Features / The Weekend Stream

Welcome back to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles making digital debuts, plus new works from legacy acts and even some personally curated favorites. Olivia Rodrigo makes a triumphant return, Blink-182 dip into the CD bin, Taylor Swift and John Williams (separately) flesh out their latest projects, and an unexpected return from one of pop/folk’s living legends sets the mood for our latest rundown.

Olivia Rodrigo, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (Geffen) (Apple / Amazon)

The week’s biggest pop release is the third album from hitmaker Olivia Rodrigo, one of the more accomplished young singer/songwriters of the 2020s. you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, it’s now clear, is a conceptual breakup album of sorts, taking cues from great alt-rock traditions past on previously highlighted singles like “drop dead” and “the cure” – and speaking of which, here’s another cut from the album, “what’s wrong with me,” a duet with one of Rodrigo’s heroes-turned-collaborators, Robert Smith himself.

Blink-182, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (25 Year Anniversary Edition) (Geffen/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of Blink-182’s fourth album, the follow-up to 1999 blockbuster Enema of the State and one of the finer pop-punk albums of the 21st century thanks to tracks like “The Rock Show,” “First Date” and the wounded adolescent epic “Stay Together for the Kids.” Upon original release, the album had three limited editions – each based on the red, yellow and green symbols in the artwork – that included two bonus tracks apiece: one normal pop-punk number, and one 90-second, profanity-laden goof. For the first time, this digital deluxe edition brings all six of those extra cuts together for the first time.

John Williams, Disclosure Day (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Back Lot Music) (Apple / Amazon)

Last week we shared the lead single from John Williams’ 30th and latest collaboration with director Steven Spielberg – and now that Disclosure Day is playing in theaters, we figured we’d share the full soundtrack album as well. Though it’s modeled and homaging in some ways to Spielberg’s previous alien-forward classics Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the film, its messages and execution is more similar in style to late-period thought-provokers like A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report or War of the Worlds, which hid other, darker themes behind its sci-fi trappings. It’s a high point in Spielberg’s late-period filmography, and Williams’ compositions, with its haunting seven-note motif, are practically begging for another Oscar nomination.

Taylor Swift, “I Knew It, I Knew You” EP (Walt Disney Records) (Apple / Amazon)

We also last week shared the latest from Taylor Swift, whose latest with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff is the first non-Randy Newman song to feature in the fifth installment of Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story film series. Swift cannily showed her business acumen was as sharp as the work that just earned her a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, with three different versions available on three limited edition one-track CD singles that will certainly help the song debut healthily as her 15th Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper. Since then, all three of those versions have been bundled to digital partners for all to enjoy. Next week, we’ll find out if her song sits alongside Newman’s work on Toy Story 5‘s score album.

Janet Jackson & BE:FIRST, “Doesn’t Really Matter” (Remix) (UMG) (Apple / Amazon)

A sensation in their native Japan, with 10 Top 5 singles since forming in 2021, J-pop act BE:FIRST is making a bid for U.S. attention by grafting their vocals and swaggering style onto a straightforward remix of “Doesn’t Really Matter,” Janet Jackson’s chart-topping summer jam from the soundtrack to 2000’s Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.

Carly Simon, “Howl” (Iris) (Apple / Amazon)

Carly Simon has announced her first album of original material since 2008’s This Kind of Love and her first album, period, since 2009’s Never Been Gone. The upcoming Comes in Waves has been previewed by “Howl,” a typically emotion-packed performance with a full, burnished production in the artist’s trademark folk-pop fusion style.  Written by Simon and David Spencer, “Howl” features Spencer on various instruments as well as Larry Ciancia on drums, Chris Stills on backgrounds, Patrick Warren on strings, and Carly and James Taylor’s son Ben on guitar.

Duran Duran feat. Nile Rodgers, Free to Love (Remix EPs) (Tape Modern/BMG)

Horse Meat Disco Remix/DJWS & THE DISCO_NECT Remix: Apple / Amazon
Harrison Remix/Jersey Black Cat Remix: Apple / Amazon

What’s a new Duran Duran single without some dance remixes to go with it? The Birmingham new wave icons have released four ways of reimagining their latest one-off collaboration with friend and longtime producer Nile Rodgers, with the two latest dropping just yesterday. (Dance producer Harrison was just named one of the support acts of Duran’s July 5 headlining set as part of BST Hyde Park in England, alongside Rodgers and CHIC, Scissor Sisters and more.)

Peggy Lee, Too Marvelous for Words (Peggy Lee Enterprises) (Apple / Amazon)

The family of legendary songstress Peggy Lee has released a 49-track digital-only collection of Lee’s 1955 World Broadcast radio recordings. Too Marvelous for Words has been mastered by James Saez from newly-acquired transfers of the original transcription discs. These seminal recordings were made over four sessions during February and August 1955, at which time Lee was joined by such top-tier musicians as pianist Gene DiNovi, bassists Bob Whitlock and Don Prell, drummers Larry Bunker and Ray Rivera, guitarist Bill Pittman, and percussionist Jack Costanzo. The group also included trumpeter Pete Candoli and harpist Stella Castellucci, both of whom were featured on Lee’s classic album Black Coffee. Half of the songs here were never cut by Lee for commercial records, making this set a truly essential one for enthusiasts of the Great American Songbook.

Calamity Jane, Calamity Jane (Columbia) (Apple / Amazon)

Having just tackled the horse-centered solo works of country singer/songwriter Mary Ann Kennedy on streaming last month, Supervisible Multi Media gets her first major project to streaming this week: the sole album by female country quartet Calamity Jane. Released by Columbia Records in 1982, the album sold softly – its biggest hits, covers of The Beatles’ “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “Walkin’ After Midnight” (Patsy Cline’s breakthrough single), both missed the Top 40 of the country charts – but showcased the dynamism that Kennedy would exhibit on later works, particularly with songwriting partner Pam Rose; they’d start the duo Kennedy Rose, an early signee to Pangaea Records, the label briefly overseen by Sting in partnership with I.R.S. Records.

Modern Mandolin Quartet, Intermezzo (Windham Hill) (Apple / Amazon)

Another Supervisible special from the venerable New Age label Windham Hill, 1990’s Intermezzo features mostly classical selections arranged by and for the Modern Mandolin Quartet, a string quartet/chamber-inspired ensemble (whose Mike Mitchell had been part of the Windham Hill fusion combo Montreux). Composers include Aaron Copland (“Hoedown”), Prokofiev (a selection from Romeo and Juliet), Bach, Hadyn, Brahms and even “Cool,” from Leonard Bernstein’s score to West Side Story.

Jon Pardi, California Sunshine (10th Anniversary Edition) (MCA Nashville) (Apple / Amazon)

Jon Pardi’s catchy, neotraditional country tunes – evoking the spirit of Garth Brooks, Randy Travis and Dierks Bentley – helped make him a breakthrough on 2016’s sophomore album California Sunshine, which yielded four genre Top 10 hits including the pop crossover “Dirt on My Boots.” For its 10th anniversary, its been expanded with three additional songs.

Albert King, I’ll Play the Blues for You (Remastered 2026) (Stax/Craft Recordings) (Apple / Amazon)

A dynamic 1972 soul blues rave-up from the celebrated singer/guitarist, the newly-remastered I’ll Play the Blues for You was Albert King’s third long-player for Stax Records, and so features backing from some of the label’s legends, including The Bar-Kays, The Isaac Hayes Movement and the Memphis Horns.

Eddie Kirkland, It’s the Blues Man! (Remastered 2026) (Craft Recordings) (Apple / Amazon)

Another Stax-style bluesman (who cut records for offshoot Volt), Jamaican-born Eddie Kirkland was best known as a collaborator with John Lee Hooker before striking out on his own with 1962’s It’s the Blues Man! – which has also joined Craft’s constant digital remastering schedule.

KALEO, A/B (Deluxe Edition) (Elektra/Rhino) (Apple / Amazon)

A mid-’10s sleeper hit of sorts, the unlikely KALEO (a blues-rock combo from Iceland who took inspiration from Kings of Leon and Black Keys) hit the Top 15 of the U.S. charts with sophomore album A/B in 2016, which yielded the rock radio hit “Way Down We Go.” The newly expanded album, re-released for its 10th anniversary, includes several live and alternate versions as bonus tracks, including a version of “Way Down We Go” recorded inside a dormant Icelandic volcano.

Chalino Sánchez, El Pávido Návido (Remastered 2026) (Craft Recordings) (Apple / Amazon)

A striking figure in Mexican music, Chalino Sánchez became known as “the King of Corrido” for a most unique spin on the regional polka/waltz-inspired genre. His beat was narcocorrido – essentially, a hybrid of norteño music with Spanish lyrics that evoked murder balladry or even gangsta rap. Sánchez sung and perhaps lived by the sword, so to speak: after a life marked by violence, including Sánchez killing his sister’s rapist and cartels killing Sánchez’s brother, Chalino was shot to death in 1992, an incident that is still unsolved. El Pávido Návido was one of the last works released by the Musart label in his lifetime, back in 1991.

PASSINGS

A genre-obliterating artist, James “Blood” Ulmer rose to prominence as the first guitarist to perform and tour with free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman; these journeys into jazz and funk took him incredible places including a striking trilogy of albums for Columbia in the early 1980s. In the 21st century, Ulmer turned his attention to morphing blues standards into his groundbreaking style in a series of albums produced by Vernon Reid of Living Colour.

Ironically, unless you’ve really paid attention to the northeastern jazz scene, you may not remember Joe Negri as an accomplished guitarist. Negri was a power player who taught all around the Pittsburgh area for nearly half of his 99 years on this earthly plane, and was one of the first to take studying jazz guitar seriously as part of the curricula of the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon. But his other career accomplishment was as the affable Handyman Negri, a long-running character on the immortal children’s public television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. In this way, he introduced more than just jazz, but gentility as a part of the Neighborhood of Make Believe – a place which countless dreamers and achievers will always treasure.