The news broke of Sly Stone‘s death hours before this issue of Uncut was due at the printers, so huge thanks to the team for some frantic but ultimately successful work remaking the issue to honour his memory.

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What constitutes a ‘lost’ album? It’s a question we routinely ask ourselves, as record companies empty their cupboards of old tapes in the hope of finding unreleased gold. As countless Uncut features attest, Neil Young has been steadily releasing caches from his fabled repository of ‘lost’ albums – the most recent, Oceanside Countryside, arrived in March. Now Bruce Springsteen has opened his vault to unveil unreleased full-length records of his own. For this issue’s cover story, Peter Watts’ research and interviews reveal the unexpected nature of Springsteen’s shadow discography: for an artist so closely associated with a specific band, it’s fascinating how much of this music has either been recorded solo or in the company of musicians other than his doughty lieutenants in the E Street Band. Critically, though, while Young’s ‘lost’ records have been the subject of intense speculation for decades, it transpires that the contents and extent of Springsteen’s archival motherlode were largely unknown, even among the most die-hard Bruce Tramps.

Did I mention Neil? Not long after this issue of Uncut goes on sale, he is due to begin his first European tour since 2019, including stopoffs at Glastonbury and Hyde Park. Meanwhile, we take a trip back to 1975 to celebrate Zuma, his first album with the new lineup of Crazy Horse. Elsewhere, we discover the secrets of Scott Walker, War, Booker T and Sade; untangle a bumper month of albums that includes releases from Wet Leg, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Marianne Faithfull, Mark Stewart, The New Eves, the B-52s and Mickey Newbury; witness Iggy Pop live; discover all about the Wilko Johnson play; meet Caroline, Folk Bitch Trio and plenty more.

Incidentally, if you’re going to see Neil over the summer, we’ll see you there.