Morgan Neville’s 2010 film Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter is nothing if not ambitious. A participant in the Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition, Troubadours functions as a dual biography of Carole King and James Taylor, as well as the story of Doug Weston’s club on Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Boulevard that gave rise to King, Taylor and so many others. Their 2007 reunion and subsequent tour in 2010 provides the framework for the film. Yet moreover, it touches on the entire singer-songwriter ethos that rose out of the turbulent last days of…
T.P. Goes to U.K. on New DVD
A 1982 show from the late, great Teddy Pendergrass is coming to DVD from Shout! Factory in March.
Billy Joel’s Shea Play on Its Way to Disc in March
The Billy Joel floodgates are about to burst open with the release of Live at Shea Stadium: The Concert, an audio scrapbook of the Piano Man’s show-stopping concerts at Shea Stadium, the last major events held at the iconic sporting arena before its closure and demolition. Already documented in Last Play at Shea – a multifaceted documentary on the longtime home of the New York Mets and the Long Island-raised rocker who performed there (to be released on DVD next month) – Columbia/Legacy will release a multi-format distillation of the two nights…
Review: “Michael Jackson’s Vision”
When Michael Jackson was declared dead on that fateful Thursday in June of 2009, most of us healed our pain through the songs. Compact discs flew off store shelves and MP3s funneled through Internet connections in an attempt to recall those days when MJ was the King of Pop. It was these kinds of public celebration – I recall at least one set of speakers blaring “The Way You Make Me Feel” that week in midtown Manhattan – that took center stage for most of us. As a result, it seemed that…
Review: Bruce Springsteen, “The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story”
In 1978, Bruce Springsteen famously mined the darkness on the edge of town, but it was unknown until recently that he considered living in the light of those same New Jersey streets. Flush with the success of Born to Run but drained from a prolonged battle with his former manager, Springsteen considered all avenues in creating the follow-up to the album that changed everything. And much like the eventually-resulting Darkness on the Edge of Town upped the ante from that 1975 landmark, the newly-released The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of…
In Case You Missed It: The Best Concert Ever?
The Second Disc very rarely covers “new” releases, even if they’re newer releases by vintage artists. But when our good friend Eric Luecking of Record Racks (a darn good site if I say so myself) reminded me a few days ago of the recently-released Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concert DVD, it seemed alright to break that unofficial embargo of “new” stuff. In case you missed this when it was released on September 28, The 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concerts is a three-DVD (or double Blu-Ray)…
I Wanna Rock! Eagle Rock Reissues Twisted Sister Reunion Show, Latter-Day Albums
As rock fans sit about and wonder if and when the Twisted Sister discography is ever going to be remastered and expanded in full, Eagle Rock Entertainment attempts to satiate TS fans’ appetites by reissuing Live at Wacken: The Reunion (2006). Recorded at the Wacken Open Air Festival in 2003, the set was one of the biggest venues Dee Snider, Eddie Ojeda, Jay Jay French, Mark Mendoza and A.J. Pero had performed at since intermittently reuniting the seminal ’80s glam metal band with all of its classic members in 2001. It was…
A Relatively Clear “Vision”
Well, what do you know? TMZ got it right. Epic and Legacy have announced Michael Jackson’s Vision, a three-DVD set of Jackson’s videography. Some 42 videos are included, several of them unreleased on any format. It’s also the closest MJ fans in the U.S. have gotten to getting the entirety of Moonwalker released, as most of the vignettes from that film are included. Will you want to get rid of your old compilations (Video Greatest Hits HIStory, HIStory on Film Volume II, Dangerous: The Short Films)? No, because each has a piece…
Back Tracks: Michael Jackson’s Video HIStory
It pains me to report on unsubstantiated news from the reissue world, but this one needs to be addressed in some way: TMZ reported last weekend that Sony was prepping a compilation of Michael Jackson’s music videos (allegedly titled Vision) for the Christmas rush. Yeah, it’s TMZ, not a known source of catalogue info, but they did prove their mettle in covering Michael Jackson’s death (for better or for worse), so let’s at least serve the news to you with more than a dash of salt. But let’s say, for kicks, that…
Review: Chicago – “Chicago Transit Authority” Quadradisc
What is Quadio? That’s the question currently being posed by the fine folks over at Rhino.com. For an answer and some fun interactivity, click here. But in short, Quadio describes the new series of four-channel audio DVDs (or “Quadradiscs”) being introduced by Rhino with the reissue of 1969’s Chicago Transit Authority, the first album by the band later known simply as Chicago. This release is a landmark in a number of ways. For one thing, it signals a new attempt to court the dedicated niche market of audiophiles largely ignored by the…
This is It (Part 2)
Now that I’ve gotten all my gripes out about the This is It soundtrack, I’m more than happy to pen some thoughts on the actual film, now out on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. For years after Michael Jackson rose from a nasty string of legal troubles in 2004, I had been ruminating on what could become of one of my favorite pop entertainers. His rumored forays back into the recording studio always left me cold; why would he collaborate with will.i.am or Akon when he had Quincy Jones…
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