It's been a good year to be dead - well, The Grateful Dead, anyway - thanks to a handful of deep catalogue projects catered to the most undying of Deadheads. In the coming weeks, there are a trove of projects around and beyond Rhino's enormous Europe '72 box set, some of which indicate a bit of transition for longtime fans and collectors while still keeping an eye toward the future of preserving the band's legacy. First of all, for those who might want less than the dozens of discs in Europe
To the Edge of Glory and Back: Gaga Reissues "Born This Way" with Extra Discs for Holidays
It wouldn't be the holiday season without a few reissues of recent works, and we've got a big one coming up in just a month: a sprawling three-disc version of Lady Gaga's monster hit album Born This Way. Love her or hate her, the New York girl born Stefani Germanotta has gone from Madonna-aping pop singer to bizarro pop-cultural force since her 2008 debut. The release of this year's Born This Way, her second studio-length effort (following 2009's excellent EP The Fame Monster and a throwaway
Reissue Theory: Aerosmith, "Box of Fire II: The Geffen Years"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on notable albums and the reissues they may someday see. As Aerosmith come ever closer to finishing another new album, we imagine a box set that celebrates their first great, entirely unexpected comeback. If all goes according to plan, by next spring you could be hearing the first new, original Aerosmith album in more than a decade. Frontman Steven Tyler anticipates a March release date on the new disc, to be produced by Jack
Seger Takes Old (and New) Records Off the Shelf on New Hits Set
As if getting some of Bob Seger's albums back on CD wasn't exciting enough this year, a new double-disc compilation puts some of his greatest hits (and a few rarities) back on shelves, where they belong. Ultimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets, boasts 26 tracks of Bob Seger on his own, with The Silver Bullet Band and - most exciting of all - with The Bob Seger System. The original mono single version of "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" will feature on this set alongside classics like "Old Time Rock
Short Takes: Beatles May Finally "Let It Be" on DVD, Big Country Goes Back to "The Crossing"
Could a release of Let It Be, The Beatles' harrowing 1970 documentary/epitaph, finally be happening? Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg says so. In an interview with WNYC-FM, Lindsay-Hogg discussed the film, saying, "we have been been working on it pretty much every year for the last couple of years. And the plan is, at the moment, to have it come out, I think, in 2013." A premiere release of the DVD, featuring outtakes and additional footage highlighting the making of the film, would follow a
Legacy Orders Another Round of "Playlist"
It feels like it's been a long time since the last batch of Playlist titles from Legacy (by our records, it's been five months), but a bunch of new titles are on shelves as of yesterday. There's a lot of country and modern rock in this batch, including titles from Gene Autry, Phil Vassar and Joe Diffie (on the country end) and Say Anything, Coheed and Cambria and Mudvayne (on the rock end). There's also one from rap/reggae artist Matisyahu (surely you recall the Orthodox Jewish musician, whose
Reminder: Next Wave of Paul Simon Reissues (with a Little Surprise)
Since Legacy Recordings acquired the rights to Paul Simon's back catalogue from Rhino last year, things have gone pretty much by the book. Other than a new compilation and a planned Graceland box set, things have been pretty simple, with Sony's reissue arm re-releasing the mid-2000s expanded reissues of Simon's solo albums, with the same bonus tracks as before. Next Tuesday, the new Songwriter compilation will hit stores alongside the reissues (re-reissues?) of One Trick Pony (1980), Hearts and
No Longer a "Siamese Dream": First Wave of Smashing Pumpkins Expanded Reissues Announced
Anyone worried that Billy Corgan's muse would take him away from the long-promised expanded reissues of The Smashing Pumpkins' catalogue can breathe a sigh of relief. The first two entries in the reissue campaign - 2 CD/1 DVD editions of Gish (1991) and Siamese Dream (1993) - have been announced for a November 28 release domestically (December 5 for the rest of the world). These albums - produced by Butch Vig and remastered by Bob Ludwig - are the first in a lengthy salvo of reissues promised
Rhino Unleashes "Original Album Series" in Europe
Ever feel like all the fancy bonus content and packaging on some reissues totally overshadows the music? Rhino's European division must've felt so, too: they released a handful of Original Album Series boxes a few weeks ago, featuring a lot of music with a minimum of frills and a relatively low price. The titles - five albums by one artist, housed in mini-LP cardboard sleeves and put into a box - are the ideal quick, easy discography builder for new fans or collectors with a few notable gaps on
Review: Ben Folds, "The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective"
Opening the four-panel digipak that houses Ben Folds' The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective (Epic/Legacy 88697 92683-2), listeners are treated to an unsettling and hilarious sight: the bespectacled, slightly quizzical face of the singer/songwriter, superimposed onto bodies he clearly has no place being attached to. Those off-kilter images are exactly the kind of strange silliness fans have come to expect from Folds over a career that stretches more than 15 years, starting with the
More of "More Hits by The Supremes"
Rejoice, Supremes fans! Hip-o Select today announced the release of the next expanded album package by Motown's most famous girl group, a double-disc edition of More Hits by The Supremes with tons of exciting bonus content. By 1965, the years of the "no-hit" Supremes at Motown Records were history. The previous year had seen three consecutive No. 1 hits - "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love" and "Come See About Me" - and another two consecutive chart-toppers would be added to the list with
Friday Feature: "The Thing"
Our enjoyment of music takes many shapes and sizes, from the most basic of digital files to the vast quantities of reissues and box sets we all enjoy around The Second Disc. Part of the nervous excitement in being a collector is really never knowing what your latest musical obsession will look or sound like - and that's, I think, what keeps us coming back. Now, replace "music" with "an alien virus from another planet" and "nervous excitement" with "crippling terror" and you have the subject of
Intrada Scares Up Some Special Soundtracks
It's always a cause for celebration when a label gets some long-lost piece of music out to the public for consumption. And Intrada's special mid-week batch of archival film scores is no different, offering two premiere horror scores, one of which was presumed lost for years. First up is the score to Fright Night, the 1985 horror classic (recently remade this past summer) about a teen who has to stop his next-door neighbor, a bloodthirsty vampire, from feeding on the innocent. The score is the
What a Fox! KISS Drummer Eric Carr Celebrated with Rarities Set
While Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss are known as the definitive lineup of iconic rock band KISS, longtime fans know the lineup has changed countless times in the past few decades. (Today's incarnation of the band only features Stanley and Simmons as original members, with guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer wearing the original Spaceman and Catman makeup, respectively.) One of the most notable other members of KISS, though, was Eric Carr. The first
Steve Perry's "Street Talk" Gets Vinyl Reissue
It'd be easy to imagine former Journey frontman Steve Perry doing little besides sitting on a pile of money and denying the opportunity to reunite with his old band. In fact, the singer has been hard at work revisiting his solo debut, Street Talk, for an audiophile release. Perry, who has effusively praised the quality of Journey's forthcoming Greatest Hits Volume 2 release, recently took to The Mastering Lab in Ojai, California, to remaster his hit album alongside engineer Robert Hadley for a
"Looking Good, La-La Land." "Feeling Good, The Second Disc."
As previously reported, La-La Land Records' newest release is the premiere of Elmer Bernstein's score to the classic comedy Trading Places, available as of yesterday. One of the most fondly remembered films of the 1980s, Trading Places is the story of a rich banker (Dan Aykroyd) conned by his bosses to lose everything as part of a "social experiment" to switch a rich man with a poor man and observe the results. The poor man who assumes Aykroyd's life is a street hustler played by Eddie Murphy -
Williams, Herrmann, Conti Join Varese Club
The sleeping giant that is Varese Sarabande's CD Club awoke for the second time yesterday, announcing four killer soundtracks from the film score vaults for your perusal. Chief among the surprises in this week's batch was the announcement of a John Williams score from the Universal Pictures film Midway (1976) - a major coup for fans of the Maestro. A gripping World War II drama starring Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Toshiro Mifune and a host of A-list actors, Midway sees
Release Round-Up: Week of October 11
Ben Folds, The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective (Epic/Legacy) Ben Folds-mania - at least around Second Disc HQ - hits a fever pitch with the first compilation from everyone's favorite piano-playing smartass. You have your single-disc version, the excellent three-disc version and the digital vault, featuring another 55 tracks at 320 kbps MP3s. (Five of those tracks are yours free when you buy the three-disc set.) (Official site) James Brown, The Singles Vol. 11 (1979-1981) (Hip-o
Friday Feature: "An American Werewolf in London"
In 1941, the werewolf mythology gained an iconic set of lines in the Universal horror classic The Wolf Man: "Even a man who is pure at heart/and says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms/and the autumn moon is bright." Forty years later, from the same studio, a less delicate line was added to the lycanthrope canon: "I will not be threatened by a walking meat loaf!" Such is the tone of An American Werewolf in London, one of the best horror-comedies of the past few
Greater Hits: Going Barenaked
In one of our newest features, Greater Hits, we pit two greatest hits compilations by the same artist against each other and see which one comes out on top. Today's installment: we take one of Canada's most successful alt-rock bands, compare their compilations and figure out which one's most worth your time, whether you have $1,000,000 or not. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfdTnpV03p8] It's been just more than one week since the Barenaked Ladies' Hits from Yesterday & The Day
The Takeover, The Break's Over: Jay-Z Reissues "The Blueprint" on Vinyl
Timing is everything, especially in the hip-hop world. So what does it say about Jay-Z that he somehow managed to make a positive out of one of the darkest days in American history? A vinyl reissue of his landmark The Blueprint may provide some answers to that question. The man born Shawn Carter had already established himself as a rapper/entrepreneur of the highest order. The grit and realism of his first album, 1996's Reasonable Doubt, placed him high on the list of rappers to watch,
What's in Ben's Vault?
As if getting a set of Ben Folds Five rarities on disc with next week's Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective wasn't enough, Folds, along with Legacy Recordings, vowed to open the vaults even further with the Ben Folds Fifty-Five Vault, a 55-track digital companion, five tracks of which would be given away free with purchase of the new compilation. Today, all the tracks were announced from the vault, and while not all of it is entirely unreleased, there's more than enough to satisfy the
Gorillaz to Release First Compilation in November
Gorillaz don't look 10 years old, do they? Granted, it's not easy to assess the age of a band made almost entirely out of cartoons. Adding to the confusion, the band's future-forward hip-hop doesn't sound much like a product of any time period. Regardless, the band is indeed at the decade mark - and they're being commemorated with a new compilation. The fictitious members of the band - vocalist/keyboardist 2D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, guitarist Noodle and drummer Russel Hobbs - actually have a
Mumford & Sons Go Back to "The Cave" for Expanded Album
In case you've been living under a rock for the past year or so, Mumford & Sons isn't the name of a trendy country boutique. It's a rather great, roots-oriented band turning out some of the best, harmonically dense Americana-tinged rock on the scene right now. (Naturally, they're not from around these parts, calling West London their home.) In the year since Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More was released in the U.S., the quartet's songs, namely "Little Lion Man" and "The Cave," have become
Better Than Barbecued Iguana: Varese to Release New Wall of Voodoo Compilation
There's a good chance that, if you own at least one '80s compilation CD released in the past 10 or 15 years, you've heard "Mexican Radio" by Wall of Voodoo. Though the song - with its distinctively sung couplets from vocalist Stan Ridgeway and a propulsive, rhythmic backing track featuring some great guitar work and a distinctive, mariachi-flavored harmonica/synth lick - peaked outside of Billboard's Top 40 almost three decades ago, it's become one of those tunes that sums up the New Wave sound
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