Electric Nebraska Is Better As A “Lost” LP

Also: RIP D'Angelo and Check Out This Promising Young Band From Chicago

Over at Uproxx this week I wrote about one of my favorite subjects: “Lost” albums. What exactly do I mean by “lost” albums? Here’s how I define them:

I am not talking about records that didn’t get their due in their time. And I’m not counting albums that are out of print or absent from streaming or are in any way obscure or hidden or “unsung” or “underrated.” Those are what you might call “lost classics,” and it’s different from the thing I’m talking about right now. I am also not referring to the music of the fictional band Drive Shaft, whose two albums Drive Shaft and Oil Change could be called “lost” records because they were featured on the popular ABC show Lost. (This caveat has a niche audience. But I’m sure they appreciate it.)

These are the three kinds of “lost” albums I am interested in:

1. Albums that remain unreleased, either by artist’s choice or record-label maleficence.

2. Albums that were unreleased for a time but then came out after they achieved iconic “lost” status, to the point where even now they still seem “lost” even though they technically aren’t anymore.

3. Albums that might not actually exist.

The Beach Boys’ Smile. Bob Dylan’s Great White Wonder. That grunge album Mariah Carey supposedly made in the mid-’90s. (Really!) That’s what we’re talking about here. I wrote about 25 “lost” albums in all, but the enterprise was inspired by the release of Electric Nebraska, which arrives next week as part of a box set commemorating the sixth Bruce Springsteen LP. The sessions from early 1982 where Bruce tried in vain to make his solo acoustic demos function as a new E Street Band record have been the subject of conjecture for more than 40 years. Electric Nebraska is among the most romanticized of the “lost” albums, in part because it is the rare set of Boss outtakes that haven’t already been bootlegged. It’s also unique for checking all three of the boxes I just outlined — Electric Nebraska was withheld for so long that Bruce himself wasn’t sure such a thing even existed. But now it’s about to be readily accessible, this great white whale of obsessive Bruce fandom.

And I am ambivalent about this:

As a guy who wrote a book about the period that berthed Electric Nebraska, I’m thrilled to finally hear this music I’ve been reading about for as long as I have cared about Bruce Springsteen. From an historical and journalistic perspective, having Electric Nebraska out in the world, unquestionably, is a boon. But as a fan with romantic notions about “lost” records, it’s sometimes more fun to imagine what a record sounds like than to actually hear it.

…

Here’s the problem with Electric Nebraska: The regular Nebraska exists. And it is perfect as is. That’s what those songs are supposed to sound like. And because the songs sound like that, Nebraska will always be unique in Bruce Springsteen’s catalog. Electric Nebraska, meanwhile, is composed of eight outtakes that sound a bit like Born In The U.S.A. and a bit like The River. The E Street Band, road-tested and at the peak of their powers, take Bruce’s quiet meditations on regret, guilt, and trauma and turn them into pile-driving rock songs. Because that’s what they do, and they’re extremely good at it. But it was never going to be more than just an interesting subplot to this album the world has recognized as a masterpiece for 43 years. Electric Nebraska is not a full-fledged album in its own right. It’s the musical equivalent of a DVD “making of” extra.

Of course, if you’re a fan, it’s still (obviously) worth hearing. The version of “Born In The U.S.A.” recorded as a trio with Max Weinberg and Gary Tallent is especially riveting, as are the hopped-up psychobilly takes on “Open All Night” and “Reason To Believe,” which underline the influence that the NYC post-punk duo Suicide had on Springsteen at the time. As for the box set overall, the first disc collects fascinating early drafts of songs from Nebraska and Born In The U.S.A. that will be of extra-interest if you haven’t already heard them via bootlegs. (Two of those tracks, “On The Prowl” and “Gun In Every Home,” have not, to my knowledge, previously circulated.) And then there’s the recent live album, where Bruce performs Nebraska in its entirety backed by Larry Campbell and Charlie Giordano. It is quite good but less revelatory. If I’m feeling less than charitable, I might argue it’s here to fill space.

This is the part where I revive an old complaint: Electric Nebraska should have been packaged as part of a bigger and weightier box set that covers both Nebraska AND Born In The U.S.A.! Because those albums are inextricably linked! I laid out my vision for such a release back in 2024: “This mythical collection would, theoretically, begin with the demos he laid down in late ’81 at his rental home in Colts Neck, N.J., continue on through the sessions in the winter and spring of ’82 with The E Street Band (including the so-called Electric Nebraska), pick up again with the solo recordings he did in early ’83 at his home studio in L.A., and then go back to the work he did with the band later on in ’83 and into ’84. Add a disc or two of live tracks from the tour, and you have quite the box set.”

When I was on the promotional tour for my book, I spent a lot of time psychoanalyzing Bruce and his apparent aversion to celebrating Born In The U.S.A., his best-selling LP and the one he’s expressed the most misgivings about publicly. While there was a 40th anniversary release for that record, it felt perfunctory. Certainly it was way more understated than the $80 five-disc treatment Nebraska has received. Even more interesting is his reluctance to view Born In The U.S.A. as the second half of the Nebraska saga. When asked back in 2022 about a potential box set bridging those albums, Springsteen told Rolling Stone, “First of all, what people need to understand is that most of the Born in the U.S.A. great outtakes are out there on Tracks 1. The Born in the U.S.A. stuff we have left either isn’t very good or there isn’t any of it. I’m not sure which. We’re hoarding no secrets.” But any Bruce fan will tell you that’s not exactly true. After all, just a few years later on the humongous Tracks II: The Lost Albums released this summer (which I wrote about!), he included L.A. Garage Sessions ’83, the cache of demos he recorded by himself in the no-man’s land between Nebraska’s release and the completion of Born In The U.S.A. Which would have been — should have been! — a disc in that theoretical Nebraska/Born In The U.S.A. box set I just mentioned!

Alas, now that Electric Nebraska is about to be out in the world, fans can assemble their own version of this box set, which (to me) represents the most compelling era of Bruce’s career. Hopefully I’ll still feel that way after seeing Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere next week …

FURTHER LISTENING

On this week’s Indiecast, Ian Cohen and I discussed the life and legacy of D’Angelo, the brilliant singer, songwriter and musician who passed away this week at age 51. D’Angelo has one of the most unique careers I can think of — he put out three albums, one per decade in the ’90s, the ’00s, and the ’10s. Not a big body of work, but each of those records is considered a classic. (Fiona Apple comes to mind as the only analogue working at a snail’s genius pace.) His second LP, 2000’s Voodoo, is viewed as the tallest among giants, though my favorite is probably his third and final record Black Messiah (for now, surely archival releases are coming). That one was also a “lost” album of sorts, as I wrote in my column:

It’s an album everyone assumed would stay “lost,” and then it came out and blew all our minds. The history is part of the album’s legend: Started making it in 2002, derailed by drug charges and a car accident in the mid-aughts, returns to work in the early 2010s, gets really good at playing guitar, gets hyped as making the “black version of Smile” by Questlove, and then finally drops this surprising masterpiece.

When people romanticize “lost” albums, Black Messiah is the record they’re hoping to find (and rarely get). RIP.

RECOMMENDATION CORNER

Recently someone put a bug in my ear about the young Chicago band Glass-Beagle, who describe themselves as playing “country and folk, power pop and rock ‘n’ roll.” So, yes, they are part of the Wilco School Of Chicago Bands, residing squarely in the “Being There crossed with Summerteeth” zone. Their latest EP, Early Riser, dropped back in May, but I just caught up with it and I’ve been playing it regularly. I suggest you do the same!