Universal’s overseas arm developed the Collected series as a line of compilations that would appeal to both casual and hardcore fans, combining an artist’s biggest hits with harder-to-find material. (For instance, a 2017 volume on Huey Lewis and The News offered rare edits and 12″ mixes, guest appearances and even a single track from the group’s pre-News existence as American Express.) Now distributed through the Music on CD label, Collected is still going strong – as evidenced by a forthcoming volume offering a comprehensive summary of the king of punk funk himself, Rick James. Rick’s Collected volume…
Come Up and See Me: Steve Harley’s ‘Best Years’ Revisited in 2CD/DVD Box Set
One of the best-loved British albums of the mid-’70s will be revisited this summer with a fresh new mix and a host of bonus material: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel’s The Best Years of Our Lives. Previously released as a 4CD/DVD set, Chrysalis’ new 2CD/DVD, available June 20, shuffles things around a bit. The original nine-track album, featuring the national chart-topper “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me),” has been newly mixed in stereo by the album’s original co-producer Alan Parsons. Bonus audio material includes the B-side “Another Journey” and 11 demos…
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Mondo Maestro: New John Williams Box Set Series Announced, Plus ‘Star Wars’ Re-Recordings on Vinyl
With yesterday being “May the Fourth” and an informal day of celebration for Star Wars fans (even though “orthodox” fans might recognize the original film’s release date, May 25, as a holiday of its own!), the time is right to plan a few music reissues related to the film – and one exciting, ambitious new announcement for the catalogue of the series’ longtime composer, John Williams. The 93-year-old composer has kept a low profile since the release of his score for the fifth and final Indiana Jones film, canceling conductor engagements around the world due…
Voices, Another Sound: Duran Duran Bow ‘Greatest’ on Vinyl
Duran Duran will bring their latest – and, appropriately, greatest – compilation to vinyl for the first time this summer. 1998’s Greatest – a tidy summary of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ most commercially successful period in the ’80s and ’90s – will be pressed as a double album on white vinyl – featuring a newly cut master created at Abbey Road Studios – with sleek packaging including an embossed front cover (recalling the companion DVD release of the band’s biggest videos) and full-color inner sleeves. The collection will also be…
Reissues…and Stuff Like That! Classic Quincy Jones Titles Due on Vinyl, SHM-CD This Summer
A cadre of titles from the discography of the late Quincy Jones – spanning nearly 25 years of his storied career – are coming back into print on physical formats thanks to the shared efforts of Universal’ Music Group’s teams in America and Japan. Coming June 6 are new SHM-CD pressings of seven of Jones’ LPs: This is How I Feel About Jazz (1957), The Quintessence (1962), Big Band Bossa Nova (1962), Walking in Space (1969), Body Heat (1974), Mellow Madness (1975), Sounds…and Stuff Like That!! (1978) and The Dude (1981). Each will be packaged in the usual style, as part of UMG’s “All of…
Hero of the Day: Metallica Unloads Massive ‘Load’ Box Set
We’ll spare you additional ribald jokes and puns in sharing that Metallica have announced their latest sprawling box set reissue, this time dedicated to their sixth studio album – 1996’s Load. Available June 13, the centerpiece of the Load reissue campaign is a box that’ll offer 15 CDs, six LPs and four DVDs featuring the remastered album, rare single material, scores of unreleased outtakes (from demos to rough mixes), audio or video of five full shows and plenty additional concert recordings, music videos, TV appearances and more. Weighing in at 10 pounds, with…
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A Man Could Get Lost: Soft Cell to Expand ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’ with Rare Remixes
After expanding their debut album for a box set in 2023, Soft Cell will revisit the next entry in their discography: the remix album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing. Available June 20, the collection comes back to two CDs or two LPs with a host of bonus material, including vintage non-LP singles and remixes plus a host of rare promo remixes issued in the last decade. (While UMC’s solicitation notes three of the 12 tracks on the set’s bonus disc are unreleased, our research puts it at one, with the rest sourced from promo releases,…
Didn’t Miss a ‘Step’: New Kids on the Block Celebrate 35th Anniversary of Third Album
New Kids on the Block will revisit their blockbuster Step by Step with a new expanded edition this summer. The 35th anniversary package will be available in a handful of physical and digital formats, with some exclusive variants and bonus tracks throughout. The 1990 release will be available on CD with two tracks from the vault and four mostly promo-only remixes. A pressing of the CD at Target will have an extra track – a recent live version of the cut “Where Do I Go from Here?” – which will apparently also be on…
Roam Around the World: Rhino Readies Nearly-Complete Albums Box for The B-52’s
A new box set from Rhino will offer nearly all the studio material of Athens, Georgia alt-rock icons The B-52’s. The Warner Reprise Years, available June 20, brings together the six albums and two EPs the quirky quintet put together between 1979 and 1992 – a period where they went from cult favorites to unlikely hitmakers. The collection will feature the group’s 1979 self-titled debut, 1980’s Wild Planet, the 1981 and 1982 EPs Party Mix and Mesopotamia, Whammy! (1983), Bouncing Off the Satellites (1986) – the last album to feature all five original…
So Lucky: Legacy Expands Britney’s ‘Oops!’ and Plans Millennium Pop Comp ‘Y2K25’
With an expansion of the Backstreet Boys’ Millennium as one of the few items on their release schedule, Legacy Recordings will go a few steps this further, celebrating the turn of the millennium with a new compilation and a reissue of one of the biggest solo artists of that time. On May 16, Legacy will release an expanded vinyl and digital edition of Britney Spears’ Oops!…I Did It Again for its 25th anniversary. A year before, Spears had ascended to pop’s A-list with her debut …Baby One More Time, becoming the focus of teens (and even…
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Oooh, This I Need: Adam Mattera Talks ‘Dearly Beloved: A Prince Songbook’
Last year, The Second Disc had nothing but good things to say about Dearly Beloved: A Prince Songbook, Cherry Red’s triple-disc tribute to the music of Prince. The set told a story of The Artist’s massive impact on pop, rock and soul by way of songs he gave others to record and a galaxy of genre-bending covers. In a year of considerable challenges in Prince fandom, it was a veritable oasis in a desert. Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Mattera, the curator and producer of Dearly Beloved. For…
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Blues, Classic Rock, Country, Disco/Dance, Electronic, Funk, Gospel, Jazz, Pop, R&B/Soul, Rap/Hip-Hop, Rock
Something He Said: Rhino Issues Vinyl Box of Classic Richard Pryor Albums
Not long after honoring one of the finest stand-ups in box set form, Rhino’s doing it again, with a surprise release of a vinyl set devoted to the work of Richard Pryor. I Hope I’m Funny: The Warner Albums (1974-1983), available today exclusively through Rhino’s official web store, is a 7LP box collecting six albums that captured the boundary-shattering comedian at his arguable peak. A bit more laser focused than either Rhino’s 2000 box …And It’s Deep Too! The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings (1968-1992) or the Shout! Factory set No Pryor Restraint: Life in…
The Spirit of Man: Madfish Preps Box Set Edition of Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’ Concept Album
When H.G. Wells published The War of the Worlds as a serialized collection of stories in 1897 and a full novel a year later, he may not have known the groundbreaking work he was unleashing on the world. A sci-fi story that dared to look at the dark side of theoretical human-alien contact, War of the Worlds was a fantastical-yet-grounded story that imagined visitors from the planet Mars as anything but friendly. The book became fertile ground for adaptations, from Orson Welles’ dramatic 1938 radio dramatization to Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film adaptation and not…
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Back for Good: Take That’s Breakthrough Gets Expanded Release
British boy band Take That attained considerable success throughout Europe in the early ’90s. Sony Music U.K. will celebrate Nobody Else, the album that briefly made them international hitmakers, with a new deluxe edition this summer. The double-disc reissue of Nobody Else pairs the original album alongside eight bonus tracks, including the rare Japanese bonus track “All That Matters to Me,” a cover of the Bee Gees’ “How Deep is Your Love” that served as their last work for nearly a decade, a new remix of album cut “Hanging Onto Your Love” by group…
Turning Over New ‘Leaves’: Nick Drake’s Debut to Be Expanded
One of British folk’s most enigmatic debuts, Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, will be the subject of a box set yielding newly-discovered outtakes and unreleased material. The Making of Five Leaves Left, hitting stores on July 25, offers a new chronological look at Drake’s first album through more than 30 unreleased outtakes and a new pressing of the original album, available either on four CDs or four LPs and remastered by original album engineer John Wood. An illustrated 60-page book, printed on textured, recycled paper, accompanies the discs, offering new liner notes by…
One and Only: Mariah Carey Celebrates 20 Years of ‘Mimi’ with 5LP and Digital Reissue
Two decades ago, Mariah Carey’s The Emancipation of Mimi was a dramatic comeback for the pop queen. This year, it’s due for a comeback of its own with a heavy-duty deluxe edition. Available May 30, The Emancipation of Mimi (20th Anniversary Edition) arrives from UMe on five LPs offering a host of bonus material, including seven previously unreleased tracks and many more classic remixes. Billed as being “personally compiled” by Carey herself, the 45-track set comes with a 28-page booklet and a letter from the singer explaining the significance of the album on her…
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He Wears It Well: Rod Stewart’s ‘Ultimate Hits’ Due in June
Ahead of a prolific year of touring – and in the same year the British rocker turns 80 – a new career-spanning collection from Rod Stewart will be released this summer in multiple formats. Ultimate Hits, available June 27, offers Rod the Mod’s most beloved solo hits from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, from “Maggie May” and “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)” to “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and “Young Turks”; “Forever Young” and “Downtown Train” to “Have I Told You Lately” and “Rhythm of My Heart.” The set will be…
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Are You Not Entertained? Two Hans Zimmer Scores Get Expansions from La-La Land, Intrada
After a recent new edition of his breakthrough soundtrack work, composer Hans Zimmer is the subject of not one but two film score reissues released this month. La-La Land Records announced for April a dramatic expansion of Zimmer’s score for Gladiator. A modern take on sword-and-sandal epics released in 2000, Gladiator told the story of Maximus Decimus Meridius, a dedicated Roman general whose world is turned upside down by the murder of emperor Marcus Aurelius at the hands of his son, who proceeds to murder Maximus’ family and cast him into slavery. The warrior…
Every Move He Makes: Sting Plans Multiple Formats of ‘3.0 LIVE’ Album
Sting is chronicling his latest back-to-basics tour with a multi-format live album – and you’ll have to be quick (and lucky) to hear it all. The British rocker embarked on the 3.0 Tour last year; true to its name, Sting assembled a trio – having not toured with that few backing members since his days in The Police – consisting of longtime guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas. The result, which came to North and South American theaters as well as festival dates in Europe, was not only a faithful take…
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The Weekend Stream: April 5, 2025
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. A quiet, mostly contemplative week means a small batch of understated titles and a big public ask for clarity from one of our missing comrades in catalogue… Dan Fogelberg, Souvenirs (50th Anniversary Edition) (Epic/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) The late, great Fogelberg’s double-platinum sophomore album, produced by Joe Walsh (a year before he joined the Eagles), gets the red carpet treatment with three outtakes and one never-before-heard song. Impex will release…
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I’ve Got a Secret: The Bongos to Release Archival Live Album
New Jersey power-pop band The Bongos have added some archival works to their digital catalogue in recent years, partnering with Legacy Recordings on expansions of their RCA recordings (including the 1983 EP Numbers with Wings, a pair of 12″ mixes and 1985’s Beat Hotel, and even a holiday track in 2023). This spring, they’ll go back to the label where it all began – New Jersey’s own JEM Recordings – to put some of that vault material out on CD for the first time. The Shroud of Touring: Live in 1985, available May 23,…
Shut Out the Light: Bruce Springsteen Offers Seven Unheard Albums on ‘Tracks II’
More than a quarter century after releasing his first major vault project, Bruce Springsteen is back with a sequel that’s even bigger. True to its name, Tracks II: The Lost Albums 1983-2018 promises not just a wealth of unreleased recordings from the Thrill Hill vaults, as 1998’s Tracks offered. This time, the rock icon presents seven full albums’ worth of material, sharing thematic and recording cohesion and even, in some cases, seriously considered for release at one time or another. (Though all imagery has yet to be revealed, each set will be packaged as its…
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Whitesnake Remaster Five Live Albums for New Box Set
After years of reissues and remixes from hard-rockers Whitesnake at Rhino Records, you’d be forgiven for wondering what the label could still do with David Coverdale’s catalogue. That question is now answered with a box set assembling remastered editions of five latter-day live records. Access All Areas: Live, available April 25, is an 8CD collection offering sets recorded between 2004 and 2015 and released over the last two decades. The albums featured are Live…In the Still of the Night (2005), the double albums Live…In the Shadow of the Blues (2006); Made in Japan (2013) and…
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We Were So in Phase: Wang Chung Join Hits and Rarities on New Compilation
The time has come to take your baby by the hand and check out a new compilation from ’80s pop hitmakers Wang Chung. The group will release a new double album of hits and rarities, Clear Light / Dark Matter, on May 9. It’ll include the singles “Dance Hall Days,” “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” and “Let’s Go!” plus tracks from their cult classic soundtrack from the film To Live and Die in L.A. – along with rare material (including the A-side of their debut single) and even a few unreleased demos. It’ll be available…
Feel the Force: Disney to Release Japanese Box Set of ‘Star Wars’ Music with TV Scores Making CD Debuts
Fans making the pilgrimage to next month’s Star Wars Celebration event in Japan can keep an eye out for a new box set fitting in perfectly with the country’s commitment to music on CD. Available in limited quantities during the event at Makuhari Messe in Chiba City, Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025: Original Soundtrack Box Set brings together scores from 23 films and television series in the universe created by writer/director George Lucas, with exclusively designed artwork. While none of the material is previously unreleased, roughly half the material has never been released…
