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Q
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Village Voice	A

Tunnel of Love is the eighth studio album by Bruce Springsteen. The album was originally released on October 9, 1987. Although members of the E Street Band were used occasionally on the album, Springsteen recorded most of the parts himself, often with drum machines and synthesizers. Although 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'".

In 1989, the album was ranked #25 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Best Albums of the Eighties" while in 2003, the same magazine ranked it at #467 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. "Brilliant Disguise", "Tunnel of Love", "One Step Up", "Tougher Than the Rest", and "Spare Parts" were all released as singles.

The album is one of Springsteen's least performed set of songs. The New York Times' Jon Pareles wrote that Tunnel of Love "turned inward, pondering love gone wrong. His first marriage, to the actress Julianne Phillips, fell apart; he also decided to part ways with the E Street Band." According to Pareles, most of the album's songs are pop rock paeans or midtempo ballads. "Brilliant Disguise" has been called "a heart wrenching song about never being really able to know someone," and "a song about the doubts and struggles of married life."

On the B-sides of vinyl and cassette singles, outtakes like "Lucky Man", "Two for the Road" and a vintage 1979 track, "Roulette" were included. On the mini-album that accompanied the 1988 tour, Springsteen included album cut "Tougher Than The Rest", but included another River outtake, "Be True" a rearranged, acoustic "Born To Run", and the Bob Dylan cover, "Chimes of Freedom".

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