Collecting log: 40 years after the BORN IN THE U.S.A. Japan tour — nostalgic old bootlegs and miscellaneous vinyl/CD collectibles related to the official album (addendum: The CD Club edition)

One more post. In the previous entry (06/14/2025), which wrapped up the topic above, I forgot to mention an additional collectible edition of the Japanese CD of this best-selling album that produced seven top 10 singles between 1984 and 1985. The CD Club version (SME FCCP 40192), released under the SME Records label, was available in the mid-1990s, probably 1995, exclusively through mail order from Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. (SMEJ). While I’m unsure of its collectible value, I’ve seen it draw considerable interest — particularly from overseas collectors, who make up the majority of this blog’s readers — so I’m including it here as an addendum.

Collecting log: 40 years after the BORN IN THE U.S.A. Japan tour — nostalgic old bootlegs and miscellaneous vinyl/CD collectibles related to the official album (Part 4 of 4)

"Originally scheduled for exclusive release in Japan on September 22, 1999, the second wave of the first 'mini-LP' cardboard sleeve CD reissue series — including BORN IN THE U.S.A. — was ultimately canceled." The above photos show what I consider rare Japanese collectibles for this album: a withdrawn sample CD and an advance cassette tape placed on either the advance pressing (left) or the sample LP (right) — the cassette and both LPs date back to original 1984 release. A small white tracklist sheet included with the sample LP set contains a misspelling of "BLUCE" in the artist name column.

What comes to mind when you think of Japanese collectibles of this best-selling album? For me, they include the advance promotion-only LP and its cassette version (see 07/18/2015), as well as the withdrawn CD (Sony Music Entertainment SRCS 8984) from the second batch of Japan-exclusive paper sleeve reissues planned for fall 1999, which is believed to have been canceled at the request of Springsteen Inc. (see the last paragraph of 09/10/2016). Sample copies are also of interest to collectors. However, compared to white label promo LPs phased out in the late 1970s for CBS/Sony releases, these are less sought-after, differing from commercial copies only by a "SAMPLE" imprint (in kanji on the label of vinyl discs or as-is on the inner ring of CDs), and a rectangular sample sticker affixed to the back cover.

Collecting log: 40 years after the BORN IN THE U.S.A. Japan tour — nostalgic old bootlegs and miscellaneous vinyl/CD collectibles related to the official album (Part 3 of 4)

Released in numerous countries worldwide, BORN IN THE U.S.A. remains one of the most commercially successful albums in music history. While I have not conducted a thorough survey, its widespread distribution and chart success suggest that the album was officially released in over 40 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and select parts of Africa and the Arab world.

As with Japanese releases, Mexican editions frequently featured 
altered sleeve designs and modified or added text, resulting in several 
collectible variants. A notable example is the gatefold edition of THE 
RIVER (CBS LP2S-103; see 06/18/2016), which displays lyrics on the 
inner panels rather than on a separate two-fold insert. Official colored 
vinyl pressings from the 1980s are also rare and highly collectible (see 
01/27/2020). The LP shown above (CBS CLS-5808) presents the 
Spanish tracklist and additional text along the bottom of the rear sleeve.

However, when collectible variants of this album — both regular and promotional editions — began to surface from various countries and became available to collectors in the mid-to-late 1980s, I was too engrossed in the flood of bootleg releases from the 1984–85 world tour, particularly those from Europe, to pay serious attention to the official releases. Consequently, many of the official vinyl records in my possession — some of which have been already showcased on this blog — were therefore acquired later, once the internet’s global rise made worldwide communication and transactions far more accessible. Anyway, here are a few of miscellaneous official collectibles of his mega hit album, as I hinted earlier.

Collecting log: 40 years after the BORN IN THE U.S.A. Japan tour — nostalgic old bootlegs and miscellaneous vinyl/CD collectibles related to the official album (Part 2 of 4)

The B5-size flyers were most likely distributed at or near the
Tokyo and Kyoto concert venues as well. English translations
of the Japanese text and descriptions provided by this blogger.

One more trivial recollection concerning bootlegs: I remember that on April 23, the final date of the Japan leg in 1985, a young guy was handing out what looked like flyers as I walked down from Osakajōkōen Station (Osaka Castle Park Station) — the nearest stop on the JR Osaka Loop Line — toward the concert venue, Osaka Castle Hall. Out of curiosity, I took one, which turned out to be a pre-order form for a then-unknown three-disc bootleg titled BORN IN THE AMERICA, slated for release on May 20, according to the description. Initially, I expected this new release to feature live recordings of Springsteen's first-ever concert(s) in Japan. However, I quickly realized the flyer explicitly stated “LIVE IN U.S.A. 1984,” although it provided no further details, such as the date, venue, or tracklist.

Collecting log: 40 years after the BORN IN THE U.S.A. Japan tour — nostalgic old bootlegs and miscellaneous vinyl/CD collectibles related to the official album (Part 1 of 4)

The ticket was mailed to me in a registered envelope from the
Osaka office of Udo Artists Inc., the tour promotion and man-
agement agency. A clipping — likely from a newspaper, though
uncertain — with the headline “Grammy Winner Bruce’s First-
Ever Japan Tour Becomes a Reality” appears to predate the
addition of two concert dates, April 13 in Tokyo and April 23
in Osaka, as those dates are not mentioned in the article.

This past April in Japan brought something of a celebration on social media among Springsteen fans and collectors. As you might know, this year marks the 40th anniversary of his first—and one of only three, if the one-off Amnesty concert is included — tours to the Far East, promoting his seventh album, BORN IN THE U.S.A. (see 04/23/2015 and 01/27/2018 for Japan tour-related posts). I was a junior in college when I had the good fortune to see him perform on the second night (April 23) in Osaka, which was also the final show of the Japan leg — a performance often regarded as the best of the eight played here. By the way, you might wonder why I’m not talking about the Kyoto concert held four days earlier (April 19), especially since I’ve occasionally mentioned on this blog that I was born and raised in this ancient capital city. The reason is simple: I missed it due to a critical mix-up that left me without a ticket — still one of the most regrettable memories of my youth.

Collecting log: BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP ー Bob Ludwig has recut the master lacquer for SIDE ONE

Selling 15,000,000 copies in the United States only, the U.S. pressing of BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP (Columbia QC 38653) is quite cheap and widely available, making it the most mediocre or insignificant vinyl collectible among his entire back catalog. However, there are many variations in the dead-wax matrix numbers simply because of the huge copy number, hence numerous different pressings. This has prompted me to seek out the matrix numbers for the earliest U.S. edition of the best-seller album, which has been reported in a five-consecutive blog last year (08/14/2019 to 09/30/2019). 

The latest purchases of the three U.S. copies with a mastering maestro's "RL" dead-wax marking cost less than one coin (= 500 Yen) for each: one shrink-wrapped with an original blue/white sticker while the other two without shrinks. These discs are not VERY early pressings as evidenced by the matrix numbers (whose suffix codes are labeled in green on each copy), but collector-wise, I found some interesting facts on the dead-wax portion of these discs.

Collecting log: Top 3 collectible acquisitions in 2019 (Part 2 of 3)

Here is the second post of the subject introducing a collectible 12" single from the mid-1980s, which is a part of the twin vinyls of two different colors (I got one years ago, but not the other until recently). Although the remaining one had long been on my want list, I never hurried to get a copy of this until I found a reasonably priced one (and I did last year). In my opinion, these unique releases would explain why vinyl records can still be a lot of fun to collect. If interested, here are links to Part 1 and Part 3.

Two colors are better than one. The rarer green version is now in my collection 36 years after its release in Mexico, the only Latin American country I have visited before in my life (just once).
 

Collecting log: The early 1980s U.K. vinyl pressings with "timtom" or "Ty" handwritten matrix inscription (Part 4 of 4)

This is the final part of a 4-Part series exploring U.K. pressings in the 1980s that are cut by mastering maestro Tim Young. In this survey, I have used his signatures, timtom and Ty, inscribed on the run-out area of a disc, as sole measure to identify his contribution to Springsteen's British releases. This is because in the case of non-U.S. pressings of Springsteen's LP and singles, actual master-cutting engineers are generally not credited on record sleeves or other associated printouts.

The five U.K. copies used for comparing matrix information.
From left to right, from top to bottom : a test press (matrix
number suffix 1A/3B) and four regular copies (1A/3B, 1A/3B,
3A/3B, and 5A/3B). Note that the last one came with a flyer
advertising the mega-hit 7th album, meaning that it is a mid-
1980s reissue.

To summarize so far, I was not able to find out evidence for his involvement in cutting 7" and 12" singles from any album but THE RIVER (see Parts 1 and 2). On the other hand, it was confirmed that he was involved in the production of at least the following four albums, BORN TO RUN, THE RIVER, NEBRASKA, and BORN IN THE U.S.A., during his career at CBS Studios in London from 1976 to 1993. DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN* could be listed as well considering the original release year (1978); however, I have no evidence for that. A search on the Discog database also gave no results of the matrix codes containing or associated with his signatures for various copies of this LP pressed in the U.K. The last post (Part 3) explained the case of his involvement in the aforementioned former two albums. Here, the following report on the remaining two albums.

Collecting log: BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP ー Matrix numbers of the earliest U.S. pressing and an error copy with off-centered labels (Part 5 of 5)

The domestic release date (June 21, 1984) is
stamped in red on the folded Japanese insert
and given in the Japanese imperial year format
[(Showa) 59 = 1984].

Before starting this topic, I had never thought that I would write five consecutive blog posts about one of the most, if not the most, mediocre collectibles in his entire vinyl LP catalogue (mass-produced regular pressings, I mean), and this is the last one. In the last two posts, I paid particular attention to the dead wax width of various different pressings of the mega-hit album with the early regular U.S. pressing as a reference, since this physical parameter is an undistinguished but fundamental determinant for vinyl disc variations. Then, what was unexpected to me was that at least a few non-U.S. pressings, such as Filipino and Dutch, are in fact made using the U.S. disc masters, as indicated by the MASTERDISK stamp on their run-off groove area (along with Ludwig's etched initials RL on the former vinyl pressing), which is not the case for other major releases like the U.K. pressings.

Collecting log: BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP ー Matrix numbers of the earliest U.S. pressing and an error copy with off-centered labels (Part 4 of 5)

Another flawed copy of the album from my
collection is the U.K. first pressing, as indicated
by the matrix number CBS-86304-A1, which
comes with the blank label on Side One.

As mentioned in the last post, the original or early copies of BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP (Columbia QC 38653) manufactured in the U.S. have wide deadwax on Side One, which in addition to the matrix hand-etching RL, is a feature associated with the vinyl pressings mastered by Robert "Bob" Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, Portland, ME. On the other hand, the later pressings with narrow deadwax, where his initials are absent, are not cut by this Mastering Maestro, despite whom the album production credits refer to as mastering engineer on the album inner sleeve. This fact just made me wondering about the deadwax width of various copies of the album pressed in countries other than the U.S. Here for making comparison, I picked up several of the copies randomly from my collection.

Collecting log: BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP ー Matrix numbers of the earliest U.S. pressing and an error copy with off-centered labels (Part 3 of 5)

The width of the dead-wax space is about 21 mm long for the early
vinyl discs and 13 mm for the repressed copies.

Back to the early U.S. pressings of the mega-hit album. In the first post of this topic, I wrote about the three features that are prerequisite for such vinyl pressings: a blue & white sticker pasted on the shrink wrap of the album sleeve and two signatures (MASTERDISK stamp and RL inscription) on the run-off groove space of the vinyl disc. Additionally, there is yet another point by which a given copy can be distinguished from the later pressings. The early discs mastered by Robert "Bob" Ludwig have an apparently wider dead-wax space compared to the repressings. This difference is found on Side One only. It is of note, however, that some vinyl pressings lack the RL hand-etching even though the run-off area is wider. As I mentioned in the last blog, one such example is the copies with the matrix number PAL 38653-3L. I don't know if he happened to forget to inscribe his initials on the master lacquer or if this particular pressing indeed is not mastered by him (though unlikely).

Collecting log: BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP ー Matrix numbers of the earliest U.S. pressing and an error copy with off-centered labels (Part 2 of 5)

With the vinyl collection increasing steadily and continuously, erroneous or defective copies of official releases have gradually accumulated over the years in my collectible archives. As summarized here, such flaws range from tiny careless typos on record labels, sleeves and Obi-strips, to one-of-a-kind production errors like a lyric sheet mistakenly used for making the inner sleeve for Disc One of THE RIVER LP. Although BORN IN THE U.S.A. and its associated vinyl releases have never been my prime target of hunting and collecting, I own two such examples for this album. Shown here is a U.S. copy with the record labels that are incorrectly aligned to the vinyl disc.

Disc can be set on a turntable and played normally. This error results from wrongly processed paper labels because the center hole has to be punched out before vinyl pressing.

Collecting log: BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP ー Matrix numbers of the earliest U.S. pressing and an error copy with off-centered labels (Part 1 of 5)

On the front sleeve of the U.S. releases, original and early vinyl pressings
came with a blue and white sticker whereas a black and white one was
used for later and repressed copies.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the release of BORN IN THE U.S.A. (blog posts related to this album are summarized here). Just like in the U.S., before the internet era, radio airplay here was the primary source of listening to newly released songs, although the number of radio stations in Japan was (and still is) way smaller than that of the U.S. I believe it was a Friday night of May 1984 when Dancing In The Dark, the advanced single off the album, was for the first time aired in Japan (and I listened to it) on the NHK-FM radio program called Sound Street (PM 10:00-10:45), which was hosted by Yoichi Shibuya, one of the most influential critics in popular/rock music in Japan (previously mentioned here; he is one of those who contribute essays to the rare promotional booklet for the Japanese edition of DARKNESS LP).

Collecting log: The best acquisition in 2016

Big box arrived here from upstate New York. Inset shows the eBay
sticker probably for global shipping (overlaid on which is the semi-
transparent lilac-colored label of the domestic delivery service).

Now we're coming to the end of the year, it's time to look over the best acquisition in 2016. It's a volume purchase won on eBay this spring with a cumulative bid of 12, which resulted in the final amounts just exceeding 80 bucks. The amounts were happily way less than what I had expected to pay, but as always, the shipping cost too much from East Coast of the US (slightly more than the half of the final bid). Speaking of the shipping option, as many non-US buyers already pointed out, I am also quite discontented with eBay Global Shipping Program because it charges additional costs that probably results from handling, custom/import duty (pre-paid is mandatory; Note that the zero rate is usually applied for importing vinyl discs here, unless an item is quite expensive or highly valued) and the US domestic delivery from seller's address to the Global Shipping Center.

Collecting log: Cover Me UK shaped picture disc single

A bi-color sticker on the PVC bag holding the picture
disc. Note that not all copies come with stickers.

This is the final of the three consecutive collecting logs on “cheap buy” in my recent trip to Tokyo. Yet another I picked up there was Cover Me/Jersey Girl (live) (CBS WA 4662), one of the three shaped picture disc singles from the album BORN IN THE U.S.A. that were commercially available in England. This limited edition is the second release out around September or October 1984 (the receipt of the imported first copy I obtained dated 11th October, 1984), following the pink caddy-shaped picture disc of Dancing In The Dark/Pink Cadillac (CBS WA 4436) and followed by the US flag-shaped I'm On Fire/Born In The U.S.A. (CBS WA 6342). The original pressing has a printing error on the rear side, listing both incorrect playing speed (45 rpm) which is blacked out and the correct speed (33 ⅓ rpm) underneath it. The re-releases correct this error (see the picture below).

Collecting log: Trivial questions on Born In The U.S.A. white label US promotional 12" vinyl

All the promotional 12-inch discs from BITUSA come with red labels
 except for the title track release whose labels are white (see below).

Revisiting the vinyl bootleg on the last three consecutive posts (April 20, 23 and 24) brought me back to the era of BORN IN THE U.S.A. Around 1984-85, not only had we the flood of live bootlegs from the 15-month world tour, but also we saw plenty of official 7" and 12" vinyl releases from various countries worldwide. While I was looking forward to collecting every forthcoming 7" single from the album with a previously unreleased track on the flip side, it was a series of promotional 12" vinyls that also called my attention. This was simply because the format would at least theoretically provide better sound than 7" or LP format for a given song. My favorite was, and still is I'm Goin' Down (US Columbia CAS 2174), not lyrically but for its enjoyable melody. So, I occasionally pull the copy from my record shelf and give a listen to it played loudly on my DENON turntable.

Collecting log: Unusual label error for My Hometown US 7" single

The seventh and last single cut from BORN IN THE USA in 1985 finally features the live version of Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town on a regular 7" disc (flip side) long after its promotional release to radio stations in the mid 1970s.

Unable to update blog these days because here comes a busy season towards the end of this fiscal year (March). In the meantime, early this month, I just found this US regular 7" single of My Hometown / Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (live) (Columbia 38-05728) on eBay, and after a while thinking, bought it via "Buy It Now" option. At the first glimpse of a small photo on the auction page, I somehow recognized that there was something wrong with this vinyl disc, but just couldn't figure out what was actually wrong. Moreover, the seller did not mention anything about the error in the item description (he/she may have regarded it as just a defective copy, not as a collectors' item). So, I almost passed up this otherwise widely circulated stock copy of a mediocre collectible.

BORN IN THE U.S.A. Japanese test pressing LP w/ flyers (and advanced promo cassette tape)

Despite the fair condition, this test press sold extremely well
(from actual auction)

Auction watching continues. Regularly checking Yahoo! Japan auction for rare Springsteen collectibles, I saw another case of high competition that has ended early this week (July 13) with the incredible final bid of over $500. The auctioned item was a test pressing copy of Japanese BORN IN THE U.S.A. LP (CBS/SONY 28AP 2850) in a white plain cover with the small custom sticker. The total bid volume was 29 from six competitors (again I was just watching, not joining the auction). Interestingly, at least two bidders seem to have joined the auction of the custom promo-only THE "LIVE" cassette tape which was mentioned on the last blog (July 12).

Collecting log: Dancing In The Dark Mexican colored 12" vinyl

Dancing In The Dark 12" remix collectibles:. Clockwise from
top left: Japan-only promo and the vinyl disc, US promo,
and regular Mexican and Portuguese releases.

More than 30 years ago, in a total surprise to his die-hard fans, Springsteen released special dance mix version of the first three top 10 singles (Dancing In The Dark, Cover Me and Born In The USA) from the album BORN IN THE USA, all of which are pressed in 12-inch format and remixed by Arthur Baker, then one of the most fashionable hip-hop producer. Music-wise, I believe that many of hardcore fans ignore, or are not interested in, these 12" releases. However, there are a few vinyl pressings worthy of collecting for Dancing In The Dark. Although I had refrained from collecting these for long, recently, I got a copy each for Mexican (CBS BS-35051) and Portuguese releases (CBS A 12.4436) at relatively cheap prices on eBay.