A new Freddie Mercury anthology will be released this fall, chronicling the late Queen singer’s solo tracks on two CDs and 13 vinyl singles. Messenger of the Gods: The Singles features 25 tracks recorded by Mercury and released between 1973 and 1993–several of which were never released in America, or released widely on CD. Among the set’s rarer treasures is Mercury’s first “solo” single, credited to Larry Lurex in 1973. The single, featuring covers of Phil Spector’s “I Can Hear Music” (recorded by The Ronettes and a U.S. Top 40 hit for…
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 Nyro, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession Hybrid Quadraphonic SACD (Audio Fidelity) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The classic 1968 album…
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The Three Fates: BMG Prepares Emerson, Lake and Palmer Reissues, New Anthology
A new round of reissues dedicated to progressive titans Emerson, Lake and Palmer are on the way from the BMG label beginning this July and continuing through 2016 and 2017. This new campaign promises to encompass not only ELP’s nine studio albums but also the band’s live recordings and compilations. The reissues will arrive in a variety of formats including CD (with new liner notes by Chris Welch drawing on 2016 interviews with Greg Lake and the late Keith Emerson); standard, mastered for iTunes and high-resolution digital downloads; and 140-gram vinyl. (Note…
Earth
Neil Young teams with Lukas and Micah Nelson’s band Promise of the Real for a new quasi-live album. Earth features live performances of songs from 2015 drawing on Young’s albums including The Monsanto Years, Ragged Glory, and After the Gold Rush. The live tracks feature musical overdubs, as well as “sounds of the earth” (car horns, insect noises, and sounds from bears, birds, crickets, bees, horses, cows, frogs, etc.). Young describes it as “Ninety-eight uninterrupted minutes long, EARTH flows as a collection of 13 songs from throughout my life, songs I have written about living here on our…
Way Down In The Jungle Room
Way Down in the Jungle Room is the first anthology dedicated to the master recordings and outtakes recorded at Graceland’s famous Jungle Room by Elvis Presley and longtime producer Felton Jarvis during two now-legendary periods: February 2-8, 1976 and October 28-30, 1976. The outtakes have been newly mixed by Grammy Award-winning engineer Matt Ross-Spang at Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis, Tennessee. For these intimate and raw, heartfelt sessions, Elvis was backed by many members of his longtime touring band including James Burton (guitar), Ronnie Tutt (drums), David Briggs (keyboards), Glenn D. Hardin (keyboards), Jerry…
Braver Than We Are
Meat Loaf’s new studio album reunites him with Jim Steinman, the musical maestro behind Bat Out of Hell I & II. Braver Than We Are features new renditions of Steinman songs never previously recorded by Meat Loaf including tracks from his musicals Tanz der Vampire, The Dream Engine, Rhinegold and More Than You Deserve. Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito guest on the album. Aside from the standard CD, Amazon is listing an exclusive autographed 2-LP vinyl and an exclusive CD/DVD version with the DVD containing a making-of featurette. Retailer exclusives are also promised…
Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway
Barbra Streisand goes “Back to Broadway” (again!) with this new duets album. On this 10-song set, Streisand is joined by an eclectic array of talents including Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Melissa McCarthy, Chris Pine, Daisy Ridley and Anne Hathaway on songs by Marvin Hamlisch, Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe and others. The Target-exclusive edition will boast four solo bonus tracks.
In The Midnight Hour: Real Gone August Slate Includes Wilson Pickett, The B-52’s, Dusty Springfield, Diamond Rio, More
With summer nearly upon us, we’re all beginning to make plans for the next few months. Real Gone is doing the same, having just revealed what its releases are going to be for middle of summer in August! The first item on the list is the first of an eventual three-volume collection chronicling Wilson Pickett’s tenure at Atlantic Records. Pickett released a total of 66 single sides at the label and The Complete Atlantic Singles Vol. 1 collects the first 22 of these. When Pickett moved to Atlantic in 1964, he quickly became a…
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Release Round-Up: Week of June 17
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Chicago, Quadio (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. TBD / Amazon Canada) This week’s biggest and most hotly-anticipated release, Chicago’s Quadio, brings together nine albums from the legendary band in remastered high-resolution 192/24 DTS-HD Master Audio in both their original quadraphonic and stereo mixes on nine Blu-ray discs. This lavish celebration of the Windy City’s favorite band is housed in a rigid two-piece box, with every album presented in a replica sleeve promised to “replicate the original release down to the last detail, including mini-posters, and the iron-on that…
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King of the Jungle: Elvis’ Jungle Room Sessions Collected On New 2-CD Set
On August 5, Elvis Presley will be heading Way Down in the Jungle Room thanks to the new release from RCA Records and Legacy Recordings. This new 2-CD collection brings together The King’s final studio recordings made in the famous Jungle Room at Graceland. Way Down in the Jungle Room is the first anthology dedicated to the master recordings and outtakes recorded at Graceland by Elvis and longtime producer Felton Jarvis during two now-legendary periods: February 2-8, 1976 and October 28-30, 1976. The outtakes have been newly mixed by Grammy Award-winning engineer Matt…
Going All The Way Is Just The Start: Meat Loaf to Reunite with Jim Steinman on New Album
Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman have been inextricably linked since the beginning of their careers with the release of the classic Bat Out of Hell in 1977. The rock heroes have gone their separate ways in the four decades since that album’s release but they always seem to come back together and they are doing it once again. A new Meat Loaf album entitled Braver Than We Are has just shown up on Amazon for release on September 16 with the subtitle reading “All Songs By Jim Steinman.” This album will mark Meat Loaf’s…
Randy Scouse Git: Micky Dolenz Teams with Christian Nesmith, Circe Link on 7a’s New EP
Is there any doubt that 2016 truly is The Year of The Monkees? Following its acclaimed releases earlier this year of Micky Dolenz’s “Chance of a Lifetime” single and An Evening with Peter Noone and Micky Dolenz, 7a Records is continuing its relationship with Monkee Micky for a new vinyl release. Micky has teamed with his bandmate Michael’s son Christian Nesmith and Christian’s partner in music and life, Circe Link, for a brand-new EP! On June 24, 7a will release a translucent, purple-colored vinyl EP with four tracks recorded by the trio…
Review: The Beach Boys, “Pet Sounds 50”
50 years have passed since the original release of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, yet it still stands alone in the rock canon. The talents of Brian Wilson, Tony Asher, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Bruce Johnston coalesced in one unforgettable place and time to create music’s most exquisite realization of both the exultant joy and beautiful melancholy of adolescence. It took until the compact disc era for Pet Sounds to be fully appreciated; the album wasn’t certified platinum until early 2000, and only rose as far as…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 10
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, with some of the most high-profile releases yet for 2016! The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds 50 (Various Editions) (Capitol/UMe) 4-CD/1-BD Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-CD Deluxe Edition (CD 1 + highlights from 4-CD set): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Mono 180-Gram Vinyl Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Stereo 180-Gram Vinyl Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The Beach Boys’ landmark 1966 album Pet Sounds is turning 50, and Capitol/UMe is celebrating…
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They Care a Lot: Faith No More to Expand Debut Album
Alt-metal icons Faith No More are visiting their earliest material with a deluxe edition of debut album We Care a Lot this summer. Released in 1985, the low-budget We Care a Lot was the band’s first recording as Faith No More; bassist Billy Gould and drummer Mike Bordin had played together as Sharp Young Men in the late ’70s and early ’80s, changing their name to Faith No Man in 1983 and recruiting keyboardist Roddy Bottum shortly thereafter. This trio would leave Faith No Man for their own Faith No More, with…
Tutti Frutti! Little Richard Is Back On New “Mono Box”
Here’s Little Richard! Specialty Records is celebrating the career of the rock and roll pioneer with the July 15 release of Mono Box: The Complete Specialty and Vee-Jay Albums. This new, 5-LP vinyl box set collects all of the studio albums that Little Richard recorded for both the Specialty and Vee-Jay labels between 1957 and 1965. The mono albums, each replicating the original label and jacket art, have been remastered from analog tapes. A 16-page booklet featuring new liner notes by Bill Dahl, plus era-specific photos, rounds out this collection. Mono Box…
Dynamic Duos: Omnivore Reissues Henske and Yester’s “Farewell Aldebaran” and McGarrigle Sisters’ “Pronto”
Omnivore Recordings is gearing up for a busy summer, with releases from The Kingbees, The Bangles, Velvet Crush and many more. Two of the label’s most exciting titles, however, come from a pair of remarkable duos. Farewell Aldebaran arrived in 1969 on Frank Zappa’s Straight Records label from the duo of Judy Henske and Jerry Yester. Henske was the onetime “Queen of the Beatniks” whose distinctive, bluesy voice earned her legions of fans on the folk circuit. She appeared alongside Johnny Cash and The Brothers Four in the big screen MGM musical…
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 country textures, Dixieland horns and even a dash of calypso into The Kinks’ heady, heavy rock-and-roll…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 3
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up…it’s one of the year’s most eclectic yet, with heavy hitters from Pink Floyd to Petula Clark…including releases from The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Edgar Winter and more! Petula Clark, Natural Love: The Scotti Brothers Recordings (Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) In the early years of the 1980s, Petula Clark was signed to the Scotti Brothers label in the U.S. and starring in a revival of The Sound of Music in the West End. During this busy period, she released several singles for Scotti…
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Lock Up the Wolves: Rhino Plans “Decade of Dio” CD and Vinyl Box
A new box set from Rhino Records celebrates the life and work of the late metal legend Ronnie James Dio with the band that bore his last name. A Decade of Dio 1983-1993 collects all six studio albums released by Warner Bros. and Reprise in the first decade of the band Dio’s soaring career. Formed by Ronnie James Dio and drummer Vinny Appice after their split from Black Sabbath in 1982, the group first gained prominence with the title track of debut Holy Diver, a staple of MTV and a recurring metal…
Eat a Peach: Massive Allman Brothers Band Vinyl Box Due This Summer
The Allman Brothers Band are remastering their breakthrough albums from the first decade of their career for a sprawling vinyl box set and hi-res download campaign this summer. Macon, Georgia’s finest–founded in Jacksonville, Florida by brothers Duane (on slide guitar) and Gregg Allman (on vocals and keyboard), lead guitarist Dickey Betts, bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson–blended Southern rock and country with a jam-band approach in concert, breaking through with the release of the acclaimed double album At Fillmore East in 1971. Though the band were…
Ramones: 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
This 3-CD/1-LP box set marking the 40th anniversary of the New York punk classic features: – The original remastered album – A new mono mix, recreated by producer Leon and available on both CD and 180-gram LP. (“All the original monitor mixes and early mixes we did in the studio were mono,” he told Observerearlier this year, “so I recreated the mono mix out of my original notes, which luckily were quite meticulous.”) – A disc of 18 single mixes, outtakes and demos, eight of which are previously unreleased – Two fast-paced…
The Atlantic Years in Mono
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 booklet is also included with new liner notes by Ashley Kahn and photos by Lee Friedlander. The CD version has 6 CDs; the 6-LP version adds a bonus 7-inch single of the original “My Favorite Things” 45.)
The Essential Going Back: Deluxe Edition
No stranger to the music of Motown, Phil Collins released Going Back in 2010 – an album packed with faithful covers of The Four Tops, The Miracles, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and many more. With the assistance of both original members of Motown backing band The Funk Brothers and some crucial in-studio trickery (following a surgery on Collins’ vertebrae, he was able to drum by taping his sticks to his hands), Going Back became an expansive love letter to The Sound of Young America. In fact, even Collins may have found Going Back too expansive…
…But Seriously: Deluxe Edition
1989’s …But Seriously found Phil Collins and longtime producer Hugh Padgham adopting a more organic sound as they tackled weighty issues in song, including homelessness, apartheid and other global crises. Eric Clapton, David Crosby, Steve Winwood and bassists Pino Palladino and Leland Sklar were among the guests on this hugely successful LP which spun off four U.S. Top 10 hits (the chart-topping “Another Day in Paradise,” “I Wish It Would Rain Down,” “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven” and “Do You Remember?”). As has been the case for Collins’ previous reissues in this series,…
