Bruce Springsteen is hinting at the release of another extensive compilation from his archives. On Tuesday, he teased on Instagram that “what was lost has now been found.” The following day, he shared a teaser for what seems to be a new, career-spanning project, accompanied by the hashtag TheLostAlbums.
The teaser video, featuring black-and-white footage of the 75-year-old Springsteen playing an acoustic guitar, was set to an untitled instrumental track. It included the words “Tracks II” and directed viewers to a website, lostalbums.net. The site showcases a studio card from Springsteen’s Thrill Hill Recording studio in Los Angeles and Colts Neck, N.J., with the dates 1983-2018.
At press time, no further details about the project were available, including a release date or track listing. The project appears to be a sequel to Springsteen’s 1998 box set “Tracks,” a four-disc, 66-song collection that covered 1972-1995. That collection featured unreleased songs, b-sides, demos, and alternate versions of existing tracks, including an acoustic rendition of “Born in the U.S.A.”
The original “Tracks” spanned early demos recorded in 1972, prior to his 1973 debut “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.,” through major releases like “Born to Run,” “The River,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Tunnel of Love,” and 1992’s “Human Touch.”
According to the dates on the Lost Albums site, the new set likely begins just before the 1984 release of “Born in the U.S.A.” and continues up to 2019’s “Western Stars.” This period includes a dozen releases, such as 1992’s “Lucky Town,” 1995’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” 2002’s “The Rising,” 2009’s “Working on a Dream,” and 2012’s “Wrecking Ball.”
It remains unclear when the set will be released. However, the promotional video features Thursday’s date. In December, Springsteen’s team hinted at “upcoming releases in 2025” that will explore his recording career, featuring previously unheard material.
Springsteen has previously discussed recording more material than fans have heard. In a 2017 interview with Variety, he mentioned that he and the E Street Band “made many more records than we released.” He explained that he didn’t release them because he didn’t consider them essential, referencing projects like the electric version of his 1982 album “Nebraska,” which will be the focus of the upcoming biopic “Deliver Me From Nowhere.”
“I might have thought they were good, I might have had fun making them, and we’ve released plenty of that music [on archival collections over the years],” Springsteen told Variety. “But over my entire work life, I felt like I released what was essential at a certain moment, and what I got in return was a very sharp definition of who I was, what I want to do, what I was singing about. And I still basically judge what I’m doing by the same set of rules.”
Springsteen and the E Street Band will begin their European tour on May 14, starting with three shows at Co-Op Live in Manchester, U.K.