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. It’s an alt-rock weekend to start, with a Southern country/rock rarity from the ’80s that’s worth checking out and a pop-punk favorite from the ’00s. And that’s only the start…

Velvet Elvis, Velvet Elvis (Expanded Edition) (self-released) (Apple / Amazon)

Velvet Elvis combined college rock with country in the late ’80s, tapping producer Mitch Easter of Let’s Active for their second and final full-length album – which has now been expanded with the help of SuperVisible Multi Media and available digitally for the first time! The news comes ahead of the band’s upcoming reunion show today at the Crave Food + Music Festival, back where it all started in their native Lexington, Kentucky.

Alien Ant Farm, ANThology (Deluxe Edition) (Geffen/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

California rockers scored an unlikely Top 40 hit (and a chart-topper on Billboard‘s alternative airplay survey) with a charged-up pop-punk take on Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” cut at a time when the King of Pop’s influence was perhaps at its lowest ebb. Move past any potential irony of the situation and you’d discover the band’s full-length debut ANThology, issued in the spring of 2001, was actually full of post-grunge bangers like “Movies,” “Wish” and “Flesh and Bone.” The album was just reissued on double vinyl for its 25th anniversary with four alternate versions of tracks as bonus cuts, and it’s available digitally, as well.

Lindsey Kraft feat. Ben Folds, “Beautiful Pain” (self-released) (Apple / Amazon)

Actress Lindsey Kraft has written and performed music in her career, but her latest project is a noteworthy combination of the two. We’ve Been Here Before is Kraft’s new one-woman show about a woman who unlocks some incredible revelations and emotions when she decides to take up songwriting at the age of 40. Kraft’s recurring musical (and personal) partner Ben Folds, whom she’s opened for on several of his recent tours, is producing the companion music and will also serve as the music director for the show when it opens at the Soho Playhouse off-Broadway in Manhattan this month.

Andy Partridge, Hinges (Ape House) (Apple / Amazon)

This short, final entry in Partridge’s Fuzzy Warbles collection of XTC demos drove home the postage stamp theme of the disc’s original designs. Hinges was initially only available in a 2006 “collector’s album” that collected the previous eight discs in the series.

Deana Carter, “Strawberry Wine (Deerock Remix)” (Capitol Nashville/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

For its 30th anniversary, Deana Carter’s signature song – a No. 1 country hit and one of the most acclaimed country tunes of its kind – has been newly remixed in a “country-EDM” style by New York DJ Deerock.

Peter Gabriel, “One by One (Bright-Side Mix)” (Real World) (Apple / Amazon)

The eighth song from Peter Gabriel’s forthcoming album o\i has been released alongside another full moon in 2026.

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

Carly Simon’s second single from her upcoming album Comes in Waves sets the singer-songwriter’s wry lyric to a pulsating electronic beat. She sings “I wish I liked peaches,” but there’s plenty to like about “Peaches.” (And with the recent news that the legendary singer/songwriter has been living with Parkinson’s disease, it’s perhaps imperative to appreciate her while she’s here.)

Various Artists, Holland Dozier Holland – Detroit: 1969/1977 (Invictus) (Apple / Amazon)

After an acrimonious split over royalties that led to a decade-long lawsuit, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland – arguably the greatest songwriting/production team to ever come out of Motown Records – started their own Detroit labels, Invictus and Hot Wax. Though they legally couldn’t take credit for the songs they wrote and produced, the label’s output – including Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold,” the Chairmen of the Board’s “Give Me Just a Little More Time” and the Honey Cone’s “Want Ads” – extended the brilliant legacy of H-D-H. In 2024, Demon/Edsel licensed and compiled this 4CD overview of the team’s work on the two labels; it’s now digitally available to get lost in.

INXS, “Simple Simon” (Atlantic/Rhino) (Apple / Amazon)

Here’s one we missed a while ago: Rhino digitally released “Simple Simon,” the non-LP single debut by Australian rockers INXS. It’s a short, speedier, embryonic version of the sound the group would perfect as the decade went on – imagine Michael Hutchence fronting Split Enz – but the song’s relative rarity on CD make this a worthy rediscovery. (Sadly, the non-album B-side, “We Are the Vegetables,” remains unavailable digitally.

Ne-Yo, In My Own Words (Deluxe Edition) (Def Jam/UMe) (Apple / Amazon)

Another recent discovery: a 20th anniversary expansion of the debut by Arkansas-born R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo. After bursting onto the scene as a writer of Mario’s soulful hit “Let Me Love You” (he’s since gone on to write for Rihanna, Beyoncé and others), Ne-Yo came into his own as a crooner with a Jackson-esque voice and a selection of catchy tunes like the chart-topping “So Sick.” The album features eight bonus tracks, including four acoustic versions and two instrumentals.

Various Artists, Lucky Lady (Original Soundtrack Recording) (Arista) (Apple / Amazon)

The never-on-CD soundtrack to director Stanley Donen’s 1975 film features Liza Minnelli (who starred opposite the late Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds) belting out a classic Kander and Ebb title song and the duo’s delicious “While the Getting Is Good” alongside score cues from prominent Broadway orchestrator Ralph Burns and period recordings by Bessie Smith.

Tanya Tucker, Changes (Arista) (Apple / Amazon)

A former teen singing sensation turned country legend, Tanya Tucker recorded one album for Arista in 1982 between extended stints as an artist for MCA and Capitol Nashville. A slightly more adult contemporary affair than her previous work, the album featured the Top 10 country hit “Feel Right” and covers of Barbara Lewis (the Van McCoy-penned “Baby I’m Yours”) and Rodney Crowell (whose “Shame on the Moon” would, only months later, become a massive pop hit for Bob Seger).

The Oak Ridge Boys, Old Fashioned, Down Home, Hand Clappin’, Foot Stompin’, Southern Style, Gospel Quartet Music (Columbia) (Apple / Amazon)

It may have been a lengthy title, but there were few better ways to describe what The Oak Ridge Boys were doing in 1976, having played together in some form since the 1940s, primarily as a gospel quartet. Within a year of Gospel Quartet Music – their last of three albums for Columbia Records (which premiered on CD courtesy of Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music in 2018) – they’d be heard providing harmonies for Paul Simon on his hit “Slip Slidin’ Away”; by the ’80s they’d pivot to mainstream country/pop music, scoring a Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981’s “Elvira.”

Ed Bruce, Night Things (RCA) (Apple / Amazon)

The late country singer/songwriter Bruce, perhaps best known for penning Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson’s outlaw country classic “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” and recording a country chart-topper of his own in 1981’s “You’re the Best Break This Old Heart’s Ever Had,” steadily recorded until his passing in 2021. One of the missing pieces of his discography is 1986’s Night Things, his second and final album for RCA (which, like the other, was digitally backfilled courtesy of SuperVisible Multi Media). It featured his last major single, the Top 10 country tune “Nights.”

The Movies, The Movies (Arista) (Apple / Amazon)

A one-album wonder on Arista in 1976, The Movies were a trio of rock ‘n’ roll survivors. Guitarist Peter Barnes and keyboardist Michael Morgan had previously played together in a Milwaukee-based combo called The Messengers, who were signed for much of the late ’60s and early ’70s to Motown’s family of labels, putting out a 1967 single on the Soul imprint and a 1971 album on Rare Earth Records (the company’s home for white rock acts). Drummer Ted Medbury rounded out the line-up on the Vini Poncia-produced album; the group had no permanent bassist but welcomed one for the LP named Davey Faragher, who’d go on to co-found grunge act Cracker and has held down low-end for Elvis Costello & The Imposters since 2001.

Jeremy Jordan, Songs from Just in Time (“The Curtain Falls” / “Splish Splash” / “This Could Be the Start of Something Big / Just in Time” / “Lazy River”) (Atlantic)

“Curtain”: Apple / Amazon
“Splish Splash”: Apple / Amazon
“Something Big”: Apple / Amazon
“Lazy River”: Apple / Amazon

Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, The Great Gatsby) is currently packing houses at Broadway’s Circle in the Square as the latest actor to portray TSD favorite Bobby Darin in the smash musical Just in Time; now, he can be heard on four more songs from the show, in addition to the previously released “Dream Lover,” “Mack the Knife,” and “My First Real Love.”  There’s practically enough for a new full cast recording…just sayin’…

PASSINGS

Irish filmmaker John Carney made a critical and commercial breakthrough in 2006 with Once, his first of several films that brilliantly depict the life-changing power of music. (He’s since repeated the formula in films like Begin Again, the ’80s period piece Sing Street and this year’s deeply underrated Power Ballad.) Of course, Carney knew what he was talking about, musically: before directing, he’d played bass in a Dublin-based group called The Frames, and its leader, Glen Hansard, became the male lead of Once. While he wasn’t struggling quite like the busker/vacuum repairman he portrayed in the film (eagle-eyed film fans may have seen him in 1991’s The Commitments), there was an undeniable reality to the weary, big-hearted folk tunes he penned for the film’s soundtrack, including “Falling Slowly,” the aching ballad co-written and performed by Czech singer/actress Markéta Irglová. “Falling Slowly” won an Oscar for Best Original Song and helped the film become an indie darling – Steven Spielberg said it “gave me enough inspiration to last the rest of the year” after seeing it – and propelled Hansard’s star as a singer/songwriter. He signed to ANTI- in the 2010s and released several solo albums including the Grammy-nominated Didn’t He Ramble (2015). Hansard’s complexity and quintessential contributions as an Irish folk singer will only deepen with this week’s news of his sudden passing in a motorcycle accident just days ago, at the age of 56.