The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs to Share Previously Unreleased Album From 1999, ‘The Lost Record,’ Featuring Members of the Go-Go’s

A year after releasing her debut novel This Bird Has Flown (Little, Brown), and revisiting previously unreleased songs from her archives in early 2024, Susanna Hoffs is set to release a full album of songs she recorded in 1999 on The Lost Record, out October 18.

Produced by Hoffs and Dan Schwartz and recorded in 1999 in her garage with a group of friends, including the Go-Go’s Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin, who co-wrote “Life on the Inside” with Hoffs, and longtime collaborators producer and songwriters Bill Bottrell, and Brian MacLeod, The Lost Record follows Hoffs’ 2023 album of covers, The Deep End and Bright Lights from 2021 and embodies her deeper connection to garage rock.

“I love garage rock,” said Hoffs in a statement. “Many of my favorite songs were written in them, and I lived in garages during the ’80s.”

The Lost Record was made during a “sweet, special period of being home with a new baby, but also an exploration of identity, separate from the Bangles,” said Hoffs in a statement. “It’s an immense thrill to finally be able to share rare recordings that have been near and dear to my heart.”

Hoffs shared the opening track, her original version of “Under a Cloud,” which she co-wrote with MacLeod and Schwartz and later released with The Bangles on the band’s fifth album Sweetheart of the Sun in 2011.

[RELATED: 3 Songs You Didn’t Know The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs Wrote for Other Artists]

“The album is a kind of diary, marking what mattered most at the time,” said Hoffs. “I was reflecting on the things that mattered most in life: love and connection.”

Earlier in 2024, Hoffs also released her cover of Shawn Colvin‘s “I Don’t Know Why,” which was also recorded during these sessions and is the closing track on The Lost Record. “When I first heard ‘I Don’t Know Why,’ it moved me deeply,” shared Hoffs. “I’ve always been drawn to themes of aloneness and the craving for connection as humans. I’d just had my second baby and was experiencing a mix of emotions; intense joy and wonder but also exhaustion and a sense of isolation.”

Hoffs added, “At the same time I was reflecting on my life. How did I get here given the madness of the ’80s — the constant touring, the anonymous hotel rooms, one after another, flying from city to city—and then suddenly home with our new baby? I was reflecting on the things that mattered most in life: love and connection, which were so tangible and beautifully rendered in Shawn’s song.”

‘The Lost Record’ Track Listing:

1. Under a Cloud
2. Grateful
3. Who Will She Be?
4. I’ll Always Love You (The Anti-Heartbreak Song)
5. I Will Take Care of You
6. Living Alone with You
7. November Sun
8. As It Falls Apart
9. Life on the Inside
10. I Don’t Know Why

Photos: Victoria Pearson