Tracks (Bruce Springsteen album)

The project began in February 1998, when Springsteen and his chief recording engineer, Toby Scott, began going through his massive collection of unreleased songs. Springsteen had been known as a very prolific songwriter (Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Born in the U.S.A. each had more than 50 songs written for them), and by 1998 the number of unreleased songs was up to more than 350— 3/4 of all his recorded material. Scott had begun on a computerized database of Springsteen's archives in 1985 in order to allow Springsteen to find specific songs that hadn't been released yet, and it was understood by Scott and others since the 1980s that Springsteen would eventually compile a selection of these unreleased recordings into a box set.[5]

Springsteen, engineer Chuck Plotkin and manager Jon Landau had considered releasing these songs in their current rough-mix form, going as far as mastering them in a test-run to get an idea of what they would sound like, but following a listening session in June, it was decided to mix them properly from the original multi-track tapes. Around this time, Sony Music was alerted that the project was in-progress, and they created their own timetable for promotion and release with a September 10 deadline for the final submission of the master tapes. According to Scott, they hadn't even completed a final list of songs by June, and the three-month schedule placed a lot of pressure on them to locate, remix and master the final track list in time to meet Sony's deadline.[5]

Springsteen, Scott, and three sets of engineers spent the next three months going through Springsteen's massive song library, locating the multi-track reels with Scott's database, mixing songs and picking out the best of the unreleased material. Sometimes, a song would need extra parts added on, such as in the case of "Thundercrack", a song dating back to 1973. Springsteen called in then-former bandmates Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons, along with original drummer Vini Lopez, to fill in the missing pieces.[6]

Though Springsteen already had a personal recording studio on his Jersey estate, the setup was awkward, using modest equipment in unconventional ways just to meet contemporary standards of professional recording. By the end of June, Scott was upgrading the facility into a far more sophisticated operation in order to meet the September deadline. Additionally, they began scheduling mix sessions across three different studios as the engineers' availability would be limited due to work with other clients. Springsteen's longtime engineer Bob Clearmountain would work remotely from Los Angeles, where he was already booked on other projects through August. Ed Thacker would mix at Springsteen's newly upgraded facility from July through September. Thom Panunzio would also mix at Springsteen's estate from the end of July through all of August, but he would work out of a mobile studio rented from the Record Plant as Thacker would be working out of Springsteen's studio at the same time. The material would also be divided up chronologically among the three engineers. For example, Panunzio would remix the earliest material as he had worked on many of those recordings when they were first made. Clearmountain mixed all of the material from the 1990s and Thacker mixed all of the material in-between as well as some of the earlier recordings. Up until early August, Scott would be coordinating the entire project by phone from his home in Whitefish, Montana, as he was expecting the birth of his first child, and engineer Greg Goldman would join the project as Scott's eyes and ears on the ground in Jersey where much of the team was located.[5]

On a typical day in August, when all three engineers were working simultaneously, Panunzio and Thacker would generally set up a mix during the evening, returning the next morning to finish. Springsteen would call in during the afternoon and show up between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to listen to mixes and make any suggested changes. Plotkin would be present, adding his input, and he would also have his mixes played back in real time on a receiving unit set up in Springsteen's living room at the compound.[5]

One of the most common changes between the new mixes and the vintage rough mixes was the difference in reverb. According to Thacker, Springsteen's vocals were originally "very big and sitting in the track surrounded by reverb," but Springsteen was now requesting him to "make the vocals drier than they might have been 20 years ago [and to] make them a little more personal."[5]

By the end of June, they had a preliminary list of 128 songs selected for the box set, and the following July, they cut it down to 100 songs (six CDs worth). However, Springsteen eventually decided to cut the number to 66, leaving a total of four CDs. By then, Scott's wife had delivered and he was back on-site in Jersey. As the final mixes were approved, Scott loaded them on to a digital workstation and assembled them in sequence as they would appear in the final boxed set. This meant setting spacings, doing crossfades and other editing tasks that are often saved for the mastering stage if more time had permitted. These final sequences were outputted on to a hard drive and sent to Gateway Mastering in Portland, Maine where they were mastered in a week. After three days of listening tests, Scott, Plotkin and Springsteen signed off on the project and submitted the finished masters on schedule.[5]

Even though the original intention was to cover material from all aspects of Springsteen's career, acoustic demos from 1972 (such as "Arabian Nights", "Jazz Musician", "Ballad of the Self-Loading Pistol", and "Visitation at Fort Horn") were not available for release, due to ongoing court proceedings surrounding the songs (concerning the attempted release of these songs by a different, European based label in 1993).[7][8] Songs from the Electric Nebraska sessions, as well as songs from an unreleased 1994 album, were also missing.

• "Roulette", "Be True", "Pink Cadillac", "Johnny Bye Bye", "Shut Out the Light", "Stand on It", "Janey Don't You Lose Heart", "Lucky Man", "Two for the Road", and "Part Man, Part Monkey" were all B-sides to singles. However, the take of "Stand on It" included on Tracks is a previously unknown alternate version that features an extra verse and a fully finished ending (as opposed to the fade-out on the original B-side).[9]
• "Bishop Danced", "Santa Ana", "Seaside Bar Song", "Zero and Blind Terry", "Thundercrack", "Rendezvous", "So Young and in Love", "Man at the Top", "The Wish", "When the Lights Go Out", and "Brothers Under the Bridge" were all known from previous live performances.
• "Hearts of Stone" was previously recorded by Southside Johnny.
• A rerecorded "This Hard Land" was released on Greatest Hits, although the original recording did not appear until Tracks.
• "Linda Let Me Be the One", "Iceman", "Bring On the Night", "Don't Look Back", "Restless Nights", "Where the Bands Are", "Loose Ends", "Living on the Edge of the World", "Take 'Em as They Come", "Ricky Wants a Man of Her Own", "I Wanna Be with You", "Mary Lou", "Cynthia", "My Love Will Not Let You Down", "Frankie", "T.V. Movie", and "Back in Your Arms" had previously been unofficially released on bootlegs, sometimes under different titles.
• "A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh)" and "Lion's Den" were documented to exist, but had not been officially released.
• "Give the Girl a Kiss", "Dollhouse", "Wages of Sin", "Car Wash", "Rockaway the Days", "Brothers Under the Bridges ('83)", "When You Need Me", "The Honeymooners", "Leavin' Train", "Seven Angels", "Gave It a Name", "Sad Eyes", "My Lover Man", "Over the Rise", "Loose Change", "Trouble in Paradise", "Goin' Cali", and "Happy" were all unknown songs before Tracks.

The box set was a minor success, peaking at #27 on the Billboard 200 album chart.[10] It has been certified platinum in the U.S. and gold in Canada.

In a mostly positive review, AllMusic's music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine opined that "If the end result isn't as revelatory as some may have expected (even the acoustic "Born in the U.S.A.," powerful as it is, doesn't sound any different than you may have imagined it), it's because Springsteen is, at heart, a solid craftsman, not a blinding visionary like Dylan. That's why Tracks is for the dedicated fan, where The Bootleg Series and The Basement Tapes are flat-out essential for rock fans."

Since its release, 44 of the songs on the set have been played live at least once, with "My Love Will Not Let You Down" receiving the most attention at over 100 plays.[11]

The box set was later condensed into a single-disc album called 18 Tracks, with three songs ("Trouble River", "The Fever", and "The Promise") not on the 4-CD box set.

As a result of the project, Sony Music also created its own archive database, making extensive use of Scott's cataloging efforts over the previous decade.[5]

In an interview with Rolling Stone in September 2020, Springsteen suggested that a follow-up box-set of unreleased material is in the works: "There's a lot of really good music left. You just go back there. It’s not that hard. If I pull out something from 1980, or 1985 or 1970, it's amazing how you can slip into that voice. It's just sort of headspace. All of those voices remain available to me, if I want to go to them," he told interviewer Brian Hiatt.[12] Drummer Max Weinberg has overdubbed drum parts for over 40 songs since 2017 for potential inclusion in the next box-set and commented that "any other artist would kill to get these songs." Springsteen also hinted that he may release some "lost albums" in full from his vault, including "Electric Nebraska".[13]

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