{"id":215023,"date":"2025-06-26T05:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T05:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215023\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T05:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T05:04:12","slug":"bruce-springsteen-tracks-ii-the-lost-albums-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215023\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen: Tracks II: The Lost Albums Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Accordingly, the most essential music is rarely the most familiar, although the blast of harmonica and acoustic guitar that introduces \u201cUnder a Big Sky,\u201d an atmospheric highlight on the 1995 country set Somewhere North of Nashville<\/a>, hits like the scent from an old friend\u2019s childhood home drifting along the breeze. You can see why some of Perfect World<\/a>, a sturdy set of mid-tempo rock songs compiled specifically for this box set, might have been passed over for more distinctive material from its era. And you can see why Somewhere North of Nashville\u2014a lighthearted collection that includes a cover song (Johnny Rivers\u2019 \u201cPoor Side of Town\u201d), several countrified renditions of Born in the U.S.A. B-sides (my favorite: \u201cJaney Don\u2019t You Lose Heart\u201d), and a silly suite of rockabilly rave-ups called \u201cRepo Man,\u201d \u201cDetail Man,\u201d and \u201cDelivery Man\u201d\u2014stayed on the shelf at a pivotal moment in his career.<\/p>\n

Other albums play like emotional breakthroughs. This is where Streets of Philadelphia Sessions comes in. While the music is a triumph\u2014more tender and tuneful than I expected\u2014it also carries the sense of an artist writing himself out of a rut. After a critical and commercial low point in the early \u201990s, Springsteen tried to ride the momentum of his Oscar-winning song for the 1993 legal drama Philadelphia<\/a>, writing further character studies to expand its tragic love story of devotion and decay. In \u201cOne Beautiful Morning,\u201d he builds a refrain from a simple vow: \u201cWe give our hearts to mystery.\u201d Across several tracks, he tests a lyric comparing love to a disease, dreams of flying but realizes he\u2019s crawling, searches for a lost part of himself in someone\u2019s eyes and winds up feeling more broken. Maybe he was concerned about how this material would be interpreted by his fan base\u2014or his family. It only adds to his tension that these uncharacteristic scenes of a mid-life crisis were shelved at the last minute for an E Street reunion and a lean, mean, 6x platinum Greatest Hits set.<\/p>\n

That particular Greatest Hits, as it happens, would become my gateway to Springsteen fandom as a kid in the late \u201990s. Since then, I\u2019ve steadily turned to his work for meaning and guidance and shaped my life around a love of music. Would I have followed this same path if he swapped that welcoming overview for this dark unburdening? It\u2019s impossible to say. But I do know that, 30 years later, it\u2019s hitting the spot. The songs I keep coming back to are \u201cThe Farewell Party\u201d\u2014a poignant ballad offering dreams of transfiguration and \u201ca life somewhere untouched by our failures\u201d\u2014and \u201cMaybe I Don\u2019t Know You.\u201d That one\u2019s a little simpler: a creeping rocker with a punching-bag drum loop that reminded me of Godflesh<\/a> the first time I heard it. Across three verses, Springsteen draws noirish drama from a doomed romance, shadowed by changes he can\u2019t put his finger on yet. \u201cIs it something new?\/Or just something you always hid?\u201d he asks before reaching the chorus: \u201cMaybe I don\u2019t know you like I thought I did.\u201d Once the initial novelty wears off of this strange, sprawling treasure trove of music, the real revelation begins to surface: After all this time, maybe we\u2019re still just getting to know each other.<\/p>\n

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.<\/p>\n

\"Bruce<\/a><\/p>\n

Bruce Springsteen: Tracks II: The Lost Albums<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Accordingly, the most essential music is rarely the most familiar, although the blast of harmonica and acoustic guitar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[31104,77,269,16,15,4715],"class_list":{"0":"post-215023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}