Springsteen Ventures Into Unexpected on ‘Tracks II: The Lost Albums’

“Tracks II: The Lost Albums” is the new box set by Bruce Springsteen released on June 27, 2025.

Released 27 years after the original “Tracks” compilation, this new set is composed of seven full and distinct standalone albums recorded by the veteran northern New Jersey rock musician between 1983 and 2018. And largely unknown to even the most devout Springsteen cryptographers, according to the collection’s description on Apple Music.

Individually, the albums demonstrate a number of logical extensions of Springsteen’s classic songwriting. As well as some tantalizing, disciplined and fully realized genre exercises that have no real precedent in his discography.

As a whole, the collection begs nothing less than a wholesale reevaluation of an already deeply considered career, Apple Music says.

“LA Garage Sessions ’83,” the first disc, is a collection of gussied-up home recordings that bridges the gap between 1982’s “Nebraska” and 1984’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Disc 2, “Streets of Philadelphia Sessions,” is an entire album in the subdued synth-pop vein of the 1990s Springsteen singles “Streets of Philadelphia” and “Secret Garden.”

The third disc, “Faithless,” is an atmospheric soundtrack to a shelved western. Disc 4, “Somewhere North of Nashville,” is an album of pure honky-tonk. “Inyo,” disc 5, is an album influenced by Mexican music. Disc 6, “Twilight Hours,” is an album of loosened-bow-tie jazz-standard style torch songs. And disc 7, “Perfect World,” is an album of full-bore, more recent-vintage rock songs.

According to Mark Deming at AllMusic, if these shelved LPs have anything in common, it’s that they largely fall outside what the average Springsteen fan would expect from him. And often find Springsteen working in styles that are new to the artist.

That’s why it’s so impressive that “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” never sounds like a box full of also-ran material, says Deming.

And it could make the case that Springsteen is an even more eclectic and ambitious artist than he sometimes lets on.