Springsteen Tracks 2.review: Is The Lost Albums Worth It?
Springsteen Tracks 2. Review : Released on June 27, 2025, Tracks II: The Lost Albums isn’t a typical rarities collection. Unlike the original 1998 Tracks box, which gathered outtakes and B-sides into a loose grab bag, this one collects seven complete, cohesive albums that Springsteen recorded between 1983 and 2018 and simply never released. Some were fully mixed and ready to go before he shelved them. The collection spans more than 80 previously unreleased songs across LA Garage Sessions ’83, Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Faithless, Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, Twilight Hours, and Perfect World.
What tends to surprise people going in is how different each of these albums sounds from the others. This isn’t seven variations on the same Springsteen mood. LA Garage Sessions ’83 is raw, lo-fi rock that sits between Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. Somewhere North of Nashville leans hard into countrified, pedal steel arrangements. Faithless was written as a film score for a movie that was never made, and it sounds like it, moody and cinematic in a way nothing else in his catalog quite matches. Twilight Hours goes for orchestral, mid-century noir. If you came in expecting one long Springsteen record, the range here is honestly the most interesting thing about it.
How It Actually Sounds
In my experience, box sets built from unreleased material this old tend to feel like historical curiosities more than albums you’d actually put on for pleasure. That’s not really the case here. Several of these records hold up as full listens in their own right, not just context for die-hard fans. Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, built around drum loops and synths from the mid-90s, feels like a genuine detour worth hearing on its own terms rather than a footnote to the Oscar-winning title track it shares its name with.
The critical reception backs this up. The collection holds an aggregate score of 95 on Metacritic, which is an unusually strong number for an archival release this size, and outlets like Rolling Stone gave it substantial coverage treating it as a genuine addition to the catalog rather than a nostalgia cash grab.
One thing worth flagging: with seven albums and dozens of songs, quality isn’t perfectly even across the whole set. A couple of the collections feel more like demos still finding their shape, which makes sense given some of these were genuinely abandoned mid-process. That unevenness is honestly part of the appeal if you’re a longtime fan curious about the road not taken, but it’s worth knowing going in if you’re expecting uniform polish.
Formats and What You’re Actually Paying For
This is where things get complicated, and it’s a real part of any honest springsteen tracks 2.review. The set is available as a 9LP vinyl box set and a 7CD box set, both including a 100-page cloth-bound hardcover book with archival photos and liner notes from essayist Erik Flannigan, plus a personal introduction from Springsteen himself. Both formats reproduce each individual album’s original intended packaging inside the larger box.
Pricing varies significantly by retailer and region, and given how much it’s fluctuated since release, your best bet is checking Springsteen’s official site or a major retailer directly for current numbers rather than relying on any figure printed elsewhere. What’s consistent across sources is that this is a premium physical product priced accordingly, not an impulse purchase. If the full box set price gives you pause, the collection is also available to stream in full on major platforms, and there’s a shorter 20-song curated companion release called Lost and Found: Selections From The Lost Albums for people who want a taste without committing to the whole thing.
Who This Is Actually For
If you’re a serious, longtime Springsteen fan who’s already worked through his official catalog, this is close to essential. Hearing an artist’s abandoned creative directions across three and a half decades is a genuinely rare thing to get access to, and the accompanying documentary, Inside Tracks II: The Lost Albums, adds useful context on why each project got shelved.
If you’re a more casual listener who enjoys his hits, the full box set is probably overkill. Streaming individual albums that catch your interest, or picking up the shorter Selections release, gets you most of the value without the commitment of 80-plus songs and a premium physical product.
Springsteen Tracks 2.Review: How It Stacks Up Against the Original Tracks
The obvious comparison point is the 1998 Tracks box, and it’s worth being direct about how different these two releases actually are. The original Tracks was outtakes and alternate versions, individual songs that didn’t make finished albums. Tracks II is the opposite: whole albums that were essentially finished and then abandoned. That distinction matters for expectations. If you loved the loose, scrapbook feel of the original box, know that this one is more structured and more ambitious in scope, even if that means it demands more patience to work through in full.
Springsteen has also confirmed a third box set, Tracks III, is planned for the coming years, reportedly returning to the loose outtakes format of the original rather than the full-album structure used here. That’s worth knowing if you’re wondering whether this well is now dry. It isn’t.
FAQs
How many songs are actually new to most fans?
The large majority. Sources vary slightly on the exact count, but well over 70 of the songs across the collection had never been released in any form before this box set.
Do I need to buy the physical box set to hear everything?
No. The full collection streams on major platforms, so the physical set is really about the packaging, book, and collector’s experience rather than access to the music itself.
Is there a cheaper way to sample the collection first?
Yes, Lost and Found: Selections From The Lost Albums is a shorter 20-track companion release pulling highlights from across all seven albums, and it’s a reasonable way to test the waters before committing to the full set or a full listen-through on streaming.
Which of the seven albums is the best entry point?
LA Garage Sessions ’83 is probably the most accessible starting point for fans of his classic sound, since it sits closest to the Born in the U.S.A. era. If you want something that shows the range of the whole project, Streets of Philadelphia Sessions is a good second stop.
Is a Tracks III really coming?
Springsteen has confirmed it publicly, though no release date or full tracklist has been announced. He’s said it will return to the outtakes-and-rarities format of the original Tracks rather than repeating the full-album structure of Tracks II.
If you’ve got the patience for it, working through all seven albums in the order they were recorded rather than the order they’re sequenced in the box gives a genuinely interesting sense of an artist constantly second-guessing which version of himself to show the world.
Categories: Lifestyle
Tags: Bruce Springsteen, music reviews, box sets, Tracks II
