Features / Holiday Gift Guide

Holiday Gift Guide Review: Bob Dylan, “The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through the Open Window”

December 22, 2025 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments
Bob Dylan Bootleg 18 Cover

Bob Dylan met Columbia Records’ John Hammond on September 14, 1961 at the apartment of folksinger Richard Farina and his then-wife Carolyn Hester.  Dylan had been invited to Carolyn’s rehearsal session as a harmonica player.  Hammond later told the story of being so impressed with the young man from Hibbing, Minnesota that he decided to sign him on the spot.  A subsequent audition took place, and when Dylan – then dazzling audiences at Gerde’s Folk City on a bill shared with The Greenbriar Boys – showed up for Hester’s Columbia session on…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Frank Sinatra, “Long Ago, Far Away (1943-1951)”

December 18, 2025 by Joe Marchese | 6 Comments
Frank Sinatra Long Ago Far Away

This week, the a cappella vocal group Pentatonix notched its first-ever number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.  More remarkably, the song was first recorded in 1937, written by a composer-lyricist who died in 1989, and features a vocalist who passed away in 1998.  The song is “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” the songwriter is Irving Berlin, and the duet partner is, of course, Frank Sinatra.  With this achievement, Sinatra returned to the top of the AC chart for the first time since September 30, 1967, when “The…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Eternity’s Children, “Eternity’s Children” and “Timeless”

December 16, 2025 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Eternity's Children

As temperatures drop and winter approaches, a little sunshine is always welcome…and High Moon Records has delivered with a pair of reissues from the cult-favorite pop band known as Eternity’s Children.  The label behind Sly and The Family Stone’s The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967 and the expanded edition of Lotti Golden’s Motor-Cycle has returned 1968’s Eternity’s Children and 1969’s Timeless to vinyl for the first time since their original releases. By the time the Mississippi band arrived on Capitol Records’ Tower imprint for their debut LP, the ranks had…

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THE SECOND DISC’S 2025 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE IS HERE!

December 1, 2025 by The Second Disc | 3 Comments
Beatles Anthology Collection Cover

Well, today is Cyber Monday, which means one thing at Second Disc HQ: it’s time to launch our annual Holiday Gift Guide, featuring (more than) a few of our favorite things for the music enthusiast in your life.  Sure, we might not have included raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but we’ve filled the guide with over 50 essential selections: sprawling box sets and deluxe vinyl editions, as well as noteworthy releases on CD from favorite artists that just might make great stocking stuffers.  So just click here or visit the handy red…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Prince and The Revolution, ‘Around the World in a Day (Deluxe Expanded Edition)’

December 1, 2025 by Mike Duquette | 3 Comments
Around the World in a Day deluxe

In theory, the posthumous care and handling of an esteemed discography with the deep potential for archival excavation like Prince’s would be an easy if daunting task. When the pop icon died unexpectedly in 2016 with no will and considerable assets to settle, the art of memorializing him through reissues moved with almost shocking precision: solid expansions of several of his best-loved ’80s albums, a handful of notable archival one-offs, and the reinstatement of his digital and physical catalogue of the ’90s and ’00s back into print. After the estate settled in…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Beatles, “Anthology Collection”

November 26, 2025 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Beatles Anthology Collection Cover

1995: Bill Clinton was President of the U.S., John Major was Prime Minister of the U.K., phones weren’t yet smart, Braveheart won Best Picture, the O.J. trial was on everyone’s mind, Jerry Garcia died, and the biggest songs of the year were Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” (U.S.) and Robson and Jerome’s “Unchained Melody/White Cliffs of Dover” (U.K.).  In November, the band that changed pop music forever launched its first major archival project at a time when such vault deep dives weren’t yet (so) commonplace.  The Beatles Anthology was a true multimedia venture, encompassing…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Split Enz, ‘Encyclopedia Volumes 1 & 2’

November 17, 2025 by Mike Duquette | 2 Comments
Enzyclopedia Volumes One and Two CD

It’s kind of a minor miracle that Enzyclopedia Volumes 1 & 2 (Chrysalis CRC/CRV1899) – the first in what we hope is an ongoing reissue campaign for Antipodean rock icons Split Enz – exists at all. Their catalogue is probably a tough sell if you live outside of Australia or New Zealand (none of their discography is consistently available worldwide), and their best-known work, where they became a razor-sharp, New Wave-adjacent ensemble, doesn’t come until years after what’s covered in this collection (available as a 5CD or 3LP set). And that’s before you get…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Monkees, “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.” [Super Deluxe Edition]

November 12, 2025 by Joe Marchese | 5 Comments
Monkees Pisces Aquarius Super Deluxe

Next year marks the 60th anniversary of The Monkees, an occasion soon to be commemorated by last Monkee standing Micky Dolenz with a new tour.  The group’s home of Rhino Records has started the party early with the recent release of the latest (and last?) of the label’s series of lavish album reissues.  1967’s Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. has been expanded as a comprehensive 4CD/1-7″ box set by producer/annotator Andrew Sandoval, and as usual, the result is manna for longtime fans and collectors. Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. found Davy Jones,…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: John Williams, ‘The Anthology Vol. 1 (1969-1990)’

November 10, 2025 by Mike Duquette | 1 Comment
John Williams Anthology 1

Let’s look at the numbers: John Williams has been on this mortal plane for 93 years, and has been composing for visual media for 73 of those years. Compact discs have been a part of music lovers’ collections for at least four decades, and the “art” of John Williams on CD – a real, curatorial approach to his iconic film scores – began in earnest more than 30 years ago, when the 4CD box set Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology hit record stores in 1993. From basic compilations like Greatest Hits 1969-1999…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, “Archives: Volume Four (1976-1980)” and “The Asylum Albums (1976-1980)”

December 20, 2024 by Joe Marchese | 4 Comments
Joni Archives 4 cover

Earlier this year, Joni Mitchell brought her now-famous Joni Jam shows to the Hollywood Bowl for two sold-out evenings.  A little more than 45 years ago, Mitchell closed out her North American tour with a series of shows some fifteen minutes away from the Bowl at the Greek Theatre; a selection from that concert closes the fourth volume of the Joni Mitchell Archives series of box sets.  The Bowl shows proved another triumph for the artist who’s now widely recognized for the innovations that stunned and even divided audiences all those decades…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: ‘Dearly Beloved: A Prince Celebration’

December 20, 2024 by Mike Duquette | 3 Comments
Dearly Beloved Prince Songbook

The holidays are a time of good cheer and gratitude, where we all (in theory) come together to share in a common joy. There has not been a lot of common joy if you’re a Prince fan; we don’t need to re-litigate it more than we did this summer, but it’s worth noting that the quest to make intriguing, posthumous Prince projects under the current estate organization has maybe gotten worse than when we published our editorial. But there have been celebrations of The Purple One that honor his restless creative spirit….

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Alice Cooper, “Muscle of Love: Deluxe Edition”

December 19, 2024 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments
Muscle of Love deluxe packshot

Rare is the album that’s better remembered for its packaging than its contents.  But that may well be the case with the band Alice Cooper’s seventh (and final) album, 1973’s Muscle of Love.  As it followed the Platinum-certified international chart-topper Billion Dollar Babies, hopes were high for the LP.  It was greeted by lukewarm critical assessments, though, and “merely” reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and No. 34 on the U.K. Albums Chart.  As such, it was inevitably considered a disappointment.  (It did go Gold.)  But fans – and even those…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Steve Martin, ‘Steve in a Box’

December 16, 2024 by Mike Duquette | 1 Comment
Steve in a Box

At this point in time, CD box sets have been a going concern (especially around the holidays) for nearly 40 years. Thousands of them have been released, and with the unexpected shift toward listening on vinyl (who’d have thought?) and digital (particularly streaming, which has a near-total grasp on music consumption today), you’ve got to have a really strong angle to encourage fans to part with some extra money and add new titles to their shelves. What more can be done? you (and sometimes we at The Second Disc) wonder. Stand-up comedy…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: ‘Mary Poppins: 60th Anniversary Collection’

December 10, 2024 by Mike Duquette | 1 Comment
Poppins packshot

I. In Every Job That Must Be Done, There is An Element of Fun When you’re a child – no matter where you’re from, or how perceptive you may be about such things – it’s easy to get a sixth sense about something you watch or read and just feel is different from the rest of what you’ve watched or seen. The Wizard of Oz is that way for many people. So too is Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers’ series of books about a magical nanny that was adapted into a colorful musical film by Walt…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Bob Dylan and The Band, “The 1974 Live Recordings”

December 4, 2024 by Joe Marchese | 4 Comments
Bob Dylan and The Band 1974 Live Recordings

Big things often come in small packages.  Such is the case with Legacy Recordings’ recent excavation of Bob Dylan and The Band’s 1974 tour.  40 concerts took place over 30 dates and 21 cities, with Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, and Rick Danko even playing two shows in one day in many markets.  The 1974 Live Recordings takes the form of a tiny cube, packing in 27 discs and 431 tracks (417 of which are previously unreleased).  The set contains every professionally-recorded Dylan track from the concerts, and…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Beatles, “1964 U.S. Albums in Mono”

December 3, 2024 by Joe Marchese | 10 Comments
Beatles US Albums in Mono Cover

Any Time at All Did The Beatles save rock and roll? If John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr didn’t save the still-young form, they certainly gifted it with a reinvigorating, exhilarating jolt of musical euphoria the likes of which hadn’t been seen before – and hasn’t been duplicated since.  The scene was early 1964.  Buddy Holly was long gone, and the big hits had dried up – at the moment, at least – for Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.  Elvis had served his time in the Army and…

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THE SECOND DISC’S 2024 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE IS HERE!

December 2, 2024 by The Second Disc | No Comments
George Harrison Living in the Material World 50th SDE Cover

Well, today is Cyber Monday, which means one thing at Second Disc HQ: it’s time to launch our annual Holiday Gift Guide, featuring (more than) a few of our favorite things for the music enthusiast in your life.  Sure, we might not have included raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but we’ve filled the guide with over 50 essential selections: sprawling box sets and deluxe vinyl editions, as well as noteworthy releases on CD from favorite artists that just might make great stocking stuffers.  So just click here or visit the…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Elvis Costello, “King of America and Other Realms”

November 18, 2024 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
King of America and Other Realms

It was a fine idea at the time/Now it’s a brilliant mistake… Elvis Costello delivered a powerful surprise in 1986 when he shed his backing band, The Attractions, and teamed up with T Bone Burnett for King of America.  Originally credited in the U.K. to The Costello Show (Featuring The Attractions and Confederates) and in the U.S. to The Costello Show (Featuring Elvis Costello), the album backtracked from the sleek ’80s polish of its two immediate predecessors (Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World) and instead tapped into a vein closer to…

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Release Round-Up: Week of November 1

November 1, 2024 by The Second Disc | 1 Comment
King of America and Other Realms

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles out today.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Elvis Costello, King of America and Other Realms (UMe) 6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 140-gram Black LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 140-gram Gold Nugget LP: Official Store / uDiscover Music / The Sound of Vinyl Elvis Costello is looking back on his tenth studio album King of America – and its effect on his future live and studio work – on a lavish new box set. The remastered 1986 album is paired with…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Prince and The New Power Generation, ‘Diamonds and Pearls (Super Deluxe Edition)’

December 22, 2023 by Mike Duquette | 1 Comment
Diamonds and Pearls deluxe packshot

I. Come On, Save Your Soul Tonight In the years since Prince’s tragic death in 2016, one of the more shocking events in catalogue history has occurred: the construction of a cottage industry surrounding his vast recorded output – both his dozens of released albums and countless tracks rumored to exist in the mythic vault at his Paisley Park recording complex. As a lucrative artist who left no will, the matters of his heirs were not settled until 2022. In those intervening years – with only a ragtag collection of record industry…

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Stocking Stuffer Spotlight: Freddie Scott, “Other Lives,” and International Pop Overthrow

December 21, 2023 by Joe Marchese | No Comments
International Pop Overthrow 24

We’ve covered a lot of box sets this holiday season but today we’re taking a look at three more compact – but no less enjoyable! – stocking stuffers!  The two titles carried by Amazon are shipping now with delivery before Christmas.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Freddie Scott (1933-2007) had been recording for seven years when his impassioned rendition of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “Hey Girl” reached the top ten of both the Pop and R&B charts in 1963.  Scott never topped the success of “Hey Girl”…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Stevie Nicks, ‘Complete Studio Albums and Rarities’

December 19, 2023 by Mike Duquette | 2 Comments
StevieN ProductShots BOX CD

I. Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You? When was the moment that Stephanie Lynn Nicks became inevitable? It’s not as though you can just forget a voice like hers. Ever since the start of her on-again, off-again tenure in Fleetwood Mac – when her dulcet tones powered songs like “Rhiannon,” “Landslide,” “Dreams” (the band’s first No. 1 single in America), essential B-side “Silver Springs,” “Gypsy” and others – Nicks’ artistry and talent has been a given. But you can feel it in the air too, right? At some point in the last decade,…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Frank Zappa, “Over-Nite Sensation: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition”

December 18, 2023 by Joe Marchese | 1 Comment
Frank Zappa Over Nite Sensation

Had Frank Zappa gone commercial?  Surely the artist who proudly embraced the slogan “No Commercial Potential” hadn’t sold out to the masses.  Yet, with 1973’s Over-Nite Sensation, the composer-guitarist-bandleader found himself in a particularly purple patch that resulted in two consecutive Gold albums and four straight top 40 entries on the Billboard 200.  The title of Over-Nite Sensation was, of course, sarcastic; the record was Zappa’s seventeenth overall and twelfth with The Mothers of Invention.  But the new fans he picked up with the LP might have believed it was a rebirth. …

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Billy Joel, “The Vinyl Collection Vol. 2”

December 14, 2023 by Joe Marchese | 9 Comments
Billy Joel The Vinyl Collection Volume 2

On July 25, 2024, Billy Joel will play his 150th lifetime show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.  It will be the 104th show of the first-of-its-kind residency which began in 2014.  Remarkably yet unsurprisingly, his final ten shows are already sold out.  More remarkably – but just as unsurprisingly to anyone who’s followed the singer-songwriter over the past 30 years – he’s filled the cavernous arena 100+ times over the past decade without introducing a single new song.  (His last two pop songs as of this writing were 2007’s “All My…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: John Williams, ‘Hook (The Ultimate Edition)’

December 11, 2023 by Mike Duquette | 1 Comment
Hook The Ultimate Edition

I. Kindest Personal Regards When critics walked out of screening rooms for Steven Spielberg’s Hook, they – not inaccurately – saw a film that possessed the childlike whimsy and rollercoaster thrills the director was a sure hand at ever since JAWS scared its way to the top of the all-time box-office charts. And yet, it was hard not to feel a bit overwhelmed by it all. “Hook is a huge party cake of a movie, with too much frosting,” David Ansen opined for Newsweek. “After the first delicious bite, sugar shock sets in.” It seems…

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