Photo Credit: Danny Clinch

This morning, Bruce Springsteen took to his social channels to announce the imminent release of an eagerly anticipated archival collection. After first teasing a new offering yesterday with a mock-up form from his Thrill Hill Recording home studio marked with the phrase “What Was Lost Has Now Been Found” and the date April 3, Bruce confirmed today that Tracks II: The Lost Albums is finally arriving.

Springsteen’s update today came in the form of a short video backed by an unreleased instrumental track that sounds like a variation on the Wrecking Ball entry “Easy Money.” The linked website specifies a timeframe for the compiled recordings from 1983-2018. There’s not too much else to charge speculation here, but keen-eyed fans can note in the overlays what appears to be the original lyric sheet for “Delivery Man,” an outtake from 1983’s Born in the U.S.A, as well as a scrap of studio paperwork from the 1993 sessions for “Streets of Philadelphia.” 

Springsteen first opened up his archives in 1998 with Tracks, a celebrated four-disc collection of 66 unheard recordings from throughout his career. While he’s followed up on that impulse since with expanded reissues of Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River and more, he’s also kept stirring the pot for a follow-up to the revealing compilation. Word from the electrified rumor mill is that Tracks II may be even more comprehensive than its predecessor, with as many as seven discs.

“I have a box set of five unreleased albums that are basically post-1988,” Springsteen shared on his vault in a revealing comment to Rolling Stone in 2022. “People look at my work in the ’90s, and they go, ‘the ’90s wasn’t a great decade for Bruce. He was kind of doing this, and he wasn’t in the E Street Band.’ I actually made a lot of music during that period of time. I actually made albums. For one reason or another, the timing wasn’t right or whatever, I didn’t put them out.”

For updates on Tracks II: The Lost Albums, visit lostalbums.net. Learn more about Springsteen’s busy year ahead at brucespringsteen.net.