Varese Vintage returns the long out-of-print soundtrack to the 1984 thriller Thief of Hearts to CD in a newly remastered and expanded edition! In addition to the title track by Melissa Manchester and the original score by Harold Faltermeyer, the album also includes songs from E.G. Daily, Annabella Lewin of Bow Wow Wow, Darwun, and Beth Anderson & Joe “Bean” Esposito. TSD’s Joe Marchese supplies the new liner notes! Bonus tracks include the rare 12-inch dance mix of Manchester’s “Thief of Hearts” and the single and remixed versions of Daily’s “Love in…
The Year In Review – The 2017 Gold Bonus Disc Awards, From A to Z
Happy New Year, and welcome to The Second Disc’s Eighth Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! As with every year’s awards, our goals are simple: to recognize as many of the year’s most essential reissues and catalogue titles as possible, and to celebrate as many of those labels, producers and artists who make these releases happen in the current retail landscape. The labels you’ll read about below have, by and large, bucked the trends to prove that there’s still a demand for physical catalogue music that you can purchase in brick-and-mortar stores. And…
Holiday Gift Guide Review: Elton John, ‘Diamonds’
It’s not untoward to ask exactly who the intended audience of an Elton John compilation is in 2017. The British piano pop legend has been releasing music for more than 50 years now, and has enjoyed a run of success that began early in the ’70s and has yet to entirely let up. And in that time, there have been plenty of collections for fans of all stripes. His very first greatest hits album topped both the U.S. and U.K. charts in 1974 and prompted a sequel only three years later (and…
A SECOND DISC INTERVIEW! Have No Fear, Bond Is Here: “Casino Royale: 50th Anniversary” Reissue Announced, Chris Malone Explains Restoration
Seven James Bonds at Casino Royale/They came to save the world and win the gal at Casino Royale! Six of them went to a heavenly spot, the seventh one is going to a place where it’s terribly hot… Hal David’s lyric captures just a small fraction of the insanity of Charles K. Feldman’s 1967 Casino Royale, the big-budget comic extravaganza and cult favorite that was “too much…for one James Bond!” And so, David Niven as James Bond was joined by 007s of all shapes and sizes (and genders!), and even by his…
Sleepless in Seattle: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Nora Ephron’s beloved 1993 romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle returns on vinyl from Real Gone Music. The score was composed by Marc Shaiman, and the soundtrack album featured classic standards from artists such as Louis Armstrong, Nat “King” Cole, Gene Autry, and Jimmy Durante. Also on the album were standards performed by contemporary artists like Carly Simon, Dr. John, Joe Cocker, Harry Connick, Jr. and the pair of Celine Dion and Clive Griffin. Dion and Griffin’s version of “When I Fall in Love” would hit No. 6 on the…
Mommie Dearest: Music From the Motion Picture
Mommie Dearest, featuring a score by the legendary Henry Mancini, arrives on vinyl for the first time. The controversial 1981 film was based upon the book by Christina Crawford, recounting the abuse that her mother Joan Crawford allegedly inflicted upon her. Faye Dunaway starred as Crawford, and her over-the-top performance turned the film into a cult classic despite the lukewarm critical reception it received at the time. The prolific Mancini tailored his score to reflect the time period reflected in the film, harkening back to the sound of classic film scores by…
Release Round-Up: Week of December 1
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! The Alan Parsons Project, Eye in the Sky: 35th Anniversary Edition (Arista/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The eye in the sky is still looking at you…Legacy Recordings has a 35th anniversary box set celebrating The Alan Parsons Project’s 1982 best-seller Eye in the Sky. The album, which yielded the APP’s biggest hit single with its title track as well as the classic instrumental “Sirius,” will be enhanced for this lavish and expansive 3-CD/1-BD/2-LP/1-Flexidisc release boasting high-resolution stereo and surround mixes of the original album, rare single mixes, over…
We Are Not Alone: La-La Land’s Massive Black Friday Slate Includes Williams, Horner, More
While all of the Thanksgiving and Black Friday excitement was going on last week, La-La Land announced five exciting new limited-edition soundtrack reissues which are going to be available today at 12 pm PST on the label’s website. First up, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is the soundtrack to Richard Fleischer’s 1967 musical Doctor Dolittle. The film, based upon the character created by the Hugh Lofting in 1920, starred Rex Harrison as Doctor Dolittle, Samantha Eggar as Emma Fairfax and Anthony Newley as Matthew Mugg. The score and songs were written…
THE SECOND DISC’S 2017 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE IS HERE!
We wouldn’t want you to be left out in the cold today for Cyber Monday, so we’re proud to present our annual Holiday Gift Guide featuring more than 50 essential selections for the music enthusiast in your life! We’ve filled the guide with box sets (such as the Bob Dylan title to your right!) as well as archival releases and holiday music favorites that make great stocking stuffers. So just click here to access this year’s top picks, reflecting the diversity of music released this year in genres including rock, pop, blues, metal, Broadway, classical, comedy, and more!…
The Second Disc’s Essential RSD Black Friday 2017 Release Guide
From all of us here at Second Disc HQ to all of you, we hope you’ve enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving in the company of beloved family and friends. Of course, from this day which conjures nostalgic and warm feelings comes a celebration of a different kind with this year’s annual Black Friday – and Record Store Day’s miniature cousin to April’s yearly event. In keeping with tradition, Mike, Randy and I have once again selected our top picks of the numerous titles being released tomorrow from many of our favorite labels, including Legacy…
Star Wars: A New Hope [Vinyl Box Set]
Disney’s first catalogue release from the Star Wars universe is here – a vinyl box set dedicated to John Williams’ original soundtrack to the original 1977 classic. The 3-LP, 180-gram vinyl set features a 48-page hardcover book with essays by Jeff Bond and Jeff Eldridge, and holograms hand-etched by Tristan Duke of Infinity Light Science, including a 3D Death Star on Disc 1. Disc 2 features the Star Wars 40th Anniversary logo etched into the vinyl.
With a Bang! Legacy Recordings Brings “The Bert Berns Story” Soundtrack to Vinyl
Even if you don’t know the name of Bert Berns, chances are you know the songs he wrote (“Twist and Shout,” “I Want Candy,” “Hang On, Sloopy,” “Piece of My Heart”), produced (“Under the Boardwalk,” “Baby I’m Yours,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” “Here Comes the Night”) and oversaw as head of Bang Records (“Cherry, Cherry,” “Solitary Man” and the rest of Neil Diamond’s earliest recordings). Though Berns died in the final days of 1967 at just 38 years of age, a year hasn’t gone by since when his songs haven’t been recorded and played. …
Review: “Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track” [Super Deluxe Box Set]
Listen to the ground…there is movement all around… Saturday Night Fever didn’t invent disco…but in many ways, it epitomized the genre. With the December 1977 release of the John Badham-directed drama and its soundtrack album, the onetime underground dance movement which had been rising to the mainstream since at least 1974 became the mainstream. Disco’s alluring blend of the gritty and the glamorous gained a face in the form of John Travolta, whose tough yet tender Tony Manero of Bay Ridge, New York found solace in his escape each Saturday night to…
Release Round-Up: Week of November 17
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Queen, News of the World: 40th Anniversary Edition (UMC (U.K.) / Hollywood (U.S.) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K.) Queen’s sixth album, 1977’s News of the World, is being generously expanded for its 40th anniversary in a new 3CD/1DVD/1LP box set. The original album is presented on CD and LP. The first bonus CD, the entirely unreleased Raw Sessions, presents an alternate version of the original album from demos, outtakes and live cuts. The second bonus disc collects a further 19 relevant bonus tracks, including versions from archival live…
Smokey and the Bandit: 40th Anniversary Edition
Varese Vintage celebrates 40 years of the Burt Reynolds/Sally Field/Jackie Gleason comedy with a pairing of the original Smokey and the Bandit soundtrack, primarily by Jerry Reed and Bill Justis, with that of its sequel, 1980’s Smokey and The Bandit II (in which Reynolds, Field, Reed and Gleason – playing Sheriff Justice and his two brothers – all reappeared); that album featured tracks by country icons like Reed, Tanya Tucker, Don Williams, Brenda Lee, Roy Rogers and The Statler Brothers. Both albums appear here for the first time on compact disc!
Soundtrack Watch: Varese Preps Limited Editions For Goldsmith, Jarre, Stephen King Films
There’s been a flurry of great catalogue activity from our friends at soundtrack label Varese Sarabande! A trio of limited editions, an exciting wide reissue of two soundtracks to a popular film series, and a quirky, cool box set tied to a popular novelist have all been announced by the label in the last few weeks. Varese recently put the latest titles in their long running limited edition CD Club on sale, right around Halloween–so it’s fitting that the first is a horror score from the late, great Jerry Goldsmith. He scored…
Real Gone Unveils Blue Oyster Cult, Utopia Releases For Black Friday RSD; Soundtracks Coming from Mancini and More
Real Gone Music just released its full slate of Christmas music, including our very special trio of The Supremes, The Ames Brothers, and Connie Smith. But the label still has more releases coming for the holiday season, which you can get for yourself or a lucky someone else! We’ve told you about most of them before, including the 40th anniversary edition of Debby Boone’s You Light Up My Life and the deluxe reissue of Jimmy Webb’s Angel Heart, but let’s take a look at some more of the label’s limited edition vinyl! First,…
Happy Ending: Cherry Red Collects Albums from Yvonne Elliman and More on “Purple People Vol. 1”
Cherry Red Records has recently been cherry-picking a number of rare treasures from the archives of Purple Records, the label formed by Deep Purple. Between 1971 and 1979, Purple Records issued music not just from its namesake band, but by other artists both inside (Elf, Hard Stuff) and outside of the hard rock sphere. Highlights from these albums have been compiled before on a compilation entitled Purple People. Now, four of the label’s most unexpected offerings have been collected on CD by Cherry Red in a new box set similarly titled Purple…
Feel The Force: Vinyl Box is Disney’s First Catalogue Release For ‘Star Wars’
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…well, five years ago in California, anyway…The Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm Ltd. for a staggering $4 billion, gaining the rights to George Lucas’ space epic Star Wars and beginning a new sequel trilogy (as well as several film and TV spin-offs) in the $42 billion franchise. Only now, however, has Disney Music Group announced its first physical catalogue product: a triple-LP vinyl box set of John Williams’ original Oscar-winning score to Star Wars: A New Hope, to be released December 1. Though…
If You Just Believe: Josh Groban Expands Hit Holiday Album for 10th Anniversary
The Christmas season is almost upon us, and classical crooner Josh Groban is celebrating with an expanded edition of Noël, his best-selling holiday album. Released in the fall of 2007, a holiday record was something of an inevitability for the lyric baritone, who at the time had spent the better part of the previous decade becoming an adult contemporary sensation. At 19, he stepped in for opera singer Andrea Bocelli during a rehearsal for the Grammy Awards in 1999, where he sang “The Prayer” with Celine Dion. That year’s Grammy host, Rosie…
Extra-Terrific: Inside The Art of La-La Land’s ‘E.T.’ Soundtrack Reissue
Attendees of this past weekend’s Mondo-Con were treated to a special new print from the master pop-culture provider: a striking new poster for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Eagle-eyed fans will recognize the graphic from its debut on La-La Land Records’ 35th anniversary double-disc expansion of John Williams’ Oscar-winning soundtrack. It’s a wondrous image: of the film’s protagonist Elliott, seen from behind astride his bicycle as he looks upward into the evening sky, reflecting on the incredible bond he shared with his friend from three million light years away. It was a bold choice…
Release Round-Up: Week of November 3
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! The Supremes, The Ultimate Merry Christmas (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music are joining Motown Records to unwrap a celebration of The Supremes’ 1965 perennial Merry Christmas. The Ultimate Merry Christmas features the album in three distinctive versions: the original 1965 mono and stereo mixes, as well as a brand new, never-before-heard 2017 mix premiering previously unheard vocals and instrumentation. And that’s not all! The additional, previously unreleased bonus tracks include a Diana Ross/Florence Ballard duet on “Silent Night,” and a Diana/Mary Wilson duet on…
Release Round-Up: Week of October 27
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! The Who, Maximum As and Bs: The Complete Singles (Polydor/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The Who’s complete singles from 1964-2015 are collected on a new 5-CD box set, which also contains a 48-page booklet featuring track-by-track annotations on each single. Read more here! Willie Nelson, Teatro: The Complete Sessions (Modern Classics Recordings) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Willie Nelson’s 1998 album, produced by Daniel Lanois (Bob Dylan, U2) and featuring Emmylou Harris on rich harmonies, is expanded as a…
I Wish You Love: More From “The Bodyguard”
Arista and Legacy offer a new collection of songs related to The Bodyguard, featuring fourteen previously unreleased tracks (including film versions, alternates, live performances, and more) performed by the late, great Whitney Houston. A purple double vinyl edition will follow at a later date!
























