A Second Disc Interview: Jason Klamm and Dan Schlissel on ‘Presenting…Dick Davy’
It doesn’t take much for comedy works to pique Jason Klamm‘s interest. As the host of the Comedy on Vinyl podcast and the author of 2023’s We’re Not Worthy: From In Living Color to Mr. Show, How ’90s Sketch TV Changed the Face of Comedy, Klamm is immersed in mirth and laughs for most of his free time. But it was not exactly a laughing matter when he discovered Dick Davy. Davy, a convivial comedian with a soft-spoken Southern drawl, issued two albums on Columbia in the mid-’60s: 1966’s You’re a Long Way from Home, Whitey…
Release Round-Up: Week of September 5
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. Joni Mitchell, Joni’s Jazz (Rhino) 4CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 8LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada What is jazz? The question has been debated often, but now we know how Joni Mitchell might answer. The legendary singer-songwriter’s Archives series is continuing with its first themed compilation, appropriately entitled Joni’s Jazz. These 61 selections – available on 4 CDs or 8 LPs – draw from nearly every core album in the Mitchell discography…
Elton John Raises Curtains on ‘Captain Fantastic’ with New 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
In the 2020s, Elton John started offering 50th anniversary deluxe editions of classic albums in his catalogue that hadn’t been expanded to multi-disc sets yet. After Madman Across the Water and Honky Château, expansions of Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player and Caribou were only made available as vinyl expansions for Record Store Day activations. That changes with a new general retail expansion of Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy arriving this fall with a bonus disc of unreleased material. Due October 24 on CD and purple/white swirl vinyl, the album (remastered in…
Open All Night: Bruce Springsteen Reissues ‘Nebraska’ with Mythic Electric Recordings and More
It’s no surprise that, as Hollywood prepares to tell the story of Bruce Springsteen’s most striking solo release, a box set is coming to tell the tale of the (literal) tape. On October 17, Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings will release Nebraska ’82, a new box set showcasing the start-to-finish journey of Bruce’s most stark collection of songs and the attempts to record them in a way befitting of their haunting qualities. The set – four CDs or four LPs and a Blu-ray – will offer two discs of almost entirely unreleased outtakes,…
All That You Dream: Rhino Sets Expansion of Little Feat’s ‘Last Record Album’
Another Little Feat deluxe album is making the rounds from Rhino. 1975’s The Last Record Album, the group’s fifth LP, will be expanded by the label in multiple formats, all available October 24. The 4CD set will pair the remastered album with a bonus disc of studio rarities (half of which are previously unreleased) along with an unissued live set at Boston’s Orpheum Theater recorded on Halloween of 1975. A 2LP set includes all the studio material in the CD box, and an exclusive bundle, available only at Rhino.com, will add a fifth…
Compilation Watch: New Hits Sets from Devo, Kool & The Gang, Boomtown Rats
Three very different bands with venerable catalogues are getting new greatest hits collections added to their discographies. First up is a new set documenting Irish post-punkers The Boomtown Rats. The First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory is a non-chronological compilation covering all seven of the Dublin group’s studio albums – the majority released between 1979 and 1984, before frontman Bob Geldof pivoted largely to pop-rooted activist causes including the spearheading of Band Aid and Live Aid. The tracks were jointly selected by the group as well as online fan polling, and include U.K….
Music Must Change: The Who Expand ‘Who Are You’ with Outtakes, Live Tracks and Remixes
Following such previous super deluxe album box sets as Who’s Next, The Who Sell Out, My Generation, Tommy, and Quadrophenia, the band has just announced that 1978’s Who Are You will receive similarly lavish treatment on October 31. The band’s eighth album, Who Are You was also its final studio LP to feature drummer Keith Moon. The centerpiece of the multi-format release is a 7CD/1Blu-ray set which will offer the following: CD1: The original 1978 album as newly remastered by Jon Astley at Close to the Edge; CD2: Glyn Johns’ original, shelved…
The Weekend Stream: August 30, 2025
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. We’ve got one Vault track from Prince, four albums unearthed by SuperVisible Multi Media, five rare mixes from Bowie and Jagger, and more than 100 hard-to-find cuts from Connie Francis – now that’s some rock and roll math! Prince, “Sign O’ the Times” (Live in Rotterdam 1987) (NPG/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) A welcome respite from sharing fabricated, possibly AI-generated inspirational quotes on social media, the Prince estate has released…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 29
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. Deep Purple, Rapture of the Deep: 20th Anniversary Edition (earMusic) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada A 20th anniversary edition of Rapture of the Deep, Deep Purple’s 18th studio album, offers a remix and resequencing of the album by Roger Glover, with two non-LP tracks (“MTV” and “Things I Never Said”) now added into the sequence. This was the second album from the band’s longest-tenured line-up, the…
As Tears Go By: Marianne Faithfull’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” Collects Her Decca Recordings
Marianne Faithfull didn’t have to open her mouth to receive a recording contract. As the story goes, so vividly recounted in the liner notes to the new box set Cast Your Fate to the Wind: The U.K. Decca Recordings, the young woman was so striking in beauty and presence that impresario Andrew Loog Oldham didn’t hesitate to sign her on sight. (Even her name was made for stardom!) But it was just as clear that she was no ordinary pop starlet chasing dreams in Swingin’ London. Faithfull was remarkably clear-eyed, quipping to…
Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine: Cherry Red Collects Jimmy Webb’s 1970s Albums on “A Life in Words and Music”
“Freddy, those songs killed me.” Jimmy Webb once confessed to longtime musical collaborator Fred Mollin that the songs on which he made his name – “Up, Up, and Away,” Didn’t We,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” among innumerable other classics – placed him at a personal crossroads. He yearned to be accepted as a singer-songwriter like his contemporaries, but the fact that he began his career writing songs for others (and massive hit songs, at that) made acceptance in that field an uphill battle. Over the years, the…
I Went Looking for You: Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’ to Be Expanded with Unreleased Material
Five decades after it became a landmark of a sea change of ’70s rock, Patti Smith’s debut Horses will be expanded with previously unheard material. Horses (50th Anniversary Edition), available through Legacy Recordings on October 10, will pair the classic LP with a further nine alternate versions and outtakes from the album sessions, including two selections from Smith’s demo tape for RCA Records. (Arista, unaffiliated with RCA at the time, ended up signing her for about a quarter-century.) A demo version of standout “Redondo Beach” was released on a 2002 compilation, but the…
This Shark’ll Swallow You Whole: New ‘JAWS’ Soundtrack Reissues Rise from the Depths (UPDATED)
How else could we preface this? Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, John Williams’ acclaimed score to Steven Spielberg’s JAWS is being reissued for its 50th anniversary. And this time, the bites are big. Williams’ longtime archivist Mike Matessino has remixed the original film score for a new release now available digitally through Universal Pictures’ Back Lot Music and on a new 180-gram, 45 RPM 2LP vinyl pressing from Mondo (available on marbled red and blue “blood and water” vinyl). These original tracks heard in the…
Review: Nick Drake, “The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left'”
Nick Drake’s legacy is primarily built around just three albums, originally released between 1969 and 1972. Before 1974 was out, the British singer-songwriter was gone at the age of 26. Over the years, esteem for his small discography has only grown. Partly, this is because the mystique has remained; the Drake estate has only sporadically gone back to the well of unreleased material. Their cautious and curated approach has yielded a new reward with a box set dedicated to his 1969 debut. The Making of ‘Five Leaves Left,’ available on 4 LPs…
The Weekend Stream: August 23, 2025
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. We’ve got the goods from everywhere this week: the Jersey shore, Philadelphia, Manhattan, jolly old England and a spooky, nondescript European countryside! Bruce Springsteen, “Lonely Night in the Park” (Columbia/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) If you’re still digesting Tracks II or are prepping for the inevitable Nebraska revival brought on by this fall’s biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, spare a moment for the impending 50th anniversary of The Boss’ mainstream breakthrough Born to Run (which…
You Don’t Know Dick (Davy): New LP Sheds Light on Intriguing ’60s Stand-Up
A forthcoming release from Stand Up! Records will shed some light on Dick Davy, one of the more unexpected figures of ’60s stand-up comedy. Presenting…Dick Davy attempts to fill in the gaps around an unusual comic who recorded some unusual material under unusual circumstances in the mid-to-late ’60s. You’re a Long Way from Home, Whitey (1966) and Stronger Than Dirt (1967), both released by Columbia Records, capture a witty performer with a folksy Southern drawl offering Will Rogers-esque, progressive-for-the-time observations on race in America. That Whitey was produced by legendary A&R man John Hammond (who played…
Release Round-Up: Week of August 22
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. The Who, Live at The Oval 1971 (Polydor/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Initially available as part of the band’s revived Wholigan Fan Club, The Who’s Live At The Oval 1971 is coming to general release. The album finally canonizes the group’s celebrated performance at “Goodbye to Summer,” a British benefit concert for the people of Bangladesh. Featuring several songs from the band’s just-released Who’s Next, including “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Won’t Get…
Free As a Bird: The Beatles ‘Anthology’ Gets Remixed and Expanded in New Box Set
The next archival project from The Beatles is a celebration of their most major archival project, with a newly reissued and (slightly) expanded edition of their Anthology series coming to audio and video formats this fall. Anthology Collection will include remastered editions of the original three collections of rarities and outtakes compiled by George Martin and released through 1995 and 1996, available across six CDs or nine LPs. Martin’s son Giles, who remastered those albums, also curates a new collection, Anthology 4, across a further two CDs or three LPs. Anthology 4 is drawn mostly from…
They Will Dare: The Replacements’ ‘Let It Be’ is Their Latest Deluxe Reissue
Rhino’s series of deluxe Replacements reissues is continuing on October 24 with 3CD and 4LP expanded editions of the Minneapolis band’s seminal 1984 Twin/Tone album cheekily titled Let It Be. Let It Be takes a different format than the previous reissues of Tim, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, Pleased to Meet Me, and Dead Man’s Pop (an alternative presentation of Don’t Tell a Soul), all of which included both vinyl and CD in one package. This time, the formats are split into individual releases. Both the CD and LP packages…
Cut to the Feeling: Carly Rae Jepsen Celebrates 10 Years of ‘Emotion’ with Expanded Reissue
A bona fide recent pop classic is getting revisited as it passes the decade mark. Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION will be reissued on vinyl and digitally later this year with a bonus LP featuring a side of rarities and a side of unreleased tracks. The 2LP presentation, pressed on magenta swirl vinyl with an alternate cover, offers all 17 tracks released back in 2015 (on standard, deluxe and Target-exclusive pressings of the CD), 2017’s deliriously catchy non-LP single “Cut to the Feeling,” four outtakes from the album’s mythic sessions (including new single “More,”…
Come Spend the Night Inside a Second Sheena Easton Box Set
Cherry Red is wasting no time following its first anthology of Sheena Easton’s EMI recordings with its follow-up this fall. Strut – The Complete EMI Recordings Vol. II, due from Cherry Pop on October 31, picks up where its predecessor Modern Girl left off, following the same structure: most of the discs offer expanded and slightly altered programs covering the albums A Private Heaven (1984), Do You (1985) and No Sound But a Heart (1987). The inclusions of alternate versions or mixes in place of or beside some originals makes for even more unreleased tracks on this set:…
The Enz is Near! Split Enz Announce Start of Archival Series
Some time after Crowded House frontman Neil Finn indicated potential work being done with the catalogue of Split Enz – the cult-hero pop band co-founded by his older brother Tim – fans finally have some development on that front, with the first in a planned series of archival sets covering the group’s early, avant-garde years. Enzyclopedia Volumes One and Two will focus on the group’s early years, coalescing around the material leading up to 1975 debut Mental Notes, which celebrates a half-century this year. The 5CD set will feature remasters of Mental Notes…
This Is Your Death! “Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular in Screaming Sound” Returns From Omnivore
Dracula, Vampira, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll walk into a room… When the late, great Spike Jones (1911-1965) set his sights on Halloween, a cult classic album was born. The fiendishly funny musical satirist had been unleashing insanity on unsuspecting record buyers since the early 1940s, turning car horns, belches, sneezes, gurgles, and gunshots into high art. In 1959, both rock-and-roll and the horror movie craze were in full swing, and the fiendishly funny, endlessly inventive purveyor of “musical depreciation” couldn’t let them pass by unnoticed. With a troupe of legendary voice actors,…
Tell Me One More Time: New Vinyl Box Chronicles Austin Blues Haven Antone’s
New West Records brings some late-summer Texas heat this week, courtesy of a new vinyl box set celebrating the legendary Austin club Antone’s. Antone’s 50th Allstars: 50 Years of the Blues will feature four 140-gram, translucent color LPs and a 7″ single containing three special albums tracing Antone’s history on record. The Last Real Texas Blues Album (pressed on purple vinyl) offers new studio recordings from acts with deep roots in the Austin scene, from Jimmie Vaughan, Bobby Rush and The Fabulous Thunderbirds to Doyle Bramhall II, ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons…
The Weekend Stream: August 16, 2025
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. A soft-rock legend says farewell on his own terms, a Broadway star channels one of mid-century pop’s greatest voices, plus everything from video game music to “jazz-tinged” alt-pop oddities is headed your way this week! Stephen Bishop, THIMK (Life’s a Bish) (Apple / Amazon) Stephen Bishop is billing THIMK as his final studio album – a decision he explains in the spoken word track that concludes the set –…