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. We’ve got a last little Toy Story update, plus an unreleased XTC concert, great late-period Ben Folds Five, some British acts that couldn’t be more different, and plenty of others!

Randy Newman/Taylor Swift, Toy Story 5 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Walt Disney Records) (Apple / Amazon)

“I Knew It, I Knew You,” Taylor Swift’s new song from the soundtrack to Disney and Pixar’s newest film, is currently the No. 1 song in America. But the Toy Story series is still the playground for Randy Newman, who wrote songs and score for the previous installments in 1995, 1999, 2010 and 2019. (“We Belong Together,” from Toy Story 3, won an Oscar for Best Original Song.) A new digital album features both Swift’s song and over an hour of Newman’s score; CD and 2LP versions are available through the Disney Music Emporium, with plans to ship in September.

XTC, Live Boots (Emerald City, Cherry Hill, NJ, 4/17/1981) / Andy Partridge, Fuzzy Warbles, Vol. 6 (Ape House)

Live Boots: Apple / Amazon
Fuzzy Warbles, Vol. 6: Apple / Amazon

It’s a double shot of XTC-related ecstasy this week! In addition to another digital drop of the latest volume in Andy Partridge’s Fuzzy Warbles demo series (2004’s Vol. 6, featuring a fistful of Dukes of Stratosphear tracks and two different versions of Oranges & Lemons deep cut “Across This Antheap,” one of which dates to the Skylarking era), today’s also the day that Live Boots – taken from the band’s last full year of touring – is available beyond its original Record Store Day vinyl pressing. (Physical collectors fear not: a CD and 200-gram general release vinyl are also available.)

Ben Folds Five, The Sound of the Life of the Mind / Live (ImAVeePee)

TSotLotM: Apple / Amazon
Live: Apple / Amazon

Such is the privilege of physical album ownership that we didn’t know the incredible 2012 reunion album by piano-rock trio Ben Folds Five (or the live concert documenting a subsequent tour) had gone missing from digital partners until we were informed they were put back up! Both albums was initially released by Folds’ longtime label base Sony Music (who, we’re told, no longer control that pipeline), and The Sound of the Life of the Mind managed a rather unexpected debut in the Top 10 of the pop charts. Given the quality of songcraft (Folds’ quirky story songs “Michael Praytor, Five Years Later” and “On Being Frank,” the title track with lyrics by Nick Hornby, drummer Darren Jessee’s gorgeous ballad “Sky High”), it’s not hard to understand why.

Big Freedia, Released At Last (We Are: The Guard) (Apple)

Just two-thirds through Pride Month, it’s worth noting a triple threat of 21st century queer music icons teaming up on a killer track. New Orleans bounce rapper Big Freedia and the late hyperpop icon SOPHIE began work on “Let Me See Ya” about a decade ago, and have added sapphic synthpop trio MUNA into the final version, now the lead track on Freedia’s new EP. It’s a cause for celebration (and hitting the dance floor) no matter where you identify on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

Rick Astley, 50 (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (BMG) (Apple / Amazon)

The redheaded British baritone behind hits like “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Together Forever” put the “roll” in “rickroll” in 2016 when, after years of gamely receiving the YouTube meme of sending unsuspecting users the “Never Gonna Give” video, Rick Astley reminded us that he was a rather competent musician. The proof was in 50, an album he wrote, produced and played all the instruments on. It topped the U.K. charts and kicked off a real comeback for the former pop idol, with a further two self-produced albums reaching the nation’s Top 10. This digital 10th anniversary reissue doesn’t have the two bonus tracks from U.S. pressings (which were pegged for the still-unreleased 2013 album My Red Book), but it does feature three live versions of tracks from the album recorded at The O2 in London this past April.

Judas Priest, The Best of Judas Priest (Sony Music U.K./Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)

While a 10-track LP and 16-track CD exist for this no-frills new collection spanning the entire career of the British metal icons, we have to thank reader Chris for sharing the word that the digital version increases the running order to 22 songs and more than 100 minutes of unyielding rock.

B.J. Thomas, Home Where I Belong (Myrrh/Curb) (Apple / Amazon)

B.J. Thomas was already well-known as the voice behind “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” and “I Just Can’t Help Believing” when he embarked on an intensely personal phase of his long recording career. At Myrrh Records, Thomas recorded a series of contemporary Christian albums that remain among the most commercially and artistically successful releases in the genre. Curb, current owner of the Curb catalogue, has brought Thomas’ CCM debut Home Where I Belong to digital services this weekend, a dozen years after Real Gone Music brought it to CD. With moving compositions by B.J. and his wife Gloria, producer Chris Christian, Archie Jordan, and others, the Dove Award-winning album is among Thomas’ finest, and a must for fans of country, pop, soul, and CCM. Though a number of the late artist’s secular albums are still missing from digital services, his Word/Myrrh catalogue encompassing Home Where I Belong, Happy Man, You Gave Me Love (When Nobody Gave Me a Prayer), Amazing Grace, and Peace in the Valley is now available once again. Thanks to our pal and CCM historian Tim Dillinger of God’s Music is My Life for the heads-up! 

Scott Cossu, Wind Dance (Windham Hill) (Apple / Amazon)

From Windham Hill and SuperVisible Multi Media (now having delivered over 800 tracks to digital services!) come this George Winston-produced early album by New Age pianist Scott Cossu.

Sonora Ponceña, Fuego en el 23! (Remastered 2026) (Fania/Craft Recordings) (Apple / Amazon)

Another standout from the Puerto Rican salsa group, by then together for nearly 15 years when this was released in 196 and signed to the Inca label. Their 1976 record Conquista Musical was recently delivered to dgital from Craft Recordings, as well.

PASSINGS

A key figure of Jethro Tull’s sound, Dee Palmer was in the group’s orbit since their inception: she worked as their orchestral arranger starting on “Move On Alone” from 1968 debut This Was, and served the same duties for the rest of the band’s discography up to 1977’s Songs from the Wood, her first of three studio albums as a full-time second keyboardist. Her panache as an arranger was put to thrilling use in the ’80s and ’90s for a series of albums for RCA, EMI and Sony Classical, on which she led prominent British orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in grandiose re-recordings of hits by major U.K. rock acts including The Beatles, Queen, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and Tull themselves.

Rock and roll with a horn section wasn’t too far-fetched an idea in the rapidly expanding and shifting time of  late ’60s popular music. But if one group made it an art form, it was Chicago. The one-of-a-kind sound of trumpeter Jimmy Pankow, trombonist Lee Loughnane and saxophonist/woodwind player Walter Parazaider made Chicago’s hits and live shows stand out, even as the group morphed from jazzy, sprawling art-rock ensemble extraordinaire in the ’60s and ’70s to commercial soft-rock behemoths in the ’80s and beyond. Through thick and thin, that brass trio stayed together until 2018, when Parazaider suddenly retired from the road due to health issues in 2018. (Three years later, it was revealed he was battling Alzheimer’s disease.) News of Parazaider’s passing this week follows the decisions earlier this year of two more founding members – Pankow and vocalist/keyboardist Robert Lamm – to quietly retire from touring as well; though the sound of Chicago may be different today, it’s forever immortalized on dozens of stellar and engaging albums.

Though not a household name as a musician – his New England combo The Rondels were a minor local concern in the ’50s and ’60s – Lennie Petze parlayed his accrued music business know-how into a formidable career. After bouncing around different labels on the East Coast in the early ’70s, Petze headed the region’s A&R department for Epic Records (where a band he initially rejected – then named Mother’s Milk but known more simply as Boston – became a rock radio juggernaut). By the decade’s end, he’d become Epic’s vice-president of A&R before becoming the general manager of sister label Portrait. While there, he signed such names as Eddy Grant, Aldo Nova and, most importantly, Cyndi Lauper, whose 1983 blockbuster She’s So Unusual was one of the biggest debuts of the decade. He’d spend the rest of his major label career in topline positions at Epic, scouting and fostering talent from Sade and Europe to Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine. “Lennie Petze was a gift to me, as was his family,” Lauper wrote in tribute. “We did the incredible together. He always helped me through.”