2024 Best Of Bruce Springsteen CD Comes With No Rare Tracks

Feature Photo: Ben Houdijk / Shutterstock.com

Bruce Springsteen fans were greeted with a new Bruce Springsteen release on April 19, 2024. But don’t get lost in your high hopes just yet. No, it wasn’t a new studio album; it was the latest Bruce Springsteen greatest hits package called Best Of Bruce Springsteen. This became Bruce Springsteen’s sixth major career-spanning compilation issued by Columbia/Sony. It was the first in eight years since Chapter and Verse came out in 2016. Interestingly, this greatest hits package came from an artist who, during the first two decades of his recording career, never released a greatest hits package until Greatest Hits was released in 1995.

In the past, several of Bruce Springsteen’s hit collections included unreleased or rare tracks. This was done so that those collections would not only serve the casual fans who just wanted the hits but also the die-hard fans who would buy the compilations for material they didn’t already own. Some of the compilations were extremely generous with rarities, such as The Essential Bruce Springsteen, released as a three-CD collection with an entire third disc devoted to rarities, including some previously unreleased Springsteen recordings. Some of those tracks were fantastic. Can you say “None But the Brave?”

So what goodies could Bruce Springsteen die-hard fans expect to find on this package? Would there be unreleased tracks from his previous three or four studio releases? Some special unreleased live material? Maybe one or two of his collaborations with other well-known artists that had never been released? There had to be something special to make me go out and buy songs like “Born to Run” and “Born in the U.S.A.” all over again.

After previewing the song list on the new Best Of Bruce Springsteen, I was shocked and, of course, incredibly disappointed to find that the album had not one unreleased or rare track on it. It made no sense to me. However, I was looking at this through the eyes of a Springsteen fan who purchased every bootleg released on vinyl in the ’70s and ’80s and then, of course, all those wonderful Italian bootleg Great Dane CDs that came out in the 1990s. I bought every official compilation and hits package, box set, CD single, and more just for the stuff that I didn’t already own. It’s called being a collector, or at least a big fan.

Clearly, Columbia Records was not aiming for this release to reach fans like me. Maybe it’s because fans like me are in their 60s and 70s. Maybe it’s because fans like me are starting to leave this Earth. Of course, that raises another question: “To what music fans are they aiming to sell this record?” If they are aiming for a younger audience, well, then good luck. The younger audience doesn’t buy music the way my generation did; they stream it. Yes, there are a certain group of young people who buy vinyl, but I’m not sure that particular segment of young fans are big Springsteen fans. I could be wrong. I mean, what do I know? I don’t have any statistics; all I know is that as a teacher, when I ask young people if they like Bruce Springsteen, they usually answer, “Who?” They say the same thing about Mick Jagger. Yes, I know it’s sad, but times change.

Ultimately, Bruce Springsteen owes us nothing because he has given us so much over the years. He is one of the most influential musical artists of all time and maybe the greatest live performer ever. Yet, I couldn’t help but be disappointed that a new Springsteen album was being released and I had already heard every song on the album a few hundred or even perhaps thousands of times each. I guess I just had to hope that a single would be released with a rare B-side. Wait, do they even release singles anymore?

The Best Of Bruce Springsteen album was released in CD and vinyl formats with a gorgeous cover taken from the 1975 Born to Run photo shoot by Eric Meola. The physical edition contains 18 tracks, while the expanded digital edition contains 31.

Best Of Bruce Springsteen Track Listing – CD and Vinyl Edition

“Growin’ Up” – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973) – 3:05
“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973) – 7:04
“Born to Run” – Born to Run (1975) – 4:30
“Thunder Road” – Born to Run – 4:49
“Badlands” – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) – 4:01
“Hungry Heart” – The River (1980) – 3:19
“Atlantic City” – Nebraska (1982) – 3:57
“Dancing in the Dark” – Born in the U.S.A. (1984) – 4:01
“Born in the U.S.A.” – Born in the U.S.A. – 4:41
“Brilliant Disguise” – Tunnel of Love (1987) – 4:15
“Human Touch” – Human Touch (1992) – 5:10
“Streets of Philadelphia” – Philadelphia soundtrack (1994) – 4:14
“The Ghost of Tom Joad” – The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) – 4:21
“Secret Garden” – Greatest Hits (1995) – 4:27
“The Rising” – The Rising (2002) – 4:47
“Girls in Their Summer Clothes” – Magic (2007) – 4:19
“Hello Sunshine” – Western Stars (2019) – 3:55
“Letter to You” – Letter to You (2020) – 4:55

Best Of Bruce Springsteen Track Listing – Digital Expanded Edition

“Growin’ Up” – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973) – 3:05
“Spirit in the Night” – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. – 5:00
“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973) – 7:04
“4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle – 5:36
“Born to Run” – Born to Run (1975) – 4:30
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” – Born to Run – 3:11
“Thunder Road” – Born to Run – 4:49
“Badlands” – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) – 4:01
“Prove It All Night” – Darkness on the Edge of Town – 3:57
“The River” – The River (1980) – 4:59
“Hungry Heart” – The River – 3:19
“Atlantic City” – Nebraska (1982) – 3:57
“Glory Days” – Born in the U.S.A. (1984) – 4:15
“Dancing in the Dark” – Born in the U.S.A. – 4:01
“Born in the U.S.A.” – Born in the U.S.A. – 4:41
“Brilliant Disguise” – Tunnel of Love (1987) – 4:15
“Tougher Than the Rest” – Tunnel of Love – 4:35
“Human Touch” – Human Touch (1992) – 6:30
“If I Should Fall Behind” – Lucky Town (1992) – 2:57
“Living Proof” – Lucky Town – 4:45
“Streets of Philadelphia” – Philadelphia soundtrack (1994) – 4:14
“The Ghost of Tom Joad” – The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) – 4:21
“Secret Garden” – Greatest Hits (1995) – 4:27
“The Rising” – The Rising (2002) – 4:47
“Long Time Comin'” – Devils & Dust (2005) – 4:14
“Girls in Their Summer Clothes” – Magic (2007) – 4:19
“The Wrestler” – Working on a Dream (2009) – 3:49
“We Take Care of Our Own” – Wrecking Ball (2012) – 3:54
“Hello Sunshine” – Western Stars (2019) – 3:55
“Ghosts” – Letter to You (2020) – 5:55
“Letter to You” – Letter to You – 4:55

For collectors, there was eventually much better news. On June 27, 2025, Springsteen released Tracks II: The Lost Albums, a seven-album, 83-song archival collection featuring 74 recordings that had never previously been released in any form—the kind of deep-catalog release I had been hoping for when Best Of Bruce Springsteen arrived.

Updated August 15, 2026.