Release Round-Up: Week of August 15
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Doc Pomus, You Can’t Hip a Square: The Doc Pomus Songwriting Demos (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Omnivore)
You Can’t Hip a Square: The Doc Pomus Songwriting Demos collects more than 160 tracks from the late, legendary songwriter, who died in 1991 at the age of 65 and was subsequently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Blues Hall of Fame. Over 120 of these demos are previously unreleased, while still others are making their CD and digital debuts. Many of these songs are familiar, while others never received an official recording. What they share in common is the impeccable songwriting of Doc Pomus, with songs ranging from the heartbreakingly tender to the authentically gritty. The first four discs are a treasure chest of various demos, while the fifth disc, reprising a Record Store Day vinyl release, is dedicated to songs written for Elvis Presley. The sixth disc boasts (almost) all Pomus vocals. The 6CD package contains a hardbound book that’s loaded with liner notes: track-by-track annotations from Pomus’ daughter Sharyn Felder and set co-producer Cheryl Pawelski plus essays by Felder, Geoffrey Himes, and Pomus’ close friend Peter Guralnick, and music historian/writer/producer Eddie Gorodetsky (Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour). Jordan McLeod and Michael Graves have beautifully restored the audio; Graves has remastered. Get the track listing and more here!
Deep Purple, Made in Japan: Super Deluxe Edition (Warner/Rhino)
5CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
10LP: Deep Purple Store / Rhino.com
2LP: Amazon U.K.
Coming from Rhino on August 15 – 52 years since the first of the concerts represented on the original LP were staged – a new super deluxe edition of Made in Japan, spanning 5CD/1 Blu-ray or 10 LPs, offers new mixes by Steven Wilson of the original album and the complete trio of concerts it came from, complete with bonus encores and a few original single edits. The band’s longtime bassist Roger Glover will pen new liner notes. (The 10LP box is an online exclusive, while a 2LP version of Wilson’s album mix – out the same date in Europe and on October 3 in the U.S., Canada and Japan – will be sold only at independent record stores.) Read more here!
Van Halen, Balance: Expanded Edition (Warner/Rhino)
2CD/2LP/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
Van Halen’s catalogue is attaining further Balance with an expanded edition of the band’s final album recorded with second lead singer Sammy Hagar. The band’s 10th studio album is reborn as a 2CD/2LP/Blu-ray set offering the remaster featured in 2023 box set The Collection II, three studio rarities, eight unreleased live tracks, and a half-dozen music videos (including another live performance from the vault). Standalone 2CD and 2LP editions will be available as well; all vinyl features the complete album spread across three sides with an etching on the fourth. (Closing track “Feelin'” was omitted from original vinyl pressings.) The expanded set will follow the model of a similar package for 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, released last year. Get more details here.
The Cranberries, No Need to Argue: 30th Anniversary Edition (Island/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
The Irish rock band’s seminal 7x Platinum 1994 album returns as a 2CD or 2LP edition with six bonus tracks including “newly mixed Remastered Audio from the original album’s producer Stephen Street” (presumably an album remix), two new remixes from Chvrches’ Iain Cook, unreleased live tracks from Woodstock ’94, and a demo of “Zombie.”
The Pretenders, The Singles (Sire/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
Rhino reissues The Pretenders’ 1987 Singles collection with Chris Thomas’ 2018 remasters; the tracks drawn off Get Close (“Don’t Get Me Wrong,” “Hymn to Her,” “My Baby”) are new 2025 remasters. Available on CD or 2LP vinyl.
Niall Horan, Heartbreak Weather: 5th Anniversary Edition (Capitol) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
The One Direction heartthrob’s 2020 sophomore albums gets an expanded edition on CD with new artwork and eight bonus tracks. The new LP pressing on baby blue vinyl retains the original track listing only.
Jerry Garcia Band, Live at the Warfield: February 28, March 1 & 2, 1991 (ATO) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
This 6CD set captures the Jerry Garcia Band’s stand at San Francisco’s Warfield from February 28-March 2, 1991, with songs including “And It Stoned Me,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “I Shall Be Released,” “Simple Twist of Fate,” “Forever Young,” “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).”
Shirley Jones, Early Shirley: The Movie Years 1958-1962 (Jasmine) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
The Jasmine label rounds up 22 tracks from the luminous future Partridge Family star Shirley Jones’ early days in Hollywood including duets with Jack Cassidy, Pat Boone, Gordon MacRae, and Frank Sinatra. This CD-R is made possible via current U.K. public domain laws.
Marisha Wallace, Live in London (Center Stage Records) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)
American-born British actress Marisha Wallace (Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!) is currently wowing audiences as Sally Bowles in Broadway’s immersive staging of Cabaret. Her first live album, out today on CD and digital formats. Recorded in March of this year at the West End’s Adelphi Theatre, Live in London features her showstopping renditions of such songs as “Maybe This Time” and the title tune from Cabaret, “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls, and “Opening Up” and “A Soft Place to Land” from Waitress.
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You forgot a key title…the latest solo album by Molly Tuttle, “So Long, Little Miss Sunshine”…one of the brightest breakout artists in recent memory…surprised you missed it…