Tracks [Box set]

If you're still here, you're either a fellow Springsteenista or you liked the single Lonesome Day off his latest album. In either case, rush - do not stroll, do not even jog - to your local music retailer and fork over the full price for this masterly four-CD collection of outtakes, bootlegs and B-sides from the Boss's thirty-year career. Do it now.

The CDs dovetail neatly with four of Springsteen's five phases as an artist (the fifth began in 1999 after the release of this collection). Each CD in the box has a sleeve with a sepia photo which perfectly captures the mood of the era: there's the merry-go-round Dylan-inspired 1972-1975 Jersey period, the cars and girls River sessions, the industrial rock-out of Nebraska/BornITUSA, and the earringed ageing gypsy mellowness of 1990 onwards. Each CD contains gems, absolute crackers which missed the albums by a criminal whisker. To my great surprise, I listen to the first and earliest one the most: although the four acoustic demos of tracks which made it on to Bruce's first album are great starters, they don't come near the brilliance of Santa Ana, Linda Let Me Be The One and Thundercrack. 'Linda' is my all-time favourite Springsteen song, a simple piano-and-organ-driven street hymn with the most beautiful chorus in rock music, especially in the last verse. 'Thundercrack' is vintage early Boss, with its sprawling structure, exuberant (and sometimes chaotic) Vini Lopez drum thrash, and as always that gorgeous swirling Federici organ.

CD 2 is perhaps the weakest, though 'Loose Ends' and the concert favourite 'Be True' stand out. The eighties CD 3 has the poppiest tracks - 'Lion's Den' and the wonderful 'Janey Don't You Lose Heart' should have replaced the dreary 'I'm On Fire' and 'My Hometown' on the BITUSA album - and also the hardest-rocking one, Pink Cadillac. 'This Hard Land' beats hell out of the Greatest Hits version, mainly because of Bruce's thrilling harp performance at the end. CD 4 is superb even if you didn't like his nineties albums; it's as pretentious as they were, but 'Happy' might just make you cry, and 'Part Man, Part Monkey', while pilloried by snobs as inferior white-reggae dross, is a snarling blood-churning slice of Nu-Boss, and has the funkiest bassline since the genius Garry Tallent left and the edgiest guitar howl since 'Cover Me' (later, Springsteen and the E-Streeters recapture this on 'Worlds Apart').

Human Touch turned me into an infidel. After listening to Tracks, just once, I turned on the road to Damascus. I'll never, *never*, write off the Boss again.

It does miss out on a few great songs, like the superb rock n'roll gem "From Small Things" (which is now finally available on the "Essential Bruce Springsteen" collection), and Springsteen's original version of "Because The Night".
But that's a minor complaint, because this 4-disc set is a real treasure trove. Bruce Springsteen has always been famous for leaving great songs off his records simply because they didn't fit in with the overall mood or the theme of the record, and the quality of most of these songs is amazing.

The songs are sequenced, beginning with a few early acoustic demos of songs which would appear on Springsteen's debut album, and ending with outtakes from "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town".
The first 2½ discs are the greatest, but there is a lot of quality material on all four CDs, including the tremendous hard rock of "Where The Bands Are", "My Love Will Not Let You Down", "Rendezvous" and "Roulette", the bluesy 11½-minute "Thundercrack", the acoustic ballad "When You Need Me", the swinging, near-legendary outtake "Bishop Danced", the slow, stately "Gave It A Name", the tough, sturdy rockers "Give The Girl A Kiss", "Pink Cadillac", "Janey Don't You Lose Heart" and "Rockaway The Days", and the rough, emotional "Hearts Of Stone".

"Tracks" may not be quite as essential as, say, Bob Dylan's 1991 collection of rarities, but Bruce Springsteen isn't really a blidning visionary like Dylan, he is a solid craftsman, and a really great, down-to-earth rock composer. And that's not half bad.
4½ stars.