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…
Playing Favorites
10,000 Maniacs lives up to the title of this new release: Playing Favorites. This hometown show from Jamestown, New York features 14 tracks, including hits and fan favorites from throughout the group’s career. Current band members Jerome Augustyniak, Dennis Drew, Jeff Erickson, Steven Gustafson, John Lombardo and Mary Ramsey are joined by strings, horns, and backing vocalists on such songs as “More Than This,” “Because the Night,” “What’s the Matter Here?” and “These Are Days.” Available on CD and DD.
Laura Nyro, David Bromberg, Ann Wilson Headline Rounder’s June Reissue Campaign
The venerable Rounder Records label, currently enjoying its 45th anniversary, has long been a leading light in the realm of roots music and Americana. But those terms need not be applied solely to one type of music. This month, as part of its ongoing digital catalogue initiative, Rounder is reissuing a number of titles blurring the genre lines of roots-rock and Americana. Some of the familiar names represented in this go-round include Ann Wilson of Heart, Laura Nyro, David Bromberg, Martha Wainwright, and Tiny Tim. So if you’re ready to get into…
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…
Release Round-Up: Week of May 27
Hey! Hey! Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! The Monkees, Good Times (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Good Times sure lives up to its name, and then some! Here’s a new Monkees album featuring Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith and the late Davy Jones, produced by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and featuring a slew of exciting new songs by Schlesinger, Noel Gallagher, Rivers Cuomo, Ben Gibbard, and Andy Partridge alongside newly-completed recordings of tunes by Neil Diamond, Carole King, Jeff Barry and the late Harry Nilsson (who duets…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
La-La Means I Love You: The Delfonics, Survivor, Brook Benton and Sea Level Join Eddy Arnold On Real Gone’s July Slate
Yesterday we told you about Second Disc Records’ and Real Gone Music’s July 1 release of Eddy Arnold’s Chet Atkins and Lee Hazlewood albums from 1970 and now we’ve got the news of the rest of Real Gone’s line-up for right before Independence Day. First up is a compilation featuring notes by our very own Joe Marchese: 40 Classic Soul Sides from The Delfonics. When Stan Watson introduced a group (including brothers William and Wilbert Hart and Randy Cain) he was managing to a young Thom Bell at Cameo in the late 1960s, magic…
Blonder and Blonder
The Muffs’ 1995 Blonder and Blonder featured 14 Kim Shattuck-penned originals, including the hit single “Sad Tomorrow.” With Shattuck, Ronnie Barnett and new drummer Roy McDonald comprising the line-up, the Rob Cavallo-produced Blonder became the band’s biggest selling album. Omnivore adds seven bonus tracks (2 U.K. B-sides, and 5 previously unissued Shattuck demos) on CD and also presents the original LP on vinyl for the first time in over two decades (first pressing on baby blue vinyl, with black to follow). The reissue includes photos, drawings, memorabilia, and essays from Barnett and McDonald, as well as track-by-track…
Blitzkrieg Bop! Ramones’ Debut Expanded for 40th Anniversary
It was unlike anything audiences had heard or seen: four leather jacket-clad, shaggy-haired ne’er do wells from Forest Hills, Queens, offering loud bursts of sneering rock and roll as grimy as the streets they stumbled across. Almost no one knew it then, but this was a musical movement, as potent as Elvis Presley’s first swivel or the first haze over Woodstock. Four decades later, Rhino Records celebrates the incredible legacy of the self-titled debut album by the Ramones with a 3CD/1LP box set, due this summer. The Ramones–lead singer Joey, guitarist Johnny,…
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 alongside highlights from his remarkable string of releases: David Bowie(“Space Oddity”), Hunky Dory (“Changes”), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
This is My Happy Hour: Perth Punks The Scientists Anthologized in New Numero Box
Punk rock’s coming up from down under on the newest box set from The Numero Group, dedicated to Australian punk pioneers The Scientists. Born in Perth in 1978, The Scientists, fronted by teen singer/guitarist Kim Salmon, were Australia’s answer to The Stooges or The Velvet Underground, offering snotty rebellion and jagged, melodic riffs in their music. Moving from Oz to England, the group found several of their releases on Au Go Go Records, including the EP This Heart Doesn’t Run on Blood, This Heart Doesn’t Run on Love and subsequent album You…
Walk On The Wild Side: Lou Reed’s “RCA and Arista Album Collection” Arrives in October
Lou Reed’s last project is finally seeing release this fall…and it may well be the last word on a major chunk of the late, influential singer-songwriter’s career. Rolling Stone reports that The RCA and Arista Album Collection is due on October 7 from Legacy Recordings. This set spans sixteen albums and seventeen compact discs encompassing Reed’s solo output from 1972-1986 – including such key LPs as the David Bowie-produced Transformer, Berlin and the controversial Metal Machine Music. The box set contains the following albums, all of which were remastered for this project under the…
Night Games: Graham Bonnet’s “Line-Up” Is Expanded By Cherry Red’s HNE Label
Graham Bonnet rose to prominence filling the large shoes of Ronnie James Dio when he replaced Dio in Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. Bonnet only recorded one album with Rainbow, but with two U.K. Top 10 singles and a Top 10 placement on the LP chart too, Down to Earth was an unqualified success. Following his time with Blackmore’s band, Bonnet resumed his solo career with 1981’s Line-Up. Cherry Red’s hard rock-oriented Hear No Evil label has recently reissued Line-Up with four bonus tracks as well as earlier albums Graham Bonnet and No Bad Habits (as…
Release Round-Up: Week of May 6
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up featuring Second Disc Records’ very first title of 2016, plus more fantastic releases from our partners at Real Gone Music and titles from Brian Wilson, The Cars, and more! Bobby Darin, Another Song on My Mind: The Motown Years (Second Disc/Real Gone) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) We know that you all know about this one…it’s the ultimate celebration of Bobby Darin’s time at Motown Records on 2 CDs, newly remastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Reeves and featuring my liner notes based on new interviews…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
Even The Nights Are Better: Real Gone’s June Slate Features Petula Clark, Air Supply, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Fairport Convention, More
With spring having just begun, it might be hard to believe that summer is going to be here before we know it. But the year marches on and Real Gone Music is kicking off the summer with its June 3rd slate of titles. As per usual with the label, there are a wide variety of genres being represented, including one that Real Gone has never dipped into before. We’ll begin with the two titles that feature liner notes by our very own Joe Marchese. The first is a collection from sixties British hit-maker…
Categories:
Genres:
Heartbreaker [2-CD/DVD Deluxe Edition]
Ryan Adams’ debut solo album from 2000 is expanded with unreleased outtakes, pre-album demos, exclusive photos, and a never-before-released DVD of a solo acoustic club show from 2000.
In Memoriam: Prince (1958-2016)
The Second Disc joins the world in mourning the unexpected loss of Prince, a true American original. Please welcome our founder, Mike Duquette, in sharing his memories of this visionary artist. First U Have 2 Purify Yourself I’m 16 years old in the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, New Jersey. It’s 2004, and the Sam Goody is liquidating. Sometimes, at such an age, you do things that don’t make sense to yourself, or to anyone else. You remember the reasons you give, and maybe you don’t question them until later. This was…
The Second Disc’s 2016 Record Store Day Must-Haves
Tomorrow, Saturday, April 16, music fans and collectors will flock to their local independent record stores worldwide to celebrate both the sounds on those familiar round black platters and the cherished opportunity to shop for music in a physical retail environment. To many of us, both are a way of life. Each year around this time, we here at Second Disc HQ take a few moments to count down the titles to which we’re most looking forward to picking up! Our very own Mike Duquette kicks things off with his list of five,…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
Release Round-Up: Week of April 15
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Phil Collins, No Jacket Required and Testify: Deluxe Editions (Atlantic/Rhino) No Jacket Required 2-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada No Jacket Required LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Testify 2-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Testify LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required, originally released in 1985 and still the artist’s most commercially successful album, is expanded to 2 CDs with the addition of thirteen bonus tracks: ten new-to-CD live performances and three demos. Phil…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
Say I Had a Lovely Time: Miracle Legion’s Final LP Gets Digital, Vinyl Reissues
Looking for a dose of much-needed jangle in your record collection? Let Miracle Legion do the trick with an exciting reissue of their lesser-known (and, to date, final) album, Portrait of a Damaged Family. Released in 1996, Portrait of a Damaged Family found the New Haven, Connecticut quartet in somewhat of a different place than when they first burst onto the college rock scene more than a decade prior. Singer/songwriter Mark Mulcahy and guitarist Mr. Ray Neal had been the nucleus of the band since their debut for Rough Trade Records in…
Saturday On My Mind: Varese Has Easybeats, Moody Blues, “Dark Shadows” and More For Record Store Day
Vampires! Dragons! Keanu Reeves! Plus two revered pop-rock classics: Varese Sarabande has a little bit of everything on its five-title Record Store Day slate arriving this Saturday, April 16, in finer independent stores everywhere. Record Store Day may take place on a Saturday, but thanks to The Easybeats, it’s a Good Friday. Varese has the first-ever U.S. release of the Australian band’s debut U.K. album originally issued on United Artists Records. Good Friday was issued in the U.S. as Friday on My Mind after the album’s hit single, a Top 20 hit…
Not Ready to Make Nice: Dixie Chicks Revisit Four Classics On Vinyl
This Friday, April 15, The Dixie Chicks will be flying high with Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings’ vinyl reissues of their 1998 breakthrough Wide Open Spaces and next three albums Fly (1999), Home (2002) and Taking The Long Way (2006). All four albums have been newly remastered and pressed on 150-gram 12-inch vinyl. These four remastered LPs arrive one day before the band launches its fifth world tour. DCX MMXVI World Tour kicks off in Antwerp, Belgium and concludes October 10, 2016 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. DCX MMXVI marks the…
I Still Do
Eric Clapton has reunited with producer Glyn Johns for his 23rd studio album I Still Do. Tracks include “I’ll Be Seeing You” and “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine.” Available on CD, DD and LP.
Stranger to Stranger
Paul Simon returns with his 13th solo studio album and first since 2011’s So Beautiful or So What. Stranger has been co-produced by his longtime collaborator Roy Halee and features the first single “Wristband.” Simon says “sound is the theme of this album,” and sessions featured dance and flamenco artists as well as inspiration from 20th century composer/theorist Harry Partch (maker of custom instruments in microtonal tunings). Stranger to Stranger is available in standard and deluxe editions on CD; vinyl and DD versions will also be available.
Release Round-Up: Week of April 8
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Ronnie Spector, English Heart (Savoy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The one and only Ronnie Spector returns with an all-new studio album saluting her British Invasion friends. Expect Ronnie-ized renditions of the Jagger/Richards-written “I’d Much Rather Be with the Boys” (as “I’d Much Rather Be with the Girls”) as well as “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” “Tell Her No,” “Girl Don’t Come” and more! Amazon has an exclusive CD/DVD edition as well as an exclusive autographed vinyl LP! You can access…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
Worldwide Epiphany: Esoteric Reissues Todd Rundgren’s “Live at The Forum”
On the heels of 2015’s new studio album Global, there’s been a flurry of reissue activity surrounding Todd Rundgren. Edsel has reissued For Lack of Honest Work, a 3-CD, 43-song compendium originally released in 2010 spanning the years 1971-2006. Purple Pyramid has offered Box O’ Todd, another 3-disc affair drawn from 1971-1973 radio broadcasts. Newly available from Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings imprint is a new entry in Esoteric’s Todd Rundgren Archive Series: Live at the Forum – London 1994. This concert was first issued on CD in 2002 on the Sanctuary label…
The Dave Clark Five
October 23, 2026