‘I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now,’ legendary rocker says
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Bruce Springsteen has announced he’ll release a mammoth box set this summer that will include seven previously unreleased full-length albums and 74 never-before-heard songs.
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Titled Tracks II: The Lost Albums, the collection, due out on June 27, will feature recordings the singer-songwriter made between 1983 and 2018.
Springsteen, 75, announced the news on YouTube, saying that “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.”
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He said he started putting the project together during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I often read about myself in the ’90s as having some lost period or something, and … really, I was working the whole time,” he says in the video. “During the pandemic, what I did for that period of time was I finished everything I had in my vault.”
“The ability to record at home whenever I wanted allowed me to go into a wide variety of different musical directions,” Springsteen added in a statement.
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According to a release, one 18-song LP, LA Garage Sessions ’83, serves as “a crucial link between Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A.“
Other albums included in the set features work from a film soundtrack (for a movie that was never made), songs recorded during his sessions for Streets of Philadelphia (his Oscar-winning song from the 1993 film Philadelphia) and a selection of tracks described as “country combos with pedal steel.”
Another album is characterized as “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir,” while one set of songs captured on an album titled Inyo is described as “richly woven border tales.”
“Arena-ready” songs cut with the E Street Band show up on another album titled Perfect World.
“I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them,” Springsteen said.
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The seven unheard albums will all feature distinctive packaging and are titled LA Garage Sessions ’83, Streets of Philadelphia Sessions. Faithless, Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, Twilight Hours and Perfect World.
The set will also include a 100-page cloth-bound, hardcover book featuring rare archival photos, liner notes on each lost album from essayist Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction on the project from Springsteen himself.
Highlights from the release will be featured on a separate 20-song collection titled Lost And Found: Selections from The Lost Albums.
Since the release of the first Tracks volume, which was a 66-song collection of unreleased material released back in 1998, fans have clamoured for more of the Boss’ lost songs.
“Over time, I built up a small collection of albums that for one reason or another never got put out,” he said of the set.
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Springsteen’s most recent studio album, Only the Strong Survive, was released in 2022 and found the legendary musician interpreting gems from the legendary catalogues of Motown, Gamble and Huff, Stax and more.
“I wanted to make an album where I just sang. And what better music to work with than the great American songbook of the Sixties and Seventies? I’ve taken my inspiration from Levi Stubbs, David Ruffin, Jimmy Ruffin, the Iceman Jerry Butler, Diana Ross, Dobie Gray, and Scott Walker, among many others,” Springsteen said in a statement at the time. “I’ve tried to do justice to them all — and to the fabulous writers of this glorious music.”
Next month, Springsteen will hit the road once again with the E Street Band for a tour of Europe that kicks off in Manchester, England, and wraps with a pair of shows at San Siro Stadium in Milan, Italy in July.
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