's start with the premise that Bruce is already in Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has been 15% of our sales in recent years. It's not a question of going into Wal-Mart; we're there. They, and other retailers, are all looking for some way to differentiate themselves, and we try to accommodate each one. We're not doing any advertising for Wal-Mart. We haven't endorsed Wal-Mart or anybody else." But then Springsteen himself, during publicity for his appearance at Super Bowl XLIII, admitted that they "dropped the ball" with the association with Wal-Mart, and attributed it to insufficient vetting due to too many activities going on.

Track listing

All songs written by Bruce Springsteen except where noted.

US edition

Europe edition

Personnel

Charts