Today, Rhino announced four new titles in its ever-growing line of Quadio Blu-rays: Randy Newman's Good Old Boys (1973), WAR's The World Is a Ghetto (1972), Gil Evans' Svengali, and Average White Band's AWB. The Second Disc had the opportunity to preview this quartet of Blu-ray reissues of classic albums in quadraphonic (four-channel) sound, and we're happy to report that this is another feast for surround fans with all four titles making good - or better - use of surround. (Those equipped
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Stevie Nicks, 'Complete Studio Albums and Rarities'
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
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Frank Zappa, "Over-Nite Sensation: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition"
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
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Billy Joel, "The Vinyl Collection Vol. 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
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Bob Dylan, "The Complete Budokan 1978"
We're kicking off our Holiday Gift Guide Review series with a look at Bob Dylan's The Complete Budokan 1978. Long before Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan was reinventing himself. The artist who stepped onstage at Tokyo's Budokan arena in 1978 only bore superficial resemblance to the firebrand who was proclaimed a "Judas!" by an irate fan over a decade earlier at Manchester Free Trade Hall. That audience member was famously angry over the then-folkie's decision to plug in and
Review: Joni Mitchell, "Archives Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975)"
Late in 1970, Joni Mitchell took a moment while performing at London's Royal Festival Hall to announce an early retirement from the stage. She relocated to British Columbia, built a modest stone cabin in the somewhat remote area, and let inspiration guide her rather than the machinations of a manager or record executive. While in this self-imposed creative exile, Mitchell began crafting the album that became 1972's For the Roses. It would reach listeners more than a year after the June 1971
Review: Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, J. Geils Band, Jefferson Starship In Quad
With Rhino having just announced a second batch of Quadio releases, we're taking a look at the first four titles in the relaunched series - all of which are now available on Blu-ray Disc with high-resolution presentations of the original 4.0 quadraphonic and 2.0 stereo mixes. Black Sabbath's 1970 LP Paranoid was a landmark record in the transition from "hard rock" to "heavy metal." Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward followed up their self-titled debut album of early 1970
Review: Van Morrison, "His Band and the Street Choir," Jaco Pastorius' "Word of Mouth" in Rhino Hi-Fi
Don't want to discuss it/I think it's time for a change... Van Morrison's 1967 debut album for Bert Berns' Bang Records, Blowin' Your Mind, came close to living up to its title with the lovably breezy "Brown-Eyed Girl" nestled alongside more challenging fare such as "T.B. Sheets," and everything in between: pop, folk, Latin, rock-and-roll, blues. But the Northern Irish singer-songwriter truly came into his own with a move to Warner Bros. the following year. The mystical, hypnotically
Review: Little Feat, "Sailin' Shoes" and "Dixie Chicken" Deluxe Editions
Little Feat was no ordinary rock-and-roll band. The seeds of the California group were planted when singer-songwriter Lowell George, then playing in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, met keyboardist Bill Payne, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for the famously tough Zappa. The pair hit it off and teamed with former Mothers bassist Roy Estrada and drummer Richard Hayward, late of George's old band The Factory, to form Little Feat. The story remains unclear as to exactly what prompted George
Made For These Times: The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" Arrives in Dolby Atmos, Mixed by Giles Martin
When The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the band's eleventh studio album, first was released in May 1966, response in the U.S. was surprisingly tepid. Though both "Sloop John B" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" soared to the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, Capitol Records was unsure how to promote the album which represented an artistic zenith, and the beginning of a new era, for The Beach Boys. It peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and was the group's first album since 1963 to miss a Gold
Review: Bob Dylan, "Fragments - 'Time Out of Mind' Sessions (1996-1997): The Bootleg Series Vol. 17"
The Oxford dictionary describes the phrase time out of mind as "a time in the past that was so long ago that people have no knowledge or memory of it." What was Bob Dylan getting at when he lifted the phrase for his 1997 Grammy Award-winning album? Critics and fans alike immediately seized on the notion of the record as some kind of dark farewell from an artist in the September of his years. Indeed, the album was filled with musings on lost love, mortality, hopelessness, and despair. But
Review: Elvis Presley, "Elvis on Tour"
When Elvis on Tour hit the big screen in 1972, Elvis Presley was no longer the frequent cinema fixture of the 1960s, when he would crank out two or even three motion pictures a year. His last movie appearance was the 1970 documentary Elvis: That's the Way It Is, chronicling the Elvis Summer Festival of 1970 at Las Vegas' International Hotel. Elvis on Tour painted with an even larger canvas. Though it had originally been mooted as a new showcase of Presley's Vegas performances, the concept
Review: Frank Zappa, "Waka/Wazoo"
Finally, a Zappa album that's safe for the whole family! Frank Zappa's pair of 1972 releases, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, stand as two of the most impressive and unusual in his sprawling catalogue. Forced to abandon live performing as a result of a crazed "fan" charging the stage and heaving him into an orchestra pit, the composer-bandleader spent nearly a year recovering from injuries to his face, head, ribs, arm, and leg. A wheelchair and a leg brace couldn't stop Zappa's prodigious
Review: The Monkees, "Headquarters: Super Deluxe Edition"
It didn't take long for The Monkees to realize that they'd experienced a level of success far beyond their wildest dreams. Far from being mere actors on a television show portraying a band, they'd been thrust in front of capacity crowds in stadiums, arenas, and large auditoriums - a de facto band that, in reality, wasn't yet calling the shots on their own careers and music. That changed when Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork demanded creative freedom from impresario Don
Holiday Gift Guide Review: David Bowie, "Divine Symmetry: An Alternative Journey Through 'Hunky Dory'"
MAGNIFICENT OUTRAGE. The phrase is emblazoned on the slipcase of David Bowie's new box set Divine Symmetry (An Alternative Journey Through 'Hunky Dory'). It was derived from an ad - reprinted as the first image in the 100-page tome housing the set's four CDs and one Blu-ray Disc - which noted, "That's what they're saying about David Bowie." Happily, no one would accuse this latest Bowie archival dig of being an outrage, though magnificent comes closer. Much like its 2019 predecessor
Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Beach Boys, "Sail on Sailor: 1972"
I need a whole lot of sunshine to keep my sundial advancing... Who were The Beach Boys? Hawthorne, California's favorite sons might have been asking themselves that very question in 1972. Their creative leader was withdrawing further into himself and musical tastes were changing: where did that leave them? This period of adjustment was first chronicled on last year's superlative Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971 box set. The story begun on that collection
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, "The Asylum Albums (1972-1975)"
2022 has been Joni Mitchell's year. Following a triumphant surprise appearance in July at the Newport Folk Festival, the singer-songwriter announced a return to the stage for a full-length Joni Jam in June 2023 at Washington's Gorge Amphitheatre; tickets were quickly snapped up by ardent fans who had waited roughly two decades to see Mitchell in concert once again. More recently, she attended her first-ever Broadway musical, Cameron Crowe and Tom Kitt's Almost Famous - and made her Broadway
Review: The Beatles, "Revolver" (2022)
I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there... George Harrison's snarling takedown of the "Taxman" opened The Beatles' Revolver with a powerful sting. The so-called Quiet Beatle took on the first-person role with the relish of (and a musical nod to) a Batman villain. Though 1965's folk-rock-influenced Rubber Soul had seen the Fab Four's songwriting grow by leaps and bounds, Revolver matched the songwriting strides with revelatory studio processes including ADT (Artificial Double
Review: The Beach Boys, "Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys"
We'll be havin' fun all summer long... For nearly sixty years, the sun-drenched harmonies of The Beach Boys have provided the soundtrack for summer - from those welcome first days and first rays through the season's bittersweet final moments as autumn's chill approaches. They're the rare band whose compilations, beginning with 1974's chart-topping Endless Summer, have become nearly as key to their legacy as the core studio albums. 2003's Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach
Wowie Zowie: "Zappa/Erie" Box Set Captures Three Different Mothers Line-Ups
The Frank Zappa archive has opened wide in recent years; the past twelve months alone have seen such diverse releases as The Mothers 1971, the 50th anniversary edition of 200 Motels, and Zappa '88: The Last U.S. Show. The latest addition to the canon (or Official Release Series No. 122, for those keeping count) has recently arrived from Zappa Records and UMe. Zappa/Erie premieres three full shows from the Erie, Pennsylvania area (including Edinboro, some eighteen miles outside of Erie) plus a
Everlasting: Edsel Collects Steve Ellis, Love Affair on "Finchley Boy" Box Set
The voice of Steve Ellis first burst out of radios on The Love Affair's 1967 recording of "Everlasting Love." A chart-topper in the U.K. and a hit throughout Europe, it failed to chart in the U.S. but set Ellis on a path of music-making that continues to this day. Edsel has taken a deep dive into his extensive career for an impressive new box set. Over 10 discs, Finchley Boy chronicles the Steve Ellis story both as a solo artist and with the groups Love Affair, Ellis, and Widowmaker. In
Release Round-Up: Week of May 6
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles out today including a very special pair from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music! Melissa Manchester, Live '77 (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Real Gone Music) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music proudly present the premiere release of Melissa Manchester's Live '77, recorded by Arista Records in October 1977 at Gainesville, Florida's Great Southern
Review: Frank Zappa, "The Mothers 1971"
Sorry, Frank! Though the title of Zappa and The Mothers' 1971 album was Just Another Band from L.A., listeners knew what the maverick bandleader was alluding to: his latest group was anything but. Vocalists Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (a.k.a. Flo and Eddie) and bassist Jim Pons - all freshly recruited from The Turtles - were now happy together with Zappa, drummer Aynsley Dunbar, keyboardists Bob Harris and Don Preston, and multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood in one of the most outrageous and
Review: The Replacements, "Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash: Deluxe Edition"
Everything about The Replacements' debut was fast and furious. Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, first released in 1981 on the Twin/Tone label, introduced eighteen rip-roaring nuggets primarily from the pen of Paul Westerberg. More than half were under two minutes long, and only two cracked the three-minute mark. While the lyrics were filled with aggression and the spirit of youthful rebellion, they weren't devoid of self-aware humor. And though the sound was primal, abrasive, and
Review: Frank Zappa, "200 Motels: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - 50th Anniversary Edition"
Frank Zappa called 200 Motels "a surrealistic documentary." Leonard Maltin described it as a "visual, aural assault disguised as a movie; completely berserk, freeform film...some of it ingenious, some funny, but not enough to maintain [an] entire film." Roger Ebert compared the surreal musical to the work of experimental composer Harry Partch before observing that it "assaults the mind with everything on hand...a full wall of sight-and-sound input." Zappa never wrote and directed another
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