On February 10, Roberta Flack would have celebrated her 90th birthday. Though Flack passed away in February 2025, the occasion is being marked with a new box set from Rhino. With Her Songs: The Atlantic Albums 1969-1978 brings together the late artist’s first eight studio albums in one compact package. The 8CD set is due on February 6. With Her Songs kicks off with 1969’s First Take. Upon its expanded release in 2020 – still the only time an album of Flack’s has received a physical expanded edition – TSD wrote, “Recorded…
The Temple of the King 1975-1976
After leaving Deep Purple, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore found success with his new band Rainbow. The ever-changing line-up was notable in its early incarnation for featuring Elf vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who would of course become a towering figure in metal as a singer in Black Sabbath and his own eponymous band Dio. The Temple of the King is a 9CD box set collecting the early Dio years of Rainbow, including the remastered studio albums Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and Rainbow Rising, three live sets from 1976 and a collection of rare tracks, including four unreleased tour…
Café Bleu (Special Edition)
6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Not long after dissolving The Jam, frontman Paul Weller was back with The Style Council, a loose collective more pointedly inspired by R&B and dance ideas, with more explicitly political lyrics. Fans embraced the change, putting singles “Speak Like a Child,” “Long Hot Summer,” “My Ever Changing Moods” and “You’re the Best Thing” into the U.K. Top 10. (“My Ever Changing Moods” also became a U.S. Top 40 hit, something The Jam didn’t have.) This new 6CD box set of 1984 debut album Café…
The Best Thing: The Style Council’s Debut Gets Box Set Expansion
More than 40 years after Paul Weller introduced a new phase of his musical work as part of the genre-hopping Style Council, a forthcoming box set will dive deep into their first few years of work, complete with a trove of unreleased material. UMR will expand the group’s full-length debut Café Bleu as a 6CD collection on January 30. Extras include an expansion of 1983’s debut EP Introducing The Style Council (available as a European import in the U.K.), a host of non-LP single and B-side material, and a whopping 55 unreleased tracks:…
The Paradise Years 1976-1981
Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Cherry Red Second Disc Records teams with Cherry Red’s Lemon Recordings imprint to release the first-ever collection of Leon Russell’s recordings for the Warner-distributed Paradise Records label. The Paradise Years 1976-1981 presents, on four CDs, six full albums: Wedding Album: Expanded Edition – Leon and Mary Russell (1976); Make Love To The Music: Expanded Edition – Leon and Mary Russell (1977); Americana: Expanded Edition – Leon Russell (1978); Heart Of Fire – Mary Russell (1979); Life And Love – Leon Russell (1979); and The Live Album: Expanded Edition – Leon…
A Light in the Black: Edsel Kicks Off New Rainbow Reissue Campaign
The new year will see renewed catalogue activity around Ritchie Blackmore’s acclaimed work with Rainbow, kicking off in the spring with a new box set from Edsel. The Temple of the King 1975-1976, available March 6, takes listeners back to the earliest days of the hard-rockin’ group in studio and on stage, across nine newly-remastered CDs. The set includes the studio albums Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (1975) and Rising (1976), three complete shows from the group’s first European trek, and a 16-track collection of rarities that’ll include rough mixes, single edits and the premiere release of four…
Another Merry Discmas to All from The Second Disc!
No one – not even your friends at TSD HQ! – can predict the arc of music reissues. When we launched The Second Disc nearly 16 years ago, the business was in a place of surprising highs and lows. The Beatles’ albums had been remastered for the first time ever – but it seemed that stalwarts like Rhino Records were enduring hardships. Vinyl was a niche concern, streaming even more so, and who knew where the CD would end up? (And that doesn’t even account for personal growth immaterial of the music…
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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Bob Dylan, “The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through the Open Window”
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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Hold On To This Feeling: TSD, Cherry Red Collect Leon Russell’s Paradise Recordings on New Box Set
By 1976, Leon Russell was already an industry veteran. The onetime Wrecking Crew pianist had already written and arranged hit singles for Gary Lewis and The Playboys, launched two record labels (Viva and Shelter), built his own recording studios, joined Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, served as the bandleader of Joe Cocker’s storied Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, recorded his own hit albums, and written or co-written such instant American standards as “A Song for You,” “Superstar,” and “This Masquerade.” Tension with co-founder Denny Cordell led Russell to depart Shelter Records in…
Release Round-Up: Week of December 12
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here 50 (Pink Floyd/Legacy) 2CD/4LP/Blu-ray/7″: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The 50th anniversary edition of the Pink Floyd classic is available in a variety of formats: A 2CD or 3LP set pairs the original album with nine bonus tracks: three from the “Immersion Edition” box set released in 2011 and six previously unreleased outtakes and…
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Wired For Sound: Edsel Boxes Hank Marvin Solo Albums on “The Studio Album Collection 1982-1995”
Brian Robson Rankin of Newcastle-upon-Tyne moved to London while still a teenager, armed with a guitar and a dream. He adopted the name Hank Marvin, melding his childhood nickname of “Hank” with the first name of American country singer Marvin Rainwater, and put on a pair of glasses inspired by Buddy Holly’s. His school friend Bruce Welch joined him, and before long, the pair had met Cliff Richard’s manager. In 1959, Richard’s band then known as The Drifters became The Shadows, and Richard, Marvin, Welch, and Brian Bennett (who replaced drummer Tony…
The Power Station DLX
4CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Rhino is expanding the self-titled debut from The Power Station into a 4CD box set. The Power Station DLX includes the remastered album (featuring the hits “Some Like It Hot” and a cover of T. Rex’s “Get It On (Bang a Gong)”) alongside three discs of bonus material, including unreleased “raw instrumental” versions, single mixes and live material, including the band’s performances from the charity concert Live Aid and an unissued full set from nearly a month later at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The…
UPDATE: How’s About Some Hot Stuff: Massive Donna Summer Singles CD Box Set Now Due in January
It’s a box set fit for a queen (of disco): Donna Summer’s singles are being chronicled in a major way. Summer Time: The Singles Collection 1974-2010, coming January 30, 2026 from the late singer’s Driven by the Music catalogue imprint, is set to be a staggering tribute to Summer’s decades-long presence as a dancefloor filler. Timed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her breakthrough hit “Love to Love You, Baby,” this 40CD set will highlight five decades’ worth of single sides she issued all over the world, from early Dutch single-only tracks…
Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Rolling Stones, “Black and Blue: Super Deluxe Edition”
The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band was in a period of transition. In December 1974, guitarist Mick Taylor announced he was leaving The Rolling Stones. The Stones had already weathered the loss of Brian Jones in 1969 and now they were, once again, without a guitarist. The sound of music was changing, too, with the rise of punk and disco even as prog and heavy rock remained entrenched on the charts. Where did that leave the band who had just proclaimed “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)” on…
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Love’s Great Adventure: Ultravox’s ‘The Collection’ Goes Deluxe on CD/Blu-ray Box
One of the year’s last big catalogue titles is a new expansion of Ultravox’s The Collection, due out tomorrow, December 5. Originally released in 1984 and collecting more than a dozen singles from the band’s most popular early ’80s run, the set has now been greatly expanded to provide an even more complete picture of the group’s “classic,” Midge Ure-led line-up, encompassing hits, B-sides, 15 previously unreleased mixes and a trove of rare video footage. Central to all deluxe formats (a 4CD/2 Blu-ray box set and a 4LP edition pressed on clear vinyl)…
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In Memoriam: Steve Cropper (1941-2025)
It’s a sad fact that so much of America’s musical infrastructure – the men and women whose session work powered thousands of pop chart hits and significant recordings – exists in near-obscurity. Consider The Funk Brothers, that collective of R&B musicians in Detroit who powered nearly every Motown session in the label’s golden age. Fans and collectors still sift through the vagaries of paperwork and memory to determine who lent their instruments to which song; the unofficial group’s members would be credited by name at the insistence of Marvin Gaye on his…
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Blockheads, Haircuts, Stones and a T. Rex: Edsel Preps Multiple Full-Album Box Sets
With only a few weeks until Christmas, Edsel is prepping a host of multi-album box sets and vinyl reissues up for consideration under your tree. The four below titles span a few icons and notable names of British rock in the ’70s and ’80s – and two of them even include unheard material from the artists’ respective vaults! First up is Too Nutty to Be Naughty (Studio Recordings 1977-2002), a celebration of the late Ian Dury. The post-punk renaissance man – as at home as the frontman of Stiff stalwarts The Blockheads (they…
Q’s Cues: New ‘Écoutez Le Cinéma’ Box Celebrates the Music of Quincy Jones
When Rhino released Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones – a 4CD, 74-track collection – in 2001, it was a valiant attempt to tell a story that was still being written. The gifted bandleader, composer and producer, who passed away at the age of 91 in 2024, had an enduring way with sound, be it jazz, pop, R&B, rock or even film and television scoring. His decades of work with the 20th century’s greatest luminaries made him a tremendous (if controversial) raconteur, with countless stories to tell and luminaries to work alongside….
THE SECOND DISC’S 2025 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE IS HERE!
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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Summer Time: The Singles Collection 1974-2010
Summer Time: The Singles Collection 1974-2010 is set to be a staggering tribute to the late, great Donna Summer’s decades-long presence as a dancefloor filler. Timed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of her breakthrough hit “Love to Love You, Baby,” this 40CD set highlights five decades’ worth of single sides she issued all over the world, from early Dutch single-only tracks to material from her tenures on Casablanca, Geffen, Mercury, Warner Bros., Atlantic and more. Amidst the familiar hits (“Love to Love You, Baby,” “I Feel Love,” “Last Dance,” “Heaven Knows,” “Hot…
Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd.: Super Deluxe Edition
This indispensable addition to The Monkees’ catalogue of super deluxe sets follows the 4CD format that is by now familiar to the group’s fans. (The last album to receive this treatment was Headquarters back in late 2022.) The first disc offers the remastered stereo album plus a new 2025 album mix and a couple of bonuses. Disc 2 presents the remastered mono mix (including a unique, slightly different version of “Pleasant Valley Sunday”) and twelve alternative versions including previously unreleased mono mixes and both the TV and single mixes of “Daydream Believer” B-side…
Enzyclopedia Volumes One and Two
5CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Enzyclopedia Volumes One and Two focus on the Neil and Tim Finn-founded group’s early years, coalescing around the material leading up to 1975 debut Mental Notes, which celebrates a half-century this year. The 5CD set features a plethora of material including remasters of Mental Notes and its sort-of follow-up Second Thoughts, a rework of the Mental material with Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera in the producer’s chair. Second Thoughts is also newly remixed for the set by Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner; he’s done similar work on parts of the band’s…
Adios, Farewell, Goodbye, Good Luck, So Long: On Stage 1964-1974
Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Omnivore is returning to the discography of Bakersfield’s favorite son, Buck Owens, with a new 3CD set that chronicles a decade of music-making on the concert stage. Buck and His Buckaroos’ Adios, Farewell, Goodbye, Good Luck, So Long: On Stage 1964-1974 boasts 89 tracks (78 songs plus 11 introductions and pieces of onstage chatter) – the majority of which are new to CD. A full 25 tracks have never been issued in any format, while a whopping 43 others are premiering in CD and digital formats including the complete contents…
Release Round-Up: Week of November 28
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! With Record Store Day’s Black Friday event taking place today, the slate is usually a small one…not so this year, though, thanks to Rhino’s CD releases of numerous RSD titles. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Neil Young, Tonight’s the Night 50 (Reprise/NYA) 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Greedy Hand Store 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Greedy Hand Store Clear Vinyl: Greedy Hand Store Neil Young’s sixth album, released in 1975 but mostly recorded two years earlier, was the closer to his “Ditch Trilogy.”…
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Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Beatles, “Anthology Collection”
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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