The 10th anniversary of My Chemical Romance’s dark concept album The Black Parade will be celebrated as a deluxe 2CD or 3LP set, featuring a bonus disc of 11 unreleased demos and outtakes entitled Living with Ghosts. Final versions of “My Way Home is Through You” and “Kill All Your Friends” were issued as B-sides, and lead track “The Five of Us Are Dying” is an early version of the title track.
I Would Die 4 Blu: Prince’s Filmography Coming to High Definition Video
While fans may still have to wait some time for archival Prince material to emerge from that fabled vault, there will be at least one release ready for the holidays: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has announced The Prince Movie Collection, featuring all three of his feature films on Blu-ray with newly remastered picture, due out this fall. Of course, Purple Rain needs nearly no introduction: the stylized, vaguely autobiographical feature starred Prince as “The Kid” alongside his band, The Revolution; a potential protégée (Apollonio Kotero); and a bitter rival (the comically villainous…
Saviors of the Broken: My Chemical Romance Expand “The Black Parade,” 10 Years On
Ten years after My Chemical Romance released their magnum opus The Black Parade, the New Jersey emo-punk heroes will revisit it in a special double-disc set featuring a host of demos and outtakes. After the success of their major-label breakthrough, 2004’s dark, hook-filled Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance went a little deeper for their follow-up. Inspired by Queen and Pink Floyd sonically and The Beatles and David Bowie in terms of visualization, the band effectively morphed into the titular band for a concept album about a cancer patient’s last…
All This Time: Sting to Issue Vinyl Box Set
Can’t get enough of the vinyl resurgence? Looking to bone up on the solo works of Sting ahead of his first rock album in nearly 15 years? A new box set has got you covered. A&M/Interscope will release The Studio Collection, an 11-LP set covering all of Sting’s eight solo albums between 1985 and 2013, on September 30. The set, which features meticulously recreated packaging, new vinyl masters cut at Abbey Road Studios and the debuts of both Brand New Day (2000) and Sacred Love (2003) on the format, comes ahead of…
Chapter and Verse
Bruce Springsteen releases a companion CD to his long-awaited autobiography Born to Run. He has selected the 18 career-spanning tracks on Chapter and Verse, including five previously unreleased songs from his pre-E Street Band days (1966-1972)!
Out On The Run Tonight: Bruce Springsteen to Release Companion Album to Autobiography With 5 Unreleased Tracks
Being in the public eye for over 40 years and being one of the biggest rock stars on the planet for much of that time, there has been much written and documented about Bruce Springsteen – from articles to interviews to documentaries to books. But despite some of his songs having some personal content, The Boss had never sat down to tell his own story. Happily, this fall, Springsteen’s autobiography Born To Run is released by Simon and Schuster on September 27. Four days before that, on September 23, Columbia will release a companion 18-track…
Release Round-Up: Week of July 22
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Dio, A Decade of Dio 1983-1993 (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) 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 cult classic. Decade features new remasters of all this…
They Say It’s Wonderful: Real Gone September Slate Includes Robert Goulet, Porter Wagoner and The Meters
Even though summer has just begun, Real Gone Music is already looking toward the end of the season with its September releases. As per the label’s norm, the artists represented span a wide range of styles and genres. We’ve already told you about the Second Disc Records/Real Gone release of The Isley Brothers’ lost Groove With You…Live! album. Joe has also written the liner notes for another of Real Gone’s September offerings: Robert Goulet’s 2-CD The Definitive Collection. Joe put together and wrote the notes for Goulet’s Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings back in 2014. This…
Release Round-Up: Week of July 15
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Little Richard, Mono Box: The Complete Specialty and Vee-Jay Albums (Concord/Specialty) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) 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 the collection. Read more here! Diana Ross, Diana Ross…
Review: Everclear’s First Two Capitol Releases on Audiophile LP from Intervention
Joining its sonically and visually beautiful releases from the likes of Stealers Wheel and Joe Jackson, Intervention Records has recently released deluxe 180-gram audiophile pressings of Everclear’s first two proper Capitol albums: Sparkle and Fade (1995) and So Much for the Afterglow (1997). These are the two albums that first put the trio of Art Alexakis (guitar and vocals), Greg Eklund (drums) and Craig Montoya (bass guitar) on the map and made Everclear a major part of the alternative rock movement that swept through popular music during the 1990s. While typically grouped…
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 booklet is also included with new liner notes by Ashley Kahn and photos by Lee Friedlander. The CD version has…
Town + Country
Omnivore offers a 30th anniversary expanded edition of The Rave-Ups’ Town + Country. The band may be best known for its appearance in the film Pretty in Pink, but this reissue proves there’s plenty more to the group. The reissue of this lost Americana classic produced by Stephen Barncard (Grateful Dead’s American Beauty) features the original 10 songs, plus 11 previously unissued bonus tracks–including live radio performances recorded for Deirdre O’Donoghue’s KCRW-FM program Snap and material produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and longtime Beach Boys associate Mark Linett. The Rave-Ups’ Jimmy Podrasky supplies the…
Crossroads Revisited: Selections From The Crossroads Guitar Festivals
On this new 3-CD set, Eric Clapton is joined by a cadre of top guitar heroes including Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr., Robert Cray, Billy Gibbons, Vince Gill, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, John Mayer, Carlos Santana, Joe Walsh, Ronnie Wood, and Jimmie Vaughn. Crossroads Revisited features 41 tracks of landmark performances from all four Crossroads Guitar Festivals, which were held in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013 – and most of these selections have not previously appeared on CD.
Human Highway: Director’s Cut
Neil Young premieres the restored “Director’s Cut” of his 1982 film Human Highway, starring Young, Dennis Hopper, Devo, Sally Kirkland, Russ Tamblyn and Neil’s co-director Dean Stockwell, on DVD and BD. Audio is presented in 5.1 and stereo mixes.
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…
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…
At The Groovy Cellar: RPM Reveals “Another Splash of Colour: New Psychedelia in Britain 1980-1985”
Mention psychedelia and chances are you’re transported to a certain patchouli-scented period in the late 1960s, a hazy period of high times and boundary-breaking musical creativity. The spirit of psychedelia didn’t die with the advent of glam, hard rock or disco, however, though it may have been submerged for a time. In 1981, the 13-track album A Splash of Colour chronicled Great Britain’s “New Psychedelia” with ’60s-influenced cuts from The Mood Six, Miles Over Matter, The High Tide, The Marble Staircase and others. Cherry Red’s RPM label has recently reworked and reconfigured…
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…
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…
The Big Rock: Expanded Edition
Omnivore expands The Kingbees’ 1981 RSO swansong with four bonus tracks appearing for the first time on CD! The Big Rock, celebrating its 35th anniversary, features The Kingbees’ trademark blend of rock-and-roll, punk and country in full force. After the original release of the album in 1981, The Kingbees disbanded. Shortly thereafter, Jamie James recorded four new songs with a brand new rhythm section. Those songs comprise the bonus tracks for this expanded edition. James also supplies his own recollections in the liner notes! Available on CD and DD.
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…
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…
A Decade of Dio 1983-1993
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 cult classic. Decade features new remasters of all this material (the latter two albums receiving their first digital remaster) on six CDs with new box artwork by Marc Sasso,…
Reason To Believe: New Springsteen Live Archive Release from 1990 Features Two Acoustic Shows
For most of last year, Bruce Springsteen released archival concerts about once every month and a half. That pace has slowed this year. Perhaps this is due to Springsteen and the E Street Band’s current The River tour, where each new show is soon ready for purchase shortly after its performance. But a new archival concert has just become available as we hit nearly the halfway point of 2016. This release, from November 16 and 17, 1990 and is a slightly more low-key affair than some of the others in the archival series. It features a solo…
























