The first sound that jumps out at you after inserting Van Morrison's The Authorized Bang Collection is that of the familiar "Brown Eyed Girl," but something about it is different. As presented in its original stereo mix as remastered from the original 1967 first-generation tape, it's more vibrant than ever, with pronounced instrumental separation and a crisp sheen - as if that misty morning fog has been lifted, and the green grass smells fresher than ever. It will have you singing sha la la la
Review: The Doors, "The Doors: 50th Anniversary Edition"
Suffice it to say that Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger, and John Densmore set the night on fire with their debut album, the 1967 Elektra release of The Doors. That amalgamation of blues, rock, pop, jazz, and pure poetry has recently turned 50 years old, and so it's received its first-ever box set expansion from Rhino as a limited, numbered 3-CD/1-LP hardcover book-style box set including both the original mono and stereo mixes of the original LP (with the mono version appearing on CD
Review: Fleetwood Mac, "Tango in the Night: Deluxe Edition"
The music of Fleetwood Mac could fairly be said to define the 1970s - in all its style, tumult, and excess. Where did that leave the union of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham once a new decade emerged? 1982's Mirage found Fleetwood Mac trying to recapture the magic of 1977's epochal Rumours, and succeeding in large part. Yet Mirage felt as if it firmly had one foot planted in the previous decade. With its belated follow-up, 1987's Tango in the
The Sound of Old T. Rex: Edsel Loads "Bolan's Zip Gun" In New Deluxe Edition with "Futuristic Dragon"
This fall will mark 40 years since Marc Bolan's untimely death in a car crash in September 1977 at the age of 29, yet in that time, the music he left behind with T. Rex has only grown in stature. Hardly a year has gone by without posthumous compilations, deluxe reissues, and box sets, and 2017 is shaping up similarly. Edsel has recently followed its book-style box sets dedicated to Born to Boogie and the pairing of Tanx and Zinc Alloy with a new 3-CD Deluxe Edition bringing together Bolan's
More Tomorrow: Esoteric Reissues Two From Unicorn, David Gilmour-Produced Band
What would it have sounded like if Pink Floyd's David Gilmour had produced the Eagles? One possible answer comes via his work with the British band Unicorn. Despite the patronage of the psychedelic rocker, Unicorn took many of its cues from the American West Coast. Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint is remastering and expanding two albums from Unicorn, 1976's Too Many Crooks, and 1977's One More Tomorrow. Both titles are due this Friday, March 31, in the United Kingdom, and one week
Review: Pink Floyd, "1970 DEVI/ATION"
For some fans, Pink Floyd begins with Dark Side of the Moon, the band's 1973 opus. But in reality, that classic was the culmination of roughly eight years of musical experimentation. Last year's massive box set The Early Years traced the evolution of the Floyd up through DSOTM through CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, vinyl singles, and printed memorabilia reproductions. Now, Pink Floyd Records and Sony have released six of that giant collection's seven components into individual book-style releases (one
Review: The Creation, "Action Painting"
With the release of the double-disc anthology Action Painting, Chicago's Numero Group has provided the most lavish collection yet for the little-known sixties British rockers The Creation. Surely this set will go a long way in cementing the legacy of the group. Though The Creation left behind roughly a couple dozen core songs - expanded to 46 tracks for this collection, via various mixes, alternates, backing tracks, and recordings by early outfit The Mark Four - the band epitomized the hard
Message From The Country: Esoteric Collects "Best of The Move" On CD and DVD
Can you hear the grass grow? Continuing its series of reissues dedicated to the Birmingham rockers The Move, Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint has just issued a CD/DVD collection that chronicles the band's many facets and iterations between 1966 and 1972. Magnetic Waves of Sound: The Best of The Move, featuring 21 tracks on CD and a further 21 live performances and promotional films on DVD, is certainly not the group's first anthology, but it's doubtless among the finest. Over the
Review: Bob Dylan, "The 1966 Live Recordings"
I. Play a song for me... Bob Dylan saw a very different future for folk music. His fifth studio album, Bringing It All Back Home, was released in March 1965, featuring one traditional acoustic side and one electric side. Underscoring the fact that his embrace of (gasp!) electric rock-and-roll was no fluke, Dylan plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival on July 25. From some appalled audience members came a chorus of boos. Others cheered. Dylan had electrified not only his own act, but
Review: Big Star, "Complete Third"
Will the real Big Star’s Third please stand up? That’s a loaded question, for it’s possible that there never, in fact, was a “real” version of the album recorded at Memphis’ Ardent Studios in 1974 by Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens with producer-engineer Jim Dickinson, studio owner John Fry and engineer Richard Rosebrough. Chilton even asserted numerous times that the sessions were never intended to yield a Big Star album at all. (One potential name for the duo of Chilton and Stephens was
Review: David Bowie, "Who Can I Be Now? 1974-1976"
Who Can I Be Now? asks the title of Parlophone's second in a series of elegant, chronologically-assembled box sets dedicated to the late David Bowie's oeuvre. Indeed, Bowie might have made that query as he reinvented himself in fashion and music from album to album. The twelve discs comprising Who Can I Be Now? span the brief period of 1974-1976 during which time Bowie was riding high on both sides of the Atlantic with his genre- and gender-bending brand of theatrical rock. This set, every
Intervention Records Brings "Stealers Wheel" To Hybrid SACD/CD
Clowns to the left of me...jokers to the right...It must be Stealers Wheel! Earlier this year, Intervention Records released exquisite vinyl reissues of the first two albums from the Scottish folk-rock band. Now, the label has revisited the group's 1972 self-titled debut album (originally released on A&M Records) in the hybrid SACD format, playable on all CD players. Stealers Wheel - featuring lead guitarist Paul Pilnick, bassist Tony Williams and drummer Rod Coombes - boasts some
Review: Fleetwood Mac, "Mirage: Deluxe Edition"
When Fleetwood Mac entered the Château d'Hérouville studio outside Paris at the dawn of the 1980s, the band had one goal in mind: to create a commercial pop success in the mold of their record-breaking Rumours. Not everyone in the quintet was sold on this goal, necessarily, especially after the quantum leap forward from Rumours into the beautiful madness that was Tusk. But while Tusk sold four million copies, it couldn't help but be viewed as a disappointment after the world domination of its
Review: The Beatles, "Live at The Hollywood Bowl"
And now...here they are...The Beatles! The summers of 1964 and 1965 are now more than fifty years in the rearview mirror, yet the music made by four lads from Liverpool over three evenings at Los Angeles' famous Hollywood Bowl now sounds so fresh and so immediate, you could believe it was recorded yesterday. Such is the work of the sonic wizards on Capitol/Apple/UMe's first-time-on-CD, retitled, remixed and expanded reissue of The Beatles' Live at the Hollywood Bowl (B0025451-02,
Review: Chicago, "Quadio"
Surround yourself with Chicago! With the recent release of Rhino's immense - and immensely enjoyable - new box set Quadio, it's possible to enjoy the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-honored band's classic 1969-1976 albums with added dimension: that of 4.0-channel quadraphonic sound. The nine Blu-ray Audio discs on Quadio (playable on all Blu-ray players) present every one of Chicago's studio albums from Chicago Transit Authority through Chicago X, plus IX: Chicago's Greatest Hits, in remastered
Moving On: Esoteric Expands The Move's "Something Else" and "Looking On"
Esoteric Recordings has recently continued its series of Move reissues with expanded editions of the band's 1968 EP Something Else from The Move, and its 1970 studio album Looking On. Something Else began life as a 5-track mono EP culled from performances at London's Marquee Club on February 27 and May 5, 1968. Between those two gigs, bassist Chris "Ace" Kefford had departed the group's roster, leaving it a four-piece consisting of Carl Wayne on vocals, Roy Wood on guitar/vocals, Trevor
Review: The Kinks, "Everybody's in Show-Biz: Legacy Edition"
When Kinks bio-musical Sunny Afternoon took home the 2015 Olivier Award for Best Musical, it must surely have been a sweet moment for composer-lyricist and band frontman Ray Davies, whose concept albums and rock operas have long bore the hallmarks of strong theatrical storytelling. (He's also written a handful of musicals over the years.) By the time of 1972's Everybody's In Show-Biz, Davies was already pushing the envelope of his quintessentially British sound, incorporating rootsy American
Hear The Grass Grow: Esoteric Expands Two From The Move
The Move has seen no shortage of reissues over the years, but collectors can now finally embrace the definitive editions of the Birmingham band's classic self-titled album and follow-up Shazam! from Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings imprint. Esoteric has just reissued The Move in a 3-CD edition and Shazam! in a 2-CD expansion, both of which add copious previously unreleased material. ("Highlights" versions are also available.) These two titles kick off the Move campaign from Esoteric which
Joe Jackson's "I'm the Man" Returns On Vinyl From Intervention Records
Joe Jackson appears on the cover of his 1979 sophomore album, I'm the Man, as a "spiv": a British term for a peculiar kind of petty criminal "always trying to sell you a watch or something like that, real cheap," in the artist's words. But Jackson didn't have to resort to any cheap come-ons to hawk I'm the Man, a solid follow-up to his impressive debut Look Sharp! which arrived just months after that seminal release. Despite the quick turnaround, I'm the Man hailed from the same inspired
The Many "Sides" Of Anthony Phillips: Esoteric Expands Genesis Guitarist's Albums in Stereo, Surround
Esoteric Recordings has continued its series of definitive reissues from Genesis members Anthony Phillips, Tony Banks and Steve Hackett with two new mini-box sets dedicated to Phillips' solo albums Wise After the Event (1978) and Sides (1979). These 3-CD/1-DVD-A releases follow Esoteric's 2015 box set expansion of his pastoral solo debut The Geese and the Ghost as well as the label's compendium of his Private Parts and Pieces volumes. Wise After the Event remains Phillips' only album on which
Bang The Drum All Day: Edsel Reissues Todd Rundgren's "For Lack of Honest Work"
The new 3-CD, 43-song set of live Todd Rundgren performances from Edsel is entitled For Lack of Honest Work: A Live History 1971-2006, after Todd's song "Honest Work." But all of his joking with the title aside, Rundgren's career has been all honest work - as he's doubtless remained true to himself through various musical incarnations over the past near-50 years. This set, the latest fine Rundgren release from the Edsel label, chronicles all of those "Rundgren variations" as captured between
Review: Stealers Wheel on Vinyl: "Stealers Wheel" and "Ferguslie Park"
Intervention Records launched in 2015 with a simple mission statement: "To provide archive-quality LPs of music we love," with the goal that "each record we do must be the single definitive, final version of that album, the one real music lovers will seek out." Happily, the label's early releases have all more than lived up to those lofty goals! The first two albums from Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan's Stealers Wheel might not have been the most expected titles for vinyl reissue in 2016, but
Still Driving: America Releases "Lost and Found" On Vinyl
Last year, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell, a.k.a. America, released two significant archival collections bookending their still-thriving career. Archives Vol. 1 presented 15 previously unreleased alternate versions, early mixes, demos, rehearsals and outtakes spanning the halcyon period between America's 1971 debut album America and 1975's Hearts. These, of course, featured Beckley and Bunnell in addition to original member Dan Peek. Lost and Found pressed fast-forward on the band's history
And The Wheels Keep Turning: Esoteric Reissues Two Tony Banks Albums As CD/DVD Sets
Last year, Tony Banks went A Chord Too Far with a career-spanning box set; now, the Genesis keyboardist has teamed once more with Esoteric Recordings for a CD/DVD edition of his sophomore solo album, 1983's The Fugitive. The first disc presents a new stereo mix of the album plus two bonus tracks, while the DVD includes a DTS 5.1 surround mix, a 96/24 PCM stereo mix, and a promotional music video. The Fugitive has recently arrived alongside a new pressing of the similar 2009 CD/DVD reissue of
Review: Raspberries, "Raspberries" Vinyl Edition
When Eric Carmen and Wally Bryson of Cyrus Eyrie teamed up with Jim Bonfanti and Dave Smalley of The Choir, the result was pop bliss. The Raspberries emerged from the ashes from the two bands, and over the course of four albums - three with the original line-up, and one with just Carmen and Bryson remaining - they came to define power pop. Yet today, some might wonder: Why is the Cleveland, Ohio band so fondly remembered despite only placing one Top 5 single in the U.S. and two more Top 20s?
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