Features / Release Round-Up

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.

Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! 60th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (Zappa/UMe)

5CD/BD: Zappa.com / uDiscoverMusic.com/ Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
5LP (Pre-Master Mix & Mono Mix + 60th Anniversary Highlights): Zappa.com / uDiscoverMusic.com
2LP (Remastered 1966 Stereo Mix Only): Zappa.com / uDiscoverMusic.com

Freak Out!  Frank Zappa’s 1966 Verve Records debut with his band The Mothers of Invention was a call-to-arms to the Los Angeles underground music scene.  Subverting notions of traditional pop and rock, the album blended searing social commentary with doo-wop pastiches, rhythm and blues, absurdist comedy, jazz, and musique concrete.  Even today, the Mothers’ clarion call to the counterculture sounds like no other album, but it was just a portent of things to come from Zappa.  Zappa Records and UMe are celebrating Freak Out! on the occasion of its 60th anniversary with a new suite of releases including a centerpiece 5CD/1Blu-ray Audio Super Deluxe Edition.   The box boasts a whopping 105 tracks in total, including previously unreleased demos, live tracks, outtakes, rehearsals, and more. The Super Deluxe box comes complete with a lithograph and a 26-page booklet with previously unpublished photos from the archives of Ray Leong as well as little-seen session photos by MGM A&R man David Anderle.  Ray Leong, journalist Jason Pettigrew, and Joe Travers all contributed to the booklet which also replicates the original, double-sided fold-out Freak Out! Hot Spots Map created and designed by Zappa.  Also available digitally and in 5LP and 2LP highlights versions.  Read more here!

Rise Up! Hamilton: The Anthology (Atlantic/Rhino)

5CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
7LP+7″: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

One of the biggest Broadway musicals of the last decade is getting celebrated in a big way for its 10th anniversary. Rise Up! Hamilton: The Anthology is a heavy-duty 5CD or 7LP+7″ box set honoring Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed show. The set includes three albums’ worth of material from the musical – the original cast recording, the chart-topping covers project The Hamilton Mixtape, and the first physical release of the Hamildrops series of bonus recordings inspired by the production – along with additional audio extras, an 80-page book, and collectible ephemera. A bonus single – the live “HamilTEN Megamix” arranged for a special cast reunion at the Tony Awards in 2025 – rounds out the physical package and is also available digitally, albeit without its B-side, Miranda’s original demo of standout “My Shot.” Read more here.

Average White Band, Renaissance 1988-2003 (Edsel) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

A year after a full one-off reunion for an Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert, part of the Scottish soul-funk combo Average White Band (bassist Alan Gorrie, guitarist Owen “Onnie” McIntyre and saxophonoist/keyboardist Roger Ball) began a second phase of the band that lasted early into the 21st century. The three studio albums they cut during this period (1989’s Aftershoci, 1997’s Soul Tattoo and 2003’s Living in Colour) plus the 1999 live disc Face to Face are collected on this 4CD set with a fistful of bonus tracks, as well.

Danny O’Keefe, Runaways: The 1970s Anthology (Cherry Red/Strawberry) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Underneath this strikingly beautiful cover is the first collection to give full due to American singer-songwriter Danny O’Keefe.  Runaways: The 1970s Anthology, lovingly curated and annotated by Charles Donovan, brings together 37 songs on 2 CDs from his Cotillion, Signpost, Atlantic, and Warner Bros. tenures.  Though best-known for “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” (covered by Elvis Presley and included here in O’Keefe’s own U.S. top ten hit rendition) and “The Road” (memorably included by Jackson Browne on his Running on Empty LP and, again, heard here in O’Keefe’s own recording), O’Keefe’s catalogue is filled with riches that blurred the lines between folk, rock, country, blues, jazz, and pop.  A “songwriter’s songwriter,” O’Keefe’s songs were poached by numerous contemporaries, among them Donny Hathaway and Leo Sayer (“Magdalena”), Andy Williams and Glen Campbell (“Quits”), and Judy Collins (“Angel Spread Your Wings”), but here’s an opportunity to (re?) discover O’Keefe’s own voice in full context.  Andrew Batt (Bobbie Gentry, Marianne Faithfull) has carefully and subtly remastered these tracks, and the two discs and 20-page booklet with Donovan’s incisive notes are housed in a six-panel digipak gorgeously designed by Paul Bevoir.  These lost Runaways can now be found.

Doctor Who: The Doctor Collection – Peter Davison (Edsel) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Edsel continues its series of 4CD box sets dedicated to the classic era of Doctor Who with this deluxe set featuring The Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison (All Creatures Great and Small, The Last Detective, At Home with the Braithwaites).  It follows similar releases for both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.  This set includes Davison reading audiobook adaptations of two classic episodes from his tenure as the Doctor, Kinda and Warriors of the Deep – with the latter a particularly exciting adventure finding the Doctor facing off against both the Sea Devils and the Silurians – along with bonus interviews from the BBC archives with Davison, Janet Fielding (who portrayed companion Tegan), and late producer John Nathan-Turner.  The gatefold package includes a full-color booklet.  With new Who currently absent from our televisions, there’s rarely been a better time to revisit old friends such as The Fifth Doctor and Tegan.

T Rex, 1974-1977 (Edsel) (Amazon U.K.)

This new 5CD box set returns to Marc Bolan and T Rex’s most creative and inspired era of music-making with expanded editions of his final three albums: Bolan’s Zip Gun, Futuristic Dragon, and Dandy in the Underworld.  The original albums are joined by a host of non-LP singles and two discs of previously unreleased recordings, most of which were unearthed in 2024.  These encompass rehearsal tapes from Bolan’s own tape archive; the complete recordings from 1977’s MARC Granada TV show in full-length, newly-restored versions; the “lost” single “I’m Dazed” in two versions including the Steven Wilson mix; and more.  It’s all housed in 7″ packaging with a 24-page booklet boasting photos by Kevin Cummins and liner notes by Jude Rogers.  Phil Kinrade has mastered the audio.  Available in the U.K. or as an import through specialty retailers.

Randy Edelman, Green Park (Cherry Red) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Singer-songwriter and film composer Randy Edelman (“Weekend in New England,” “Uptown Uptempo Woman,” Ghostbusters II, Beethoven) has returned to pop songcraft on a new album that just might leave you saying, “They do write ’em like that anymore!”  The title song of Green Park is the musical memoir of a New Jersey boy who finds comfort and solace in the wonder that is London.  Jazz-tinged with smoky saxophone, “Green Park” bookends an album overflowing with melody and graceful reflections.  Edelman, on vocals and piano, tackles love songs (“After All the Madness,” “To Find You”), not-so-rosy relationship dramas (“Paranoid Partner”), and instrumentals redolent of his film work (the stately, melancholic “Farewell to Down Street”).  There’s a lovely lyricism to “Piano, Please” and a big heart on the spirited “Flyin’ Blind,” while a subtler wonder is the attractive piano setting of the Serenity Prayer within the framework of “12 Steps.”  England has long been a thread in Edelman’s work, and this set of mature, personal reflections ranks spurred on by a walk through Green Park ranks among his finest love letters to the place that has given him so much inspiration.

Art in America, Dreams of the Disappeared (Iconoclassic) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Iconoclassic Records continues the story of progressive heroes Art in America (previously chronicled by the label on their self-titled LP and Rise) with this new release – their fourth overall – featuring 12 new songs from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chris Flynn, harpist Shishonee Flynn, and drummer/percussionist Dan Flynn.  A 20-page booklet featuring lyrics and artwork is also included.  Available on CD, vinyl LP, and digital formats.

Andrea Bocelli, Romanza: 30th Anniversary (Verve/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

UMe celebrates 30 years of Andrea Bocelli’s breakthrough album Romanza with this new edition of the original 1997 compilation.  For the occasion, a previously unreleased extended version of “Con te Partiro” has been added to the tracklist and the artwork has been refreshed.  Available on 1 CD, 2 LPs, or digitally.

John Debney, Elf: The Original Motion Picture Score – Deluxe Edition Encore (Varese Sarabande) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

The expanded Deluxe Edition of John Debney’s score to the holiday classic Elf, featuring 20 previously unheard cues, now gets a wide commercial release on CD.  It’s joined in stores today by a picture disc of the standard LP, while the digital version arrives on October 16.

Randy Newman and Taylor Swift, Toy Story 5: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Disney) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Randy Newman’s whimsical score to the blockbuster Toy Story 5 finally comes to CD and LP today, and the album also includes Taylor Swift’s original song, “I Knew It, I Knew You.”

The Last Five Years: 25th Anniversary Live at the London Palladium (Atlantic) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Recorded earlier this year at the London Palladium as part of a tour that also reached the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City Music Hall, Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) and Rachel Zegler (Evita) step into the Drama Desk-winning musical The Last Five Years about a pair of ultimately doomed lovers whose stories are shown to us in opposing chronologies (meeting at the middle of the musical!) – complete with original composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown leading the production from the podium.