In October, to the delight of film score fans everywhere, Sony Masterworks reissued a portion of the Classic Film Scores series, vintage RCA LPs of great soundtracks as recorded by Charles Gerhardt and The National Philharmonic Orchestra. In March, the second installment of the reissue series is happening, covering some of the greatest composers in motion picture history, including Hermann, Waxman, Korngold and Steiner. Masterworks' reissue campaign, announced today, covers compilations
Frakkin' Awesome! Intrada Releases Original "BSG" Score
It's kind of amazing that the Sci-Fi Channel's reboot of Battlestar Galactica which ran from 2003 to 2009 was a critical smash. This is especially true when one considers the campy nature of its original source material, the Glen A. Larson-produced ABC program which ran for one season in 1978-1979 and was considered by many to be a quick capitalization on Star Wars mania. Of course, the show was a bit more than that, with a rather captivating story and, for a modest television show, a
Elmer Bernstein Duo and "Gone with the Wind" Musical Coming from Kritzerland
Frankly, my dear, the Kritzerland label has given us even more reasons to give a damn. On Monday morning, the label announced its latest releases: the first-ever CD release of the Original London Cast Recording of Gone with the Wind, the 1972 musical written by composer/lyricist Harold Rome (Wish You Were Here, Fanny, Pins and Needles) and librettist Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies, The Trip to Bountiful), along with a two-on-one CD presenting Elmer Bernstein’s scores to Fear
The Softer Side of Soundtracks Explored by FSM
Film Score Monthly's newest release is ladylike - at least, the scores presented therein are from films that appeal to the ladies. Appearing for the first time anywhere are a pair of scores: Georges Delerue's score to Rich and Famous, a 1981 film featuring Candice Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset as writers and lifelong friends and Michel Legrand's music to One is a Lonely Number (1972), which chronicled the plight of a recently-divorced woman (Trish Van Devere, who received a Golden Globe
The Second Disc Interview #4: Talking Soundtracks with MV Gerhard of La La Land Records
The wide berth of reissues, box sets and compilations across major and independent labels the world over, means some releases can fall through the cracks at times. At The Second Disc, it was always an early mission to make sure the labels handling catalogue soundtrack reissues did not suffer this fate. Intrada, Film Score Monthly, Kritzerland, Varese Sarabande - all are essentials for the catalogue music fan with a taste for soundtracks, and their work is hard to ignore. La La Land Records,
Getting "Clue" Plus Some More Exciting La La Land News!
As promised, La La Land Records put the score to Clue up for order yesterday. The soundtrack to the comedy board game adaptation, composed by John Morris, is full of bonus content and limited to 3,000 copies and is yours to order here. (The track list is of course after the jump.) But that's not the only exciting La La Land news we have here at The Second Disc. Tomorrow afternoon, we're running an exclusive interview with the head of the label, MV Gerhard! He's going to talk about the great
Short Takes: Legacy's New Essentials, Concord's New Jazz Reissues and a Catalogue Score from Perserverance
Legacy's latest release schedule update promises three new titles in the Essential series: Paul Revere & The Raiders, Django Reinhardt and Eartha Kitt. All are going to be double disc sets, and specifically, the Raiders set (compiled by Bob Irwin of Sundazed Music) will feature some promo-only tracks and some mono single mixes. All are due on March 15. Concord has four new reissues of classic jazz titles also planned for March 15. They are Monk's Music (1958) by Thelonious Monk, Cal
The Name Was Barry
It is with a heavy heart that I pass along to you the news that film composer John Barry died on Sunday. Barry, a five-time Oscar winner, is of course best known for his work on 12 of the 22 James Bond films. Though his authorship of the iconic theme is under dispute even after a U.K. court ruled that it was Dr. No composer Monty Norman's work alone, Barry is still the name most synonymous with Bond music, and crafted some of the series' best themes. The timing of Barry's passing comes at an
All Aboard "The Big Bus"! FSM Releases Comedy Score by David Shire
Released some years before Airplane! - hell, even before That's Armageddon! - the world had The Big Bus, a 1976 comedy lampooning the then-fashionable swath of disaster films. Though The Big Bus received nowhere near the accolades that Airplane! got, it was a pretty silly romp with stars like Stockard Channing, Ned Beatty, and John Beck (best known as Mark Graison, one of Pamela's beaus on Dallas). It also boasted a score by David Shire, who composed the scores to '70s classics All the
Friday Feature: "Almost Famous"
Thank you, Cameron Crowe. You had me at "hello." You cost me plenty, but my record collection has long been grateful for the education! The integration of popular song and cinema has been around as long as the talking film itself, since the day Al Jolson prefaced his performance of "Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goodbye)" with the epochal dialogue "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!" These lines from 1927's The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length "talkie" in which
La La Land to Get a "Clue" in February
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHEpuz_gUGM] The mystery has finally been solved: it was La La Land Records, on the Internet, with a batch of CDs. Well...in other words, it's been confirmed that one of the label's most hotly-anticipated releases is happening soon: the world-premiere release of John Morris' score to Clue (1985). Clue, of course, comes from a simpler time when movies based on board games and television shows weren't the only ideas circulating throughout Hollywood. In
Short Takes: Soundtracks on Tap from Barry, Horner and Mancini
It's already been a busy week here at Second Disc HQ, and the news just keeps on comin'. Three more soundtracks are due from some of the finest composers in film score history: John Barry, James Horner and Henry Mancini. Before becoming an eminence grise in the world of film scoring, John Barry was best-known as the leader of the John Barry Seven, an association which led him to one of his earliest film projects, the score to the 1960 British film Beat Girl. The long-unavailable soundtrack to
Intrada Partially Finds Missing "Link"
It's always a cause for celebration in the soundtrack community when a Jerry Goldsmith score is put into print. Today is no different; one of Goldsmith's scores from the 1980s is one of the two new releases from Intrada. Link was a strange 1986 horror film from England in which Elisabeth Shue and Terence Stamp were pitted against a super-intelligent orangutan. Goldsmith was in his typical '80s form - orchestra augmented with synthesized instruments, not unlike another favorite at Second Disc HQ
Friday Feature: "Men in Black"
Once in a while, a great comedy comes around that makes an incredible impact on film, thanks to its quick wits, original ideas and great performances. In the 1980s, there were several great films that deftly blended comedy with science fiction and action film tropes - 1984's Ghostbusters and 1985's Back to the Future - that remain generational touchstones and modern-day classics of popular cinema. When children of the '80s say, "They don't make 'em like they used to," it's not hard to imagine
La La Land Goes Live with First Releases of 2011
La La Land Records' first titles of 2011 were promised earlier this month, and they're now available to order. Two television shows, the '60s war program The Rat Patrol and the late '80s Western The Young Riders, are being presented in premiere releases (1,200 units each), alongside a straight, unlimited reissue of the original soundtrack to Solaris (2002) with improved sound quality. It's a smaller-scale start, but La La Land also recently promised they're again appearing at this year's San
Back Tracks: Queen, Part II
We continue our coverage of Queen's previous reissues - in anticipation of the band's forthcoming remasters on new U.K. home Island Records - with a look at Queen during most of the '80s, where they went increasingly pop-friendly before returning to their rock roots in the 1990s, losing their iconic frontman and becoming anthologized in nearly a dozen or so compilations. The show must go on, after the jump.
From "Walter Mitty" to "Inner City": Masterworks Broadway Reissues Due
Sony’s Masterworks Broadway division continues its dig through the vaults of the Columbia and RCA Records labels with three new titles, to be released as CD-Rs exclusively through Arkiv Music or as digital downloads. Today, January 18, sees the reissue of Originals – Musical Comedy 1909-1935, an RCA compilation dating from 1968. This collection remains one of the best ever to anthologize the sound of musical comedy in its earliest days, and is a “Who’s Who” of that golden era. The vaudeville
Friday Feature: "Casino Royale" (1967, 2006)
"The dry riffle of the cards and the soft whirr of the roulette wheel, the sharp call of the croupiers and the feverish mutter of a crowded casino hide the thick voice at Bond's ear which says, 'I will count up to ten.'" So read the blurb on the jacket of the original printing of Ian Fleming's 1953 novel Casino Royale, which introduced Agent 007 to the world. Fleming's novel set the tone for those that followed, introducing the "Bond girl" (Vesper Lynd), the larger-than-life villain (Le Chiffre,
FSM Fetches Classic Canine Scores
Film Score Monthly's first release of 2011 is a whopper: five discs' worth of dog-related film scores, anchored mostly around the lovable star Lassie. Created by writer Eric Knight in a short story that was expanded into a 1940 novel, Lassie was a loyal collie who treks across Depression-era Yorkshire, England to reunite with his young owner. The film spawned several sequels and spin-offs, most notably a long-running American television show that ran from 1954 to 1973. The dog is one of only
Back Tracks: Queen, Part I
This week's remaster and reissue of Queen's first two greatest hits LPs in the U.K. (on new home Island Records) is the start of what promises to be a massive reissue campaign for the band's 40th anniversary. The band's first five LPs are slated to be expanded and released in March, with additional batches to follow through 2011. Of course, this isn't the first time the Queen catalogue has been rolled out on CD. While British audiences got straight CD transfers throughout the late '80s,
One is Not the Loneliest Number
Exactly one year ago today, The Second Disc uploaded its first post, an assessment of the best reissues of the prior year. It was taken from my personal Facebook page, which I'd been posting thoughts on music and pop culture here and there for some time. I was a college graduate working in a part-time job I was not particularly fond of, in dire need of something to fill time. After some deliberating over what a blog about reissues and box sets - my favorite kind of music - should be called
Intrada Sets Watch to "48 Hrs.," Makes "Great Escape"
Intrada's first releases of the new year are two big name scores sure to please a few generations' worth of film music fans. First up is the world premiere release of James Horner's score to 48 Hrs., the 1982 buddy cop comedy starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in one of his first major motion picture roles. This disc features Horner's complete score (one of his earliest successes of the '80s), plus three tracks by The Busboys (including end credits tune "The Boys Are Back in Town") and one
Dave Grusin's "Dry White Season" Revisited
With a cast including Donald Sutherland, Susan Sarandon and Marlon Brando in one of his final film triumphs, 1989's A Dry White Season had the potential to be an instant classic. Yet despite this star-studded assemblage, strong reviews and an impressive pedigree (it was based on Andre Brinks' powerful novel which was banned in South Africa for challenging apartheid), audiences stayed away, and A Dry White Season vanished from theatres. Still, Brando was recognized with a Best Supporting Actor
Friday Feature: "TRON"
One of the most-talked about film scores on the market right now is the score to TRON: Legacy, composed by French electronic act Daft Punk. Everything about it is delightfully unconventional: it's a score for a Disney blockbuster - a sequel to a cult classic released nearly 30 years ago - composed by two killer musicians best known for making fresh music through technological, not organic means. But the hybrid electronic/orchestral score is a knockout, arguably a serious Oscar contender and one
...And We're Back
With plenty of people back at their jobs today, The Second Disc HQ is back online, ready for another year of continuous catalogue coverage! We're expecting some great titles in the not-too-distant future, plus a lot of surprises, too. I know I'm excited, and I'm sure many of you are too. Today's going to be a bit of a catch-up day - a lot of stuff has been announced in the past week or two, mainly across the pond, and we're going to get through most of it today. But first, we're going to start
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