Happy 2019 and welcome to The Second Disc's 9th Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! It's time once again to recognize this year's cream of the crop - those exemplary reissues and box sets big and small that proved to be truly outstanding products for physical media lovers worldwide. There was no shortage of great reissue titles in 2018; in fact, we covered over 700 releases in all! And after much deliberation, we're excited to unveil our favorites. This isn't your run-of-the-mill Top 10,
He and Mrs. Jones: Vocalion Adds to Quad Roster with SACDs from Billy Paul
The U.K.'s Dutton Vocalion label is continuing to grow its SACD catalogue of quadraphonic releases. Following recent titles from The Guess Who, Rick Derringer, Stephen Sondheim, and others, Vocalion has just released another batch of vintage quad mixes from the worlds of jazz (George Benson's Body Talk, Weather Report's Tale Spinnin'), rock (the Jim Peterik-affiliated jazz-rock fusion group Chase's Pure Music and Chase), and R&B. In the latter category comes three albums from Philadelphia
I’m Open to Persuasion: Intervention Celebrates Joan Armatrading’s Self-Titled Album With LP, Hybrid SACD Reissue
Today, The Second Disc welcomes a new voice! Please give a warm welcome to our newest contributor, Sam Stone. Sam brings deep knowledge and tremendous passion for the world of catalogue music, and we're confident that his fresh perspective will put his news and reviews for The Second Disc on the top of your must-read list. You can read a little more about Sam at the end of this post. We couldn't be more thrilled to have him on board. Without further ado...take it away, Sam! Intervention
The Sun Won’t Set: Vocalion Reissues Quadraphonic Sondheim, Herrmann, Waxman on SACD
In recent months, the U.K.'s Dutton Vocalion label has reissued a number of rare quadraphonic mixes on SACD, including titles from Poco, Johnnie Taylor, The Guess Who, The Hues Corporation, Rick Derringer, Art Garfunkel, and more. The label has just announced its slate for September, highlighted by the SACD debut of the quad mix of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and two film score releases from movie maestro Charles Gerhardt. All of Vocalion's quadraphonic SACDs are hybrid discs,
Wild Horses: Intervention Reissues The Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Burrito Deluxe” On LP, Hybrid SACD
On the heels of recent releases including the first-ever SACD of Gene Clark's classic A&M album White Light, Intervention Records has turned its attention once more to a group of California legends with ties to The Byrds: The Flying Burrito Brothers. Following its previous release of the Burritos' debut The Gilded Palace of Sin on both hybrid SACD and deluxe vinyl, Intervention will reissue the band's sophomore LP, Burrito Deluxe, in those formats. The 180-gram vinyl LP will arrive by
Where My Love Lies Asleep: Intervention Reissues Gene Clark’s “White Light” on LP, Hybrid SACD
Intervention Records, the eclectic label behind splendid and sonically-pristine reissues for artists ranging from Joe Jackson to Billy Squier, has announced the next title in its (Re)Discover Series: Gene Clark's 1971 A&M Records classic, White Light. A stereo hybrid SACD (playable on all CD players) is due from the label on June 29, while the 180-gram vinyl release is due in September. The singer-songwriter and Byrds co-founder launched his solo career in 1967 on Columbia with Gene
100% Fun: Intervention Records Launches Matthew Sweet Series On Vinyl and SACD
Intervention Records has announced a new Artist-Approved series on both LP and hybrid SACD from singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet covering his albums originally released on the Zoo Entertainment label between 1991 and 1995. Throughout 2018, the label will issue generous expanded editions of his power-pop trilogy of Girlfriend, Altered Beast, and 100% Fun. Additionally, Intervention will reissue the Son of Altered Beast seven-song EP for its vinyl debut! Each of the three double-vinyl editions
“Nigel Lived” Again: Intervention Brings Murray Head’s Rock Concept Album to CD and SACD
Few artists have bridged the worlds of rock and theatre as successfully as Murray Head. Singing the music of others, actor-singer Head scored two major hits on both sides of the Atlantic with 1973's "Superstar" from Jesus Christ Superstar and 1984's "One Night in Bangkok" from Chess. Far lesser known, however, is his discography as a singer-songwriter. Head imbued his own compositions with the same vibrant life as those famous songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny
All I Know: Vocalion Reissues Art Garfunkel’s “Angel Clare” and “Breakaway” in Surround on SACD
The U.K. Vocalion label has become a reliable source for SACD reissues of classic quadraphonic surround albums from pop, country, and jazz artists as diverse as Chet Atkins, Lynn Anderson, Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, Perry Como, Return to Forever, Eumir Deodato, and Henry Mancini. A new addition to Vocalion's quad library is legendary singer Art Garfunkel. His first two solo albums, 1973's Angel Clare and 1975's Breakaway, have just been reissued by Vocalion on hybrid SACD. The discs' stereo
It Takes Two to Tango: Analog Spark Reissues Two Todd Rundgren Classics on SACD
Since the dawn of the CD era, Todd Rundgren's classic Bearsville LPs have appeared and re-appeared with regularity - yet they had never appeared in the physical format for which they're most ideally suited: high-resolution audio. Thanks to Analog Spark, that's all changed. The label has just released hybrid stereo SACDs of the singer-songwriter-producer's third and fourth Bearsville LPs - the career-defining Something/Anything (1973) and its daring successor, A Wizard, A True Star (1974).
She’s a Rainbow: ABKCO Preps 50th Anniversary Box Set For The Rolling Stones’ “Satanic Majesties Request”
The Rolling Stones aren't the first band one might think of in connection with the Summer of Love and the blossoming sound of psychedelia. Yet the Stones spent much of 1967, on and off, recording the album that became Their Satanic Majesties Request. Wholly unique in the band's catalogue, it fused the band's gritty sensibility with psychedelic effects, more lavish instrumentation, and experimental sounds. Underscoring its nature as a conceptual work, it was also the first album by the Stones
Release Round-Up: Week of June 16
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! David Bowie, Cracked Actor: Live in Los Angeles 1974 (Parlophone/Rhino) (Amazon U.S./ Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Cracked Actor: Live in Los Angeles 1974 is the first authorized release of Bowie's Philly Dogs Tour show at Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheatre, from September 1974. First released earlier this year on vinyl only, some of this performance was featured in Alan Yentob's BBC documentary also known as Cracked Actor. The original tapes
Ella Fitzgerald at 100: Analog Spark Reissues “The Cole Porter Song Book” On SACD and Vinyl
Today, Ella Fitzgerald would have turned 100 years old. While the First Lady of Song passed away in 1996 at the age of 79, her rich legacy of music has hardly waned. She recorded over a remarkable seven-decade span, from 1935 through the early 1990s, yet her most significant contribution to the canon of American song just might be her Songbook series. Between 1956 and 1964, Fitzgerald teamed with a variety of arrangers (including Buddy Bregman, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Nelson
Hot Burrito No. 2: Intervention Reissues Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Gilded Palace of Sin” On Vinyl and SACD
Intervention Records will soon be giving the deluxe audiophile treatment on both hybrid stereo SACD (playable on all CD players) and 180-gram vinyl LP to a bona fide country-rock classic. The Flying Burrito Brothers' 1969 A&M Records release The Gilded Palace of Sin remains a landmark album, fusing genres to create something wholly new - "Cosmic American Music," as Gram Parsons memorably named it. It will arrive on LP in May and later in the year on SACD. Though the group's original
Release Round-Up: Week of January 27
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Chicago, Chicago II: Steven Wilson Remix (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Chicago's second album gets a fully remixed edition from producer Steven Wilson, created from the original 16-track multitrack tapes and sure to highlight previously unheard or overlooked elements of this rock classic! Available on CD, with an LP edition to follow later in the year. Read more here! Cream, Fresh Cream: Super Deluxe Edition
Release Round-Up: Week of December 9
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Randy Newman, The Randy Newman Songbook (Nonesuch) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The Randy Newman Songbook box set marks the first-ever combined release of all three of the legendary songwriter's piano-and-voice Songbook albums (including the new Vol. 3) recorded in 2003 and 2010 with producers Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker. All songs have been resequenced as one cohesive, thematically-linked listening experience spread over 4
Release Round-Up: Week of September 30
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones in Mono (ABKCO) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The Rolling Stones in Mono captures, on 15 CDs or 16 LPs, the original mono albums released on both sides of the Atlantic between 1964 and 1969 including the exceptionally rare mono editions of Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967), Beggars Banquet (1968) and Let It Bleed (1969). Exclusive to
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
Release Round-Up: Week of September 9
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up...one of the most packed in recent memory! Beatles, Live at the Hollywood Bowl (Apple/Capitol/UMe) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Vinyl: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Since the advent of the compact disc era, The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl has been the forgotten stepchild of the Fab Four's legendary catalogue. That changes today with the first-ever commercial CD/DD release of the 1977 album on September 9 via
Power of Soul: Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys Revisited On “Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show”
On December 31, 1969 and January 1, 1970, Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox and Buddy Miles took New York's Fillmore East by storm with four exhilarating, adventurous performances fusing R&B, soul and hard rock with an improvisatory sensibility. On September 30, Legacy Recordings and Experience Hendrix will release the first of the Band of Gypsys' four sets for the very first time as Machine Gun: The Fillmore East First Show 12/31/69. Newly mixed from the original one-inch 8-track master tapes by
Release Round-Up: Week of July 29
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Archies, Sugar, Sugar: The Complete Albums Collection (Cleopatra) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) At long last! The complete albums of The Archies are being assembled in one 5-CD box set by Cleopatra Records. You'll find The Archies, Everything's Archie, Jingle Jangle, Sunshine and This Is Love each in a mini-LP replica sleeve, along with a booklet containing new liner notes. Bubblegum never tasted so good as in these top-notch
Release Round-Up: Week of July 8
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! John Coltrane, The Atlantic Years in Mono (Atlantic/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Rhino's new box set, available on both CD and LP, includes original mono mixes of Trane's Giant Steps; Bags & Trane (with Milt Jackson); Ole Coltrane; Coltrane Plays The Blues and The Avant Garde (with Don Cherry) plus one disc of outtakes. All of these remastered albums are housed in replica jackets and a 32-page
Release Round-Up: Week of June 23
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Bangles, Ladies and Gentlemen...The Bangles! (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Ladies and Gentlemen...The Bangles!, first released digitally in 2014, features all of the band's pre-Columbia studio material, plus four unreleased demos, two live tracks and other odds and ends! It arrives in stores from Omnivore just before Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson and Debbi Peterson hit the road again! Read more here! Laura
Stoned Soul Picnic: Audio Fidelity Reissues Laura Nyro’s “Eli” In Quadraphonic Mix
Audio Fidelity has recently become a home for rare quadraphonic recordings on SACD, and among the label's future offerings is a true classic from Laura Nyro in its immersive quad mix: 1968's Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. Later this month, on June 24, the label will offer Eli on hybrid SACD (playable on all CD players) with the original stereo mix newly remastered by Steve Hoffman in high-resolution stereo and standard CD formats, and the rare 4.0 quad surround mix in high
Release Round-Up: Week of May 20
Welcome to this week's packed Release Round-Up! David Bowie, ChangesOneBowie (Parlophone/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) ChangesOneBowie returns from Parlophone in a 40th anniversary edition available on vinyl, CD and digital formats. Originally issued on RCA in May 20, 1976, ChangesOneBowie was the first key compilation album from superstar David Bowie. Collecting songs dating back to 1969, the 11-track album introduced the single "John, I'm Only Dancing" on LP