Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc's review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. A quiet, mostly contemplative week means a small batch of understated titles and a big public ask for clarity from one of our missing comrades in catalogue...
Dan Fogelberg, Souvenirs (50th Anniversary Edition) (Epic/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)
The late, great Fogelberg's double-platinum sophomore album, produced by Joe Walsh (a year before he joined the Eagles), gets the red carpet treatment with three outtakes and one never-before-heard song. Impex will release a 180-gram audiophile vinyl of the original album this year.
Paul Simon, Seven Psalms (Owl/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)
Simon's introspective 2023 album was conceived as a cycle of pieces that were initially indexed on disc and digital as one 33-minute piece. Now, however, he's let fans listen to the pieces on their own.
Neil Diamond, "Sweet Caroline" (Two Friends Remix) (Capitol/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)
Neil's immortal pop classic goes house in this intriguing new remix, combining modern beats with the moving original instrumentation. So good? So good! So good!
Jim Caruso, Jane Monheit & Billy Stritch, "Avalon" (Club44) (Apple / Amazon)
Cabaret great Jim Caruso previews his upcoming digital release The Swing Set: Deluxe Edition with this rousing track (written in 1920 by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva, and Vincent Rose) on which he's joined by Jane Monheit and Billy Stritch. The remastered deluxe album will also include his new rendition of "Weird Al" Yankovic's "One More Minute" alongside the original album's versions of such standards as "If I Only Had a Brain" and "Manhattan." Michael Feinstein, Stephanie J. Block, and the late Bucky Pizzarelli are among the other guests on the full album.
Your Lie in April (Original London Cast Recording) (Sh-K-Boom/Warner) (Apple / Amazon)
Musical theatre has seen notable adaptations of comic strip (Annie, Li'l Abner) and comic book (It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman) material, so why not manga? Following the success of his Death Note musical (based on the series by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata), composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll and Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Whitney Houston's "Where Do Broken Hearts Go?") turned to Naoshi Arakawa's bittersweet manga Your Lie in April for a new musical which premiered in 2022 in Japan (in the Japanese language) and in 2024 at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane (in English) in concert. With lyrics by Carly Robyn Green and Tracy Miller, Wildhorn's score is filled with the sweepingly dramatic pop-rock melodies for which the composer is well-known. This vibrant cast recording preserves the score to the full West End production which ran last year at the Harold Pinter Theatre. There are no plans as of this writing for a physical release.
No, YOU spent 20 minutes putting this together in Canva.
And just a quick note...While it's ironic to say so while kicking off this week's column with two titles from the label, we're putting out a note of gentle concern for Sony Music's catalogue division, which feels like it's been missing in action for some time - enough that we finally think it's important to speak out.
Legacy's work in digital backfill (and dedication to keeping interested parties like The Second Disc abreast of it) has sadly gone dark thanks to some recent layoffs confirmed by us. Will their handful of Record Store Day exclusives get a digital release alongside the physical street date next weekend? It remains to be seen. (If there is a remaining, dedicated publicist on staff, we'd love to know - in every sense of the phrase!) The calendar year has seen just eight major physical or digital release announcements, counting Fogelberg at the top and Record Store Day. (One of them is very off-putting in its expense, as our commenters are quick to note.) In the same span of time, we've gotten around 30 notifications from Rhino's team about reissues, box sets and other activations. Third-party licensing, too, seems to be at a near standstill.
We want every label to succeed, especially one that's given us such good and definitive ideas of what music reissues look and sound like. It might not be as worthy as the streaming revenue for "Don't Stop Believin'," but we'll still hold on to that feeling, if you'll let us.
Release Round-Up: Week of January 24
The Weekend Stream: July 20, 2024
"Les Cousins: The Soundtrack to Soho's Legendary Folk and Blues Club" Features Paul Simon, Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Al Stewart
Not streaming but maybe Legacy can finish the 50th anniversary Philadelphia International box sets that seem to have stopped. They do own the catalogue
Those had nothing to do with Legacy, other than licensing.
They were conceived, compiled and released by Snapper UK, who went all in with their Frankie Valli / Four Seasons box that seemed to consume them, sidetrack everything else, and barely sold out.
Those PIR sets are deader than dead, IMO
Agree they are finished. They were overpriced and should have been released at a sensible price which they eventually dropped to. They are now like one of those magazine partworks which just disappear after a few months. The frequency they were being released anyway meant I probably wouldn't be around time they got to the end. As Sony have the rights maybe they could just do something as they have done nothing but some cheap compilations since they made a fuss over having bought the rights
F*ck Legacy. The mostly terrible humans who remain there deserve to fail. To forget your roots is to lose sight of your destination.
Sony has gone down. They initiated the SACD then dropped it, started the Hi Resolution music then all catalog releases dried up. Wonder if all the Executives that resigned after the P Diddy scandal and now Jay-Z. They have not been very strong on their jazz and vocal releases except for reissuing Kind of Blue a kazillion times. Like they have no other catalog artists but Miles Davis and Barbra Streisand. Sony lacks leadership and direction for sure and for a good while.
Unfortunately, Sony (US) very firmly, with no room for discussion, put a stop to plans for Madfish (UK) and the surviving members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra progressing a live box set 18 months ago - even a version of it that literally required Sony to simply accept a five-figure sum to allow it (using non-Sony sources) and provide none of the unreleased archive audio it holds itself. It was just nasty. They're not going to do anything themselves with the MO legacy, so why stop others (including band members in their 70s/80s) doing so?
Your readers might like to know about this crowdfunding project I'm running towards a 7CD/DVD 1969-83 box set on Scottish folk icon Dick Gaughan, who had to retire after a stroke in 2016. Labels turned me down... and after 10 days (of 30), we exceeded $100,000. A phenomenon. It will allow several further Gaughan projects to happen in the coming months: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2121905920/dick-gaughan-r-evolution-1969-84-an-8-disc-box-set
To quote Jello Biafra from 1985:
"Tin-eared, graph-paper brained accountants instead of music fans
Call all the shots at giant record companies now"
Certainly seems true of Sony. But then, Sony is Sony, a massive corporation that started buying up entertainment companies and installing expert executives and not industry experts in their music and film divisions. It's impressive they did as well as they did for as long as they did.
Is this why the Duke Ellington In Order digital releases have stopped? The last release was in July 2024. Very disappointing.
And not to mention the Prince Estate, future releases??
It is tragic about Sony Legacy. I would buy the Dan Fogelberg catalog all over again remastered and expanded...ON CD, but never digitally. They are clueless.
Sony Sony bo boney banana fana so foney!
All the good people at Legacy are gone. There’s two bad hombres, the bottle-neck boys, who are saying no to pretty much everything. Why? Because they can! Where’s the fun in saying yes?
Take the case of 70’s power pop band, Artful Dodger. Two third party reissue labels - denied. Multiple times. The band itself - denied. All Sony had to do was say yes, and cash the checks. They didn’t even know they had the bands last album in their vault. Are they still in the music business… or not? I’d like to think, not for long…