By 1974, the members of Grateful Dead had grown tired of the touring grind as well as of the difficulties brought on by the massive Wall of Sound system. The band’s October 1974 hometown shows at San Francisco’s Winterland culminating in the October 20, 1974 performance known as “The Last One.” And indeed it was, in a sense, as the Dead didn’t return to regular touring for roughly eighteen months. The band hit on the idea of filming the Winterland shows so, in essence, if they weren’t touring, the concert still could. …
Working Day and Night: Michael Jackson Biopic Yields New Compilation
Friday, April 24 sees the release in theatres everywhere of Michael, director Antoine Fuqua’s biopic-slash-celebration of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Epic Records and Legacy Recordings are marking the occasion with the release the same day of Michael: Songs from the Motion Picture, a straightforward, 13-song soundtrack drawing on the period between The Jackson 5’s Motown debut and Jackson’s triumphant Bad (1987). Filling the superstar’s shoes is his nephew (and son of brother Jermaine) Jaafar Jackson, who reportedly will do some of his own singing in the film. Despite that,…
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One of These Nights: Deluxe Edition
3CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Rhino is revisiting Eagles’ 1975 chart-topper (featuring hit singles “One of These Nights,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” and ‘Take It to the Limit”) in a deluxe edition built around a new mix of the original album. The set adds the band’s previously unreleased show of September 28, 1975 near the end of the album’s tour at the Sunshine Festival in Anaheim, California – not far from Disneyland, where the future Eagles once supported Linda Ronstadt onstage. The Blu-ray included in the 3CD/1BD set has the audio…
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Release Round-Up: Week of March 13
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Leon Russell with Mary Russell, The Paradise Years 1976-1981 (Cherry Red/Lemon/Second Disc) (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 plus seven bonus tracks, all of which are new to CD. These encompass the non-LP B-side…
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Review: Rhino High Fidelity Reissues of The Velvet Underground’s “Loaded,” The Stooges’ “Fun House”
In recent years, Rhino has aggressively courted the audiophile market with such series as the four-channel Quadio Blu-rays, and the audiophile-quality vinyl lines Rhino Reserves and Rhino High Fidelity. Two of Rhino High Fidelity’s recent releases underscore how the label has gone the extra mile in presentation, supplementing the stellar analog mastering by Kevin Gray and 180-gram vinyl pressing at Optimal Media with classic “tip-on” packaging and even liner notes in the best Rhino tradition. The RHF reissues of The Velvet Underground’s Loaded and The Stooges’ Fun House look as good as…
Take It To The Limit: Eagles Remix, Reissue “One Of These Nights” On New Box Set with Previously Unreleased Concert
With the release of their fourth studio album, 1975’s One of These Nights, Eagles notched a number of firsts: their first No. 1 album, their first to yield three top ten singles, and their first Grammy Award. One of those singles also went to No. 1. When all was said and done, One of These Nights sold four million copies and transformed the band into international superstars – even though it proved to be the swansong for original member Bernie Leadon. On May 1, Rhino will revisit One of These Nights in…
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Dancing on the Ceiling: Verve Premieres Long-Lost Oscar Peterson Live Album
Eight-time Grammy-winning, Montreal-born pianist Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) recorded prolifically over the years, releasing studio and live albums throughout his lifetime on the Mercury, Verve, MPS, Prestige, Pablo, and Telarc labels, among others. On April 17, Verve will add a new title to his already voluminous discography with the debut of The Oscar Peterson Trio At Baker’s Keyboard Lounge on CD, LP, and digital formats. Renowned Detroit venue Baker’s Keyboard Lounge celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2024 and is still going strong today as the United States’ longest continually operating jazz club. But…
Release Round-Up: Week of March 6
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, The Ultimate Collection (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada/ Real Gone Music) Real Gone delivers the definitive tribute to Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme with this 4-CD box set. Previously available only as a Public Television pledge incentive, The Ultimate Collection has been curated by David Lawrence and is thematically arranged by disc. It features highlights from Steve and Eydie’s…
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Release Round-Up: Week of February 27
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Paul McCartney, Man on the Run: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack (MPL/Capitol) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Morgan Neville’s newest documentary, which received a limited theatrical engagement before landing on Prime Video, details how Paul McCartney found new life after the break-up of The Beatles with his new group Wings. On the documentary’s streaming release date, a companion album will include favorites (and a…
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Queen II (Collectors Edition)
5CD/2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Picture Disc: Official Store Cassette: Official Store Queen have remixed their second album, featuring their first Top 10 hit “Seven Seas of Rhye,” for a new multi-format reissue. The box set edition is the most expansive, of course, packed with rare and unreleased demos and session outtakes, a disc of backing tracks and two live collections comprised of previously released archival material. The package includes a 112-page booklet of liner notes and rare archival photos and ephemera along…
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As It Began: ‘Queen II’ to Be Remixed, Expanded in New Box
Following a similar remixed and expanded box set for their debut album in 2024, Queen will give the deluxe treatment to their second album, 1974’s aptly titled Queen II. Available March 27, the reissue arrives in multiple formats, all of which are centered around a new mix of the album by engineers and longtime archival overseers Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J. McRae and Kris Frederiksen. The biggest version is a 5CD/2LP box set that adds two discs of mostly unreleased studio material (including session takes, B-sides and backing tracks) along with two discs…
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Release Round-Up: Week of February 20
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (RCA/Legacy) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP (black): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP (translucent orange/yellow): Amazon U.S. 2LP (marbled red): Graceland Baz Luhrmann, the director of 2022’s blockbuster biopic ELVIS, uncovered scores of film outtakes of The King during production, including footage filmed for the concert/documentary films That’s the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour and audio of Presley describing his life and career. EPiC: Elvis Presley in…
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Won’t Cry for Yesterday: Duran Duran’s Mid-’90s Albums Re-Appear on Vinyl for the First Time in Decades
Ever since EMI – yes, before their assets were divided between Universal and Warner Music Groups – expanded the Duran Duran catalogue with deluxe reissues in 2009 and 2010, fans have hoped that the shepherd of their most prominent major label material (now Parlophone, through Warner) would complete the campaign with reissues of the band’s last three albums originally released through Parlophone/Capitol. That day has finally (sort of) come with long-requested vinyl editions of two of those mid-’90s albums. Parlophone will reissue 1993’s Duran Duran (The Wedding Album) and 1995 follow-up Thank You as…
Too Rolling Stoned: Robin Trower’s Live Classic Gets Remixed and Expanded
A treat for British blues-rock fans, this spring will see the release of an expanded edition of Robin Trower Live!, the first concert release from the celebrated guitarist. Available April 3, the set will offer Trower’s renowned set from Stockholm, Sweden in 1975, not only uncut for the first time but remixed and put in its original sequence. The 2CD digibook reissue will pair the expanded, remixed edition alongside the original album, while the remix will also be available as a 2LP set. The accompanying liner notes by David Sinclair include new interview…
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Robin Trower Live! (50th Anniversary Edition)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The former Procol Harum guitarist’s acclaimed power trio live release gets a fresh look to celebrate its half-century mark! It’s been newly sequenced back into its original 12-song running order and remixed from the original multi-tracks by engineer Richard Whittaker. A 2CD set will include that expansion next to a new remaster of the original seven-track LP, while the vinyl includes the new mix across two LPs. Liner notes by David Sinclair include new…
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Keep on Doin’ the Hump: Digital Underground’s ‘Sex Packets’ Expanded for CD, LP
For old-school hip-hop heads, there’s a reissue better than getting busy in a Burger King bathroom coming this spring: an expansion of Digital Underground’s debut LP Sex Packets. Released (a bit late, c’est la vie) for its 35th anniversary on March 20, the remastered album has been sequenced on two CDs or LPs to mirror the original running order of the CD. It’ll also feature multiple bonus tracks depending on format: all versions have the cassette bonus tracks “A Tribute to the Early Days” and the unedited version of album cut “Gutfest ’89,”…
Faith
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada George Michael’s landmark 1987 solo debut influenced generations of pop stars with smash hits like “I Want Your Sex,” “Faith,” Father Figure,” “One More Try,” “Monkey” and “Kissing a Fool.” Legacy Recordings is bringing the album back into print on CD and black and red marbled vinyl; while the bonus offerings are much thinner than the 2011 box set edition of the album, there is an out-of-print bonus track ending both physical pressings: the…
Brown Box
10CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada White Pepper Green LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Quebec Pink 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Rhino celebrates all things Ween in April with Brown Box, a collection of all nine of their studio albums released between 1990 and 2009 (plus the outtakes compilation Shinola, Vol. 1). Two of the early ’00s releases, White Pepper (2000) and Quebec (2003), will also get new colored vinyl pressings from the label.
Sex Packets (35th Anniversary Edition)
2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The 1990 debut album by Bay Area collective Digital Underground was a lighthearted affair featuring the club classic “Doowutchyalike” and the immortal crossover hit “The Humpty Dance.” These new pressings feature the original album as it appeared on CD, plus a host of bonus tracks including a cassette-only bonus track, an instrumental of “The Humpty Dance” and the unreleased “Blue View.” (A fourth bonus cut, the extended cassette version of album track “Gutfest ’89,” appears exclusively on the 2CD, with a radio mix of…
Coloring Book
Official Store / uDiscover Music All six of Weezer’s self-titled albums distinguished by the color scheme of their cover (1994’s blue debut, 2001’s green, 2008’s red, 2016’s white and 2019’s covers album teal and original black) will be pressed on vinyl in those colors. The draw here is the package: a 72-page, hardcover coloring book featuring illustrations by artist Alec Longstreth, which fans can fill in using an accompanying marker set matching the colors of each album.
Man on the Run (Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Morgan Neville’s newest documentary, which receives a limited theatrical engagement before landing on Prime Video, details how Paul McCartney found new life after the break-up of The Beatles with his new group Wings. On the documentary’s streaming release date, a companion album will include favorites (and a rarity or two) taken from the Wings albums that have been reissued as part of Paul’s Archive Collection series – plus three previously unreleased tracks, including “Gotta Sing Gotta Dance,” the live Rockshow version of “Live…
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Breaking Out of Heaven 2007-2009
4CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 7LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada A new box set offers the complete output of Heaven & Hell, the renamed reunion of Black Sabbath’s early ’80s line-up (vocalist Ronnie James Dio, founding guitarist and bassist Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, and drummer Vinny Appice). An expanded edition of 2009’s The Devil You Know (featuring the group’s 2007 recordings for a Dio-era Sabbath compilation) joins two live shows from Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the Wacken Open Air Festival; among the last dates Dio took on before his passing in…
Transdermal Celebration: Ween Get New CD Box Set, Vinyl Reissues, Live Albums from Rhino
Things are certainly looking brown at Rhino, who’ll be releasing five CD and vinyl titles related to Ween in the coming months. Following a deluxe edition of 1994’s Chocolate and Cheese and a Record Store Day vinyl pressing of rarities compilation Shinola, Vol. 1, the label will release Brown Box, a 10CD set of the band’s complete studio albums; color vinyl editions of late ’90s and early ’00s albums White Pepper and Quebec; and a new archival live album, Bring Out the Foos: Live 1996. All four titles will be available April 10. A week later, for Record…
Oh, My Word! “Doctor Who: The Wheel in Space” Arrives on Vinyl
While fans around the world are impatiently waiting for the return of Doctor Who on Christmas 2026, Demon Music Group is keeping the time-traveling hero busy on records. The label recently announced the upcoming Record Store Day release of The Rescue, a 1965 story starring William Hartnell as The First Doctor, and has just released another classic serial to vinyl: The Wheel in Space. The Wheel in Space originally aired over six episodes from April 27, 1968–June 1, 1968. It is the final serial of Doctor Who’s fifth season and stars Patrick…
Hold These Threads: Weezer Revisit “Color” Albums on Vinyl Box, Plan Archival Set for Record Store Day
One of the most familiar visual tropes of Weezer’s discography – the self-titled albums known by the color of their covers – is being celebrated in an intriguing way with a new vinyl box the band is putting out this spring. The same month it reaches fans, an archival LP for Record Store Day will celebrate the history of the group’s origins leading up to that first of six “color” albums. Coloring Book gathers those albums as originally issued over 25 years, from their 1994 debut Weezer (The Blue Album) to 2019’s Weezer…
