Bruce Springsteen Nods To ’90s Hip-Hop On ‘Blind Spot’

Bruce Springsteen experiments with loops, synthesizers and the rhythms of mid-1990s hip-hop on 'Blind Spot,' the second song to emerge from..

Apr 17, 2025 - 14:48

Bruce Springsteen experiments with loops, synthesizers and the rhythms of mid-1990s hip-hop on “Blind Spot,” the second song to emerge from his long-awaited collection of unreleased music, Tracks II: The Lost Albums. The song is found on Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, one of seven unheard, complete albums contained on the set, which arrives June 27 from Columbia.

The Boss is said to have “pored over” CDs of drum samples at his Los Angeles home during an era that also yielded “Streets of Philadelphia,” the Oscar-winning song from the 1993 Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington-starring film Philadelphia. Eventually, he started making his own loops with the assistance of engineer Toby Scott, onto which he’d add synths. Throughout Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Springsteen plays almost all of the music, beyond a handful of contributions from 1992-93 touring band members Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell.

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“That was just the theme that I locked in on at that moment,” Springsteen says of “Blind Spot.” “I don’t really know why. Patti and I, we were having a great time in California. But sometimes if you lock into one song you like, then you follow that thread. I had ‘Blind Spot,’ and I followed that thread through the rest of the record.”

Although long rumored, Springsteen reps now confirm that these sessions were indeed finished, mixed and planned to be released in the spring of 1995, but the album was shelved when the Boss opted to reunite with the E Street Band instead after a seven-year break.

“I said, well, maybe it’s time to just do something with the band, or remind the fans of the band or that part of my work life,” he recalls. “So, that’s where we went. But I always really liked Streets of Philadelphia Sessions. During the Broadway show, I thought of putting it out [as a standalone release]. I always put them away, but I don’t throw them away.”

Beyond Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Tracks II is divided into LA Garage Sessions ’83, Faithless, Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, Twilight Hours and Perfect World. Faithless is akin to a soundtrack for a film that was never made, Somewhere North of Nashville features “country combos with pedal steel,” Inyo includes “richly woven border tales” and Twilight Hours is “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir.” As for Perfect World, it is said to possess an “arena-ready E Street flavor.”

Beyond a 16-show European tour this summer with the E Street Band, Springsteen remains closely involved with the biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, in which he will be portrayed by The Bear star Jeremy Allen White. The movie chronicles the making of the 1982 album Nebraska and portions of it have been filmed on location at the Jersey Shore.

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