Features / Release Round-Up

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up featuring a host of titles on CD and vinyl!

Elvis Presley, The Album Collection (RCA/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

To coincide with the 60th anniversary of his signing to RCA, Elvis Presley’s The Album Collection is a whopping 60-disc box set containing 57 RCA albums released during Presley’s lifetime (many with bonus tracks added) and 3 bonus discs of rarities, one disc each for the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.  A 300-page hardcover book accompanies this landmark set.  You’ll find more details here.  Watch for our full review coming later today!

a-ha, Time and Again: The Ultimate a-ha (Warner Bros./Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

This newest a-ha compilation offers up a 2-CD set with a twist.  It contains a single disc of 19 hits across the band’s entire catalogue and a bonus disc of 16 remixes.  Almost half the remixes appeared on various CD singles throughout the years; four make their debuts on physical discs. And five remixes – a newer mix of “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.” by Future Funk Squad and four Scoundrel Days and Stay on These Roads-era mixes – are released for the first time anywhere.  Read more here!

Todd Rundgren, Box O’ Todd (Purple Pyramid) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

The 3-CD Box O’ Todd draws exclusively on radio broadcasts of Rundgren’s early years, with live concerts from Philadelphia 1971, Hempstead, NY 1972 and Cincinnati 1973 (the latter featuring Utopia).  Featuring both hits and rarities, Box O’ Todd is an authorized release licensed from the artist, and includes a booklet with color photos and liner notes by Dave Thompson, a guitar pick, three pins, and a replica backstage pass.  Read more here!

The O’Jays, Back Stabbers (180-Gram Vinyl Limited Edition) (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

1972’s Back Stabbers was the breakthrough album for The O’Jays and also put Philadelphia International Records on the map.  Produced by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, the album went to #10 on the Billboard charts while the title song was a #3 hit and the immortal “Love Train” went to #1.  The sounds coming out of Philadelphia would help to define soul music for the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s with Gamble and Huff, along with Thom Bell, producing some of the decade’s biggest hits with artists like the O’Jays, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, MFSB, Billy Paul and Lou Rawls.  This new 180-gram black vinyl edition is limited to 700 copies.

Salad Days: Original Cast Recording (Masterworks Broadway) (Amazon U.S.)

Masterworks Broadway reissues on CD-R and DD the original cast recording of Salad Days.  Revolving around a magical piano and even featuring a flying saucer, Salad Days was written by Julian Slade, with lyrics written by him and Dorothy Reynolds.  Reynolds also performed in the musical which opened in June 1954 in Bristol before transferring to the West End in August of that year.  It ended up running for 2,283 performances, which was a record at the time.  It has received several British revivals in the ensuing decades, and was previously available on a now-out-of-print CD via Sony West End.

Various Artists, Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music (Numero Group) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Inspired by Gram Parsons’ term for the new, pervasive breed of seventies country-rock, Cosmic American Music collects, in Numero’s words, “golden ingots from the dollar-bin detritus of that [stylistic] domination, to reconstruct events as seen from the genre’s real Wild West–America’s one-off private press label substructure.”  Doubtless purchasers can expect fascinating, impossibly rare music and copious liners from this latest Numero release.  Available on CD and vinyl.

Garry Tallent, Break Time (D’ville Records) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

The E Street Band’s inimitable bassist, Garry Tallent, finally goes solo with Break Time.  He sings, writes and plays on this new album for his D’Ville label which is inspired by his love of classic ’50s and ’60s rock and roll. Break Time is available on vinyl and DD, but no CD is currently planned.