I had no idea that "Downbound Train" (one of my favorite Springsteen songs) was written during the Nebraska sessions.
I'm doubtful we see this in 2019 with the Western Stars movie coming out in the fall. Seems awfully soon to put out more product BUT it's been long rumored and it's been four years since Springsteen released anything from the archive. The question I have is will it be followed up by an E Street tour? The first Tracks led to the E Street reunion tour and it's been a few years since they hit the road. I might be in the minority on this but I'd love for Little Steven to be engaged in the production of these archival releases particularly on the pre-BITUSA stuff. I really like the sound of his Wicked Cool records.
There were no "Nebraska sessions" per se, but, yes, "Downbound Train" (along with "Pink Cadillac", "Born in the USA", "Losin' Kind", and "Child Bride" which was turned into "Working on the Highway") were all recorded at the same time as most of the material on Nebraska and were included on Springsteen's original cassette tape that he sent out to Landau and a few others. This is the tape that the eventual Nebraska LP was mastered from. Those versions have all been bootlegged but only "Born in the USA" has received official release (on Tracks) thus far.
Not all of those tracks are in relatively complete and/or releasable form. Still, there are definitely a number of viable recordings from that period in the archives. Plus, as previously mentioned, there are still some intriguing unreleased alternate arrangements of previously released songs also in the vaults. That said, if Tracks 2 is released, it may very well focus predominantly on session work from the past 25 years, which will ha e diminishing returns.
Or as we've seen on the Darkness and River boxes we'll get new Bruce vocals or other "enhancements" to the recordings. Maybe it won't stick out as much with more recent material but modern Bruce's voice wasn't a match next to the Darkness era recordings on The Promise set.
I'd like the songs that were mentioned in Heylin's book The E Street Shuffle that are total mysteries, especially the two songs that Bruce almost included on the first two albums: The Chosen and Fire On The Wing. Also all the songs that were listed in there that are still unreleased from the original 1993 list.
As if we didn't know that Bruce likes to retouch his old stuff. Those incomplete songs will have new vocals, new ad-libs, new guitar parts and BAM, you have a "releasable" outtake My bet is that if Tracks 2 keeps the 4 disc format, half of it - 2 discs - will be pre-Other Band.
There is no question Springsteen will be tinkering with various archival recordings, one just hopes it isn’t as jarring as the contemporary embellishments were on The Promise set. The overdubs on Tracks were less intrusive and less noticeable, especially if one wasn’t familiar with the boots. But there was a huge difference between early 1998 vocals and 2010 vocals. The new vocals on The Promise are mostly unlistenable. Of course, as you said, if he tweaks recordings from the 2000’s, it won’t be as obvious as a 2019 vocal on top of a vintage 1970’s era or early 1980’s era recording.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN THE LOST ALBUMS While going through another website I came upon this. This box set will be a box set of several lost albums from Bruce's career. That's all I heard. Now, I'm gonna guess that these albums include the 94 Hip Hop record, the Tiger Rose album, the sequel to Devils and Dust, '83 home demos... As well as an alternate Western Stars, the gospel album, the 2000/2001 ESB studio sessions. But that's what I've been told. Similar to Tracks in that they're outtakes, but instead of just 64 straight songs, the box will be like 4-6 different albums (with cover art for each one) packaged together. That's just what I've heard. No idea on release date or anything. I hope my friend isn't messing with me. But he told me about Western Stars (supplied me with the title) about a week before it was announced. I THINK THIS WOULD BE REALLY COOL.
Doubt that's true, but it would be a really neat thing. And I also think it'd help eliminate direct comparisons to other eras or even the original Tracks, and let each bit stand on its own. It's the best way to get out a large amount of music from Bruce's lesser-loved periods, I think. "Unreleased album" is a more tantalizing setup than just a random bunch of 90's outtakes.
I'd love it to be true but I'd have thought Bruce Inc. would have released the album's separately. Also, Devils and Dust was a collection of songs that some were over 10 years old, so I can't see him having a burst of inspiration to make a full, top notch, album straight after it of new songs. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think this is true.
I consider myself a big Bruce fan and I *love* The Promise. To me, it’s the last Bruce album - chronologically speaking - to have a sense of real soul, an R&B influence that was so obvious on The Wild, The Innocent.... I hear a lot of people express displeasure with the newly-recorded vocals on The Promise. Which ones bother people most and which are the most glaring when it comes to the grafted-on new vocals? Would love to hear from people - didn’t mean to go off-topic.
He sounded tired and old. And the songs were presented as Darkness outtakes wich is only partly true. With all those overdubs is feels like 2010 era Springsteen but with better songwriting because the songs were written in his late 20s. Darkness songs with new vocals and horn section doesn't sound anything like 1977/78 to me. That's what bothered me.
The Ties That Bind River Outtakes has 22 songs, 17 sounded real to me. Of course I couldn't believe half of them were released on Tracks, Bruce don't you know your stuff costs money, why did you do that? Thank God he didn't doing new vocals for "The Man That Got Away", "Dollhouse", "Roulette" and some of the faster numbers. He ruined Night Fire, I would rather have an instrumental. In the City Tonight might not have had a decent vocal, unless "Do You Want Me To Say Alright" from June 1979 is the same song. The Promise was a huge disappointment, some of those songs have never been bootlegged, like Breakaway, Brokenhearted, The Little things my baby does, It's a shame, singing versions of TTM and Someday Tonight. He destroyed the long version of The Promise by overdubbing the hell out of it. I doubt we will ever see the untouched versions of those songs ever now.
hahahahahahaha. yeah, right. Guess you're entitled to your opinion... But lots of us don't agree with you. On Metacritic, for example, it has a rating of Metascore of 94 and a user rating of 8.4. The Promise by Bruce Springsteen Pretty good for unlistenable. I think it's fantastic.
Who cares that much what critics say? I don't remember that Springsteen was upfront with all the overdubs. I was pretty dissapointed when I got the set and heard all those modern vocals and other overdubs on my first listen. Note the sticker
