Features / The Weekend Stream

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. Billy Joel fans have it good this week, with seven hours of hits and rarities from his new documentary. If you’ve got room after that, there’s an anniversary reissue for literally the last five decades in a few different genres, too!

Billy Joel, And So It Goes (The Musical Companion to the HBO Documentary Film) (Columbia/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)

If you’ve watched all five hours of the new two-part Billy Joel documentary on HBO Max, you’ll definitely want to check out this seven-hour, 155-track compendium, featuring almost 60 unreleased recordings heard in the film! Check out our deeper dive into what’s featured on the release.

Oasis, “Slide Away” (Live in Cardiff, 4 July ’25) / “Cigarettes & Alcohol (Live from Manchester, 11 July ’25) (Big Brother Recordings Ltd.)

Slide Away: Apple / Amazon
Cigarettes: Apple / Amazon

Oasis’ reunion tour has been going well enough that they’ve mixed and released a few tracks for digital consumption – most recently a version of “Cigarettes & Alcohol” from this month’s Manchester gig.

Paramore, All We Know is Failing (Deluxe) (Fueled by Ramen) (Apple / Amazon)

A lot of digital anniversary editions have hit digital music stores today! First up is to celebrate the 20th(!) anniversary of pop-punk stalwarts Paramore’s debut album. A different digital deluxe edition offered a pair of live cuts, but this one is the first to digitally offer the contents of The Summer Tic EP, which the group sold primarily as a tour exclusive release. Hayley Williams and her bandmates (including drummer Zac Farro, who’d leave the group in 2010 but came back seven years later) ascended to even greater heights after this, but it’s a fine reminder of whereabouts they started.

Heatmiser, Mic City Sons (30th Anniversary) (Capitol/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

Even as Portland, Oregon rock band Heatmiser enjoyed the biggest success of their career with a deal at Virgin Records, 1996’s Mic City Sons found the group in freewill, with tensions mounting between primary songwriters Neil Gust and Elliott Smith. (It certainly didn’t help that Smith was in the early stages of a solo career that would make him a critical darling through the rest of the ’90s and ’00s, before his untimely death in 2003.) But a new deluxe edition of their final LP – also available on vinyl from Third Man Records – recasts the album as an underrated epic, now featuring 12 unreleased demos and outtakes to further illustrate Heatmiser’s work at this crucial juncture.

The Bongos, Beat Hotel (40th Anniversary Edition) (RCA/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)

The sole long-player released by RCA Records from the New Jersey post-punk heroes gets a digital reorganization for its 40th anniversary. It was previously reissued digitally with a host of unreleased demos, and this new edition now includes those demos as well as nine new-to-digital live tracks recorded at the Jersey shore club The Tradewinds in May of 1985. (Another eight from the same show were included on a digital expansion of the Numbers with Wings mini-album; the full set in order was also just released on CD by Jem Recordings.)

Dr. Feelgood, Down by the Jetty / Malpractice / Stupidity / Sneakin’ Suspicion (2025 Remasters) (Parlophone)

Jetty: Apple / Amazon
Malpractice: Apple / Amazon
Stupidity: Apple / Amazon
Suspicion: Apple / Amazon

The British pub rockers’ debut album Down by the Jetty turned 50 this year, and their first four albums – all featuring the classic line-up of singer Lee Brilleaux, guitarist Wilco Johnson, bassist John B. Sparks and drummer John “The Big Figure” Martin – were remastered for vinyl by Parlophone/Rhino. And now they’re digitally available too!

Marina and The Diamonds, Froot (10 Year Anniversary Edition) (Warner Music U.K.) (Apple / Amazon)

Marina Diamandis’ third album (and her final released under a faux stage name before just going by her first name) was a winning slice of throwback synthpop that hit the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic. Alongside a new vinyl edition for its 10th anniversary, this digital reissue offers the album with the unreleased outtake “I’m Not Hungry Anymore.”

Ronan Keating, When You Say Nothing At All EP (Polydor/UMO) (Apple / Amazon)

Another 20th anniversary EP to commemorate the former Boyzone member’s solo debut, Keating’s cover of a country tune made famous in America by Keith Whitley was first featured in the romantic comedy Notting Hill and became his first of three chart-topping U.K. singles.

Lorne Balfe, “The Naked Gun (Gordon Goodwin Remix)” (Milan) (Apple / Amazon)

Whatever audiences can say about the upcoming sequel to the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy series The Naked Gun (co-written and directed by Akiva Schaffer of The Lonely Island, co-produced by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane and starring Liam Neeson as the son of Leslie Nielsen’s buttoned-down buffoon Det. Frank Drebin), you can at least say composer Lorne Balfe will incorporate the dazzling Police Squad! theme by series composer Ira Newborn at least once (alongside some pretty solid original material). A full soundtrack arrives alongside the film’s release next week.

311, 90s Throwback EP: Vol 2 (Volcano/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)

Just week’s after a new expansion of their self-titled album for its 30th anniversary, this EP offers that album’s hit “Down” plus two unreleased live versions of cuts from the late ’90s.

Kool & The Gang, Kool Summer EP (Island/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

Featuring several of the updated dance remixes released as individual tracks in recent weeks, this EP also features a new approach to the band’s “Fresh” by Prince Hakim, the son of band co-founder Robert “Kool” Bell.

Ashley Monroe, The Blade (10th Anniversary Edition) (Warner Nashville/Rhino) (Apple / Amazon)

A critically acclaimed release and Grammy nominee for Best Country Album, country singer Ashley Monroe’s third album blended heartache, humor and a who’s who of great country collaborators, including co-writes with Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton as well as thoughtful co-production from Vince Gill. It’s been expanded with an outtake from the sessions (“Fight for It”) and live versions of “I Buried Your Love Alive” and the title track.

Natalie McDonald, Scream of Consciousness (RBM Special Editions) (Apple / Amazon)

Another appearance by Richard Barone of The Bongos, who produced co-wrote and self-released this raw 1986 session for Natalie McDonald, who ran fan clubs for both The Bongos and T-Rex. (There’s a cover of a very early Marc Bolan song on here, too: “The Third Degree,” which squeaked out on a 1988 tribute album to Marc Bolan.)

Out of Myself: Songs of Peter Foley (Center Stage Records) (Apple / Amazon)

Center Stage Records celebrates the late composer Peter Foley (1967-2021), a talent whom far too few of us got to know well. Mentored by Stephen Sondheim and crowned with such honors as The Jonathan Larson Foundation Award and The Richard Rodgers Award, Foley passed away before his work could be widely-known. Now, Center Stage has released a live tribute to Foley staged at New York’s Peter Norton Symphony Space, featuring Tony Award nominees Melissa Errico, Kate Baldwin, and Manoel Felciano, as well as Jason Gotay (this past season’s Floyd Collins), Max Chernin (this year’s Parade tour), Michael Winther (Flying Over Sunset), conductor Rob Berman, and others. Lyricists represented include Marion Adler, Carl R. Brush, Mark Campbell, Adam Gopnik, Matthew Heimer, Ellen McLaughlin, and Foley himself. In his lifetime, Foley completed five musicals and a short operetta, but only one of those musicals – The Hidden Sky – received a professional debut; now his rich and varied body of work can be sampled and savored, at long last.

Finally, we’d like to take a moment to acknowledge some passings this week. Mike, who eulogized Ozzy Osbourne a few days ago, shares some words on George Kooymans of Golden Earring, while Joe pays tribute to Chuck Mangione and Dame Cleo Laine.

George Kooymans was only 13 when he co-founded a band in his home country of The Netherlands with neighbor Rinus Gerritsen. Initially named The Tornados and then The Golden Earrings – with the article and plural “s” gone by decade’s end – Golden Earring won over fans with a Blue Oyster Cult-style mix of hard rock and psychedelia that never took itself too seriously and always made sure there was enough style and substance to go around. (They also earn points for having a near-unchanged four-man line-up from 1970 onward; only Kooymans’ advancing ALS stopped them from performing past 2021.) They didn’t often escape containment outside of their homeland, but when they did, it was thanks to the hands-in-the-sky rock epic “Radar Love” – a U.K. Top 10 hit that just missed the same position in America in 1973 – or the moody early-MTV masterpiece “Twilight Zone,” released nine years later. Kooymans will sadly miss the group’s final concerts at the Rotterdam Ahoy in January (where a troupe of local talent was slated to fill in for him), but the songs they’ll play are sure to live on.

The story goes that young Chuck Mangione was happily learning piano in Rochester, New York when he saw the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn. Based on the 1938 novel of the same name – itself inspired by the life of cornet man Bix Beiderbecke – the movie sparked something in Chuck. He gave up the piano for the trumpet, and before long had mastered the instrument. In college, he switched to flugelhorn. His passion was soon noticed by others: Riverside Records signed him and his brother Gaspare Charles “Gap” Mangione, a pianist, as The Mangione Brothers, for a 1960 album on which Chuck played trumpet. Cannonball Adderley picked up one of their songs, “Somethin’ Different,” for his own 1961 album African Waltz. Indeed, Chuck did bring something different – a sound so recognizable, and often so smooth, that he had no problem sending it up on the animated comedy King of the Hill. Chuck had proved his jazz bona fides and moved successfully into soul-jazz with such memorable tracks as “Land of Make Believe” with vocalist Esther Satterfield, but he sailed to superstardom at A&M Records – a label founded by someone who knew a little something about the horn! – with such albums as Bellavia, Main Squeeze, and Feels So Good. The latter’s title track sailed to the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 and remains a radio staple today. Chuck went on to collaborate with giants from Thom Bell (Eyes of the Veiled Temptress) to Steve Gadd (Together Forever), but in any setting, his breezy music made us tap our feet, hum along, sway, move, and feel so good. Thanks, Chuck.

Dame Cleo Laine was just 24 when she successfully auditioned as the singer for jazzman John Dankworth’s septet. Laine and Dankworth married in 1958 and remained united until his death in 2010. Though Laine was a singer nonpareil – a Grammy nominee in the pop, classical, and jazz fields and a winner in the latter – she was also an accomplished actress in both plays (Flesh to a Tiger, A Time to Laugh) and musicals (Show Boat, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Into the Woods) alike. Her recording career took off at MGM Records in 1957 with the aptly-titled She’s the Tops!, and she continued to record regularly through the early 2000s in nearly every genre imaginable, tackling Porgy and Bess opposite Ray Charles and pairing with Arthur star Dudley Moore for Smilin’ Through. Latter-day triumphs included Cleo Sings Sondheim and Woman to Woman, both for RCA Victor; on the latter, she interpreted songs from such female songwriters as Melissa Manchester and Carole Bayer Sager (“Come In from the Rain”), Joni Mitchell (“Both Sides Now”), and Blossom Dearie (“Inside a Silent Tear”).  With a four-octave range and a distinctively smoky sound, Cleo made every genre her own. This true singer’s singer will be missed.