Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there's plenty of great new/old music to float you into the weekend. Today, we have a Britpop band starting to dig through their rarities, some hard-to-find soundtracks and a digital premiere of one of Second Disc Records' own releases!
Pulp, Lipgloss EP / Do You Remember the First Time? EP (Island/UMR)
Lipgloss: iTunes / Amazon
Remember: iTunes / Amazon
Last week, Britpop icons Pulp - gearing up for their first U.K. tour in a decade - announced a treat for loyal fans: they'll spend the summer issuing a weekly digital EP replicating various original singles during their tenure on Island Records between 1994 and 2002, featuring a slew of digitally unavailable tracks. The first two, singles from 1994's His N' Hers, are available now and have been accompanied by HD upgrades of the accompanying videos.
Doris Day, The Complete Columbia Singles Vol. 1 (1947-48) (Columbia/Legacy) (iTunes / Amazon)
Legacy continues its digital refresh of the Doris Day discography with this new collection of the luminous Miss Day's earliest Columbia Records singles following her days with Les Brown - 43 timeless sides, dating from 1947-1948. This collection, which chronologically follows the recently-released The Complete Okeh and Columbia Recordings 1940-46, includes such chart hits as "Papa, Won't You Dance with Me?," the No. 1 smash "Love Somebody" with Buddy Clark, two versions of Frank Loesser's Where's Charley? favorite "My Darling, My Darling " with Clark, and the Day signature tune penned by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, "It's Magic."
Stoney and Meatloaf, What You See is What You Get: The Motown Recordings (Motown/UMe) (iTunes / Amazon)
And here's one from your very own Team Second Disc! Last year, Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records issued Everything Under the Sun: The Motown Recordings, a complete collection of late superstar Meat Loaf's recordings with Shaun Murphy as the duo Stoney and Meatloaf. Now, this comprehensive 2CD, 28-track anthology arrives on digital and streaming platforms albeit with a new title and modified cover artwork (replicating an original single picture sleeve) and without the thick booklet of liner notes, photos, and tributes to Meat Loaf from Stoney and producer Ralph Terrana. What you do get, though, is the original 1971 Stoney and Meatloaf album produced by Ralph and Russ Terrana and newly remastered by Kevin Reeves; four rare mono single versions; eight solo tracks from Stoney (six previously unreleased) including collaborations with Bob Gaudio and the team of Nick Zesses and Dino Fekaris; and fully-restored outtakes with complete vocals of the songs which premiered on 1978's controversial (and strangely-titled) Meatloaf Featuring Stoney and Meatloaf. This is a must-have for fans of the Bat Out of Hell singer, blues great Murphy, Motown, or just plain great R&B.
Jacci McGhee, Jacci McGhee (Expanded Edition) (MCA/Geffen/UMe) (iTunes / Amazon)
Jacci McGhee was an accomplished backing vocalist for Keith Sweat whose duet with the smoldering R&B upstart, "Make It Last Forever," reached No. 2 on the R&B charts at the end of the '80s. She parlayed that success into one album for MCA, which featured writing and production by Sweat ("It Hurts Me," "Good Old Fashioned Love") as well as a cover of the stalwart duet "The Closer I Get to You," featuring male vocals from John James and production from the song's original co-writer James Mtume. An impressive seven bonus remixes have been added to this digital premiere.
Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, How the West Was Won (Original Soundtrack Recording) (RCA) (iTunes / Amazon)
Legacy has reissued this 1960 double album recorded by Bing Crosby for his own Project Records imprint. An Americana-themed concept album in RCA's Living Stereo, How the West Was Won featured Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, folksinger Sam Hinton, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, The Jack Halloran Singers, and others, on thematically-arranged suites of songs and spoken word narration: Exploring the Wild New Land, Travellers of the Great Plains, Ranchers and Indian Raiders, The Great Gold Rush Days, The Railroads, Desperadoes, Settlers and Civilization, Cowboys - The Last Frontiersmen, and The Mormons. The complete album has only been released on CD once (by Bear Family in 2007), making this a welcome treat for fans of Crosby, Clooney, or this vein of popular song.
Howard Shore, Fire with Fire (Music from the Motion Picture) (Paramount Music) (iTunes)
Nobody would mistake this 1986 romantic drama about a juvenile delinquent and a Catholic schoolgirl falling in love as a masterpiece, but this surprise digital release - perhaps due to be physically released by an archival score label in the near future - is notable for being an early score credit for Howard Shore. (He'd also score David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly that year, and remains best known for his sweeping work on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.
Anne Pigalle, Souvenir d'Un Paris (ZTT) (Amazon U.K.)
A figure of multimedia art and design and a curator of various punk tributes in Europe, French chanteuse Anne Pigalle first made it past the fringes of the music scene in 1985, when she signed to ZTT and released the album Everything Could Be So Perfect... "Souvenir d'Un Paris" was one of the singles from that LP, and makes its digital debut this week - albeit the first of ZTT's 40th anniversary stream/download releases that's not at all available in America.
Mn says
Thanks for continuing to list the ZTT digital releases. Hoping this one becomes more than UK only in the future.