Bruce Springsteen Reveals Full ‘Tracks II’ Details: Boxed Set Sports Seven Previously Unheard ‘Lost Albums’ Recorded Between 1983-2018

Almost ever since Bruce Springsteen released his “Tracks” boxed set of unreleased material in 1998, fans have clamored for a follow-up volume. Twenty-seven years later, they’ll get it. On Thursday morning, Springsteen unveiled the full, possibly mouth-watering details for “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” a long-awaited collection that includes recordings made between the years of 1983-2018 and sports 83 previously unreleased songs, 74 of which have never come out in any form before.

There is one interesting wrinkle that distinguishes “Tracks II” from the first set more than a quarter-century ago. This is not a random assemblage of loose ends that got left on the cutting room floor at the end of the making of the familiar albums fans know and love, as the original “Tracks” was. Rather, it is billed as being comprised of seven complete albums, each of which was recorded and abandoned, all of which will have their own titles and covers as part of the larger collection.

“Tracks 2” comes out June 27 through Sony Music and will be available in configurations including a 7-CD set and a 9-LP vinyl collection. For those who don’t want to wade through all 83 songs, Springsteen will also release a distilled edition, “Lost and Found: Selections From the Lost Albums,” with 20 highlights culled from the larger set. That abridged volume will come out the same day in physical formats as a single CD and double-LP.

The seven heretofore unheard albums coming out in the boxed set, in order of their periods of origin, are “LA Garage Sessions ’83,” “Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.” “Faithless,” “Somewhere North of Nashville,” “Inyo,” “Twilight Hours” and “Perfect World.”

A teaser track, “Rain in the River,” came out concurrently with the announcement of the full details of the set Thursday. Moreover, Springsteen and Sony also put up a two-minute video trailer that includes not just footage of Springsteen talking about the set, but also short flashes of the cover art for each of the seven distinct albums and descriptions of those recordings’ origins.

He explains in the trailer that he embarked on finishing some of the incomplete material while under lockdown earlier this decade. “I often read about myself in the ’90s as having some lost period or something, and not really; really, I was working the whole time,” he says in the video. He continues, “During the pandemic, what I did for that period of time was I finished everything I had in my vault. So this is ‘Tracks II.’ The ‘Lost Albums’ are records that were full records, some of ’em even to the point of being mixed and not released for one reason or another, (because of) something I felt was missing from some of them, or they just didn’t feel complete at the time.”

Some of these “lost” albums have been reported or heavily rumored over the years, with Springsteen having loosely characterized a few of them in past statements, and some of the musicians involved offering their recollections in other cases. The albums are a mixture of completely self-made material, songs cut with the E Street Band, and tracks recorded with players Springsteen was working with in the ’90s during the long interval when the E Street Band was inactive. Not until the material is heard will the public be able to fully judge whether stylistic descriptors that fans have used, like “Bruce’s country album,” truly apply to any of them.

It is possible to get a head start on at least thinking about the different personalities of the seven albums, between some descriptive language used in the project’s press release and further thumbnail descriptions that flash by in the video. Some details:

“LA Garage Sessions ’83.” Here’s where several of the nine tracks that have been released in alternate versions reside, like the familiar titles “My Hometown” and “Shut Out the Light.” The press release describes it as a “lo-fi exploration” that “serves as a crucial link” between the solo-acoustic “Nebraska” and the fully produced, more celebratory “Born in the U.S.A.”

“Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.” The style here leans into “drum loop and synthesizer sounds.” Interestingly, the album does not actually include a version of “Streets of Philadelphia,” but rather it’s suggested that Springsteen couldn’t stop writing and recording in that vein when he was cutting the theme song for the Jonathan Demme movie. The trailer says Springsteen recorded this in 1993-94 and “expanded the contemporary sound of the Oscar-winning song of the same name, including songs cut with Tommy Sims, Zack Alford and Shayne Fontayne from the 1992-93 touring band.” These sessions followed his “Human Touch”/”Lucky Town” double-header release.

“Faithless.” It’s described as “a moving meditation on purpose, belief and acceptance” — with an unusual pedigree. “It was music commissioned for a film that for one reason or another hasn’t been made up to now,” says Springsteen. “That’s the movie business for you. But I sat with the music for a long time… not knowing where the project was going. I decided to release it as a record.” Further details on whatever the scotched film might have been may or may not be forthcoming. The trailer says the album “echoes tone and locations found in other work on the box, particularly ‘Inyo,’ but with a marked focus befitting its origin.”