On Their Way: Mötley Crüe Collect Their Hits ‘From the Beginning’
Mötley Crüe are going back From the Beginning this fall with a new career-spanning compilation. The new CD or 2LP set, available September 12, includes more than a dozen singles and key cuts from their heyday as one of glam metal’s biggest acts (“Smokin’ in the Boys Room,” “Girls Girls Girls,” “Dr. Feelgood,” “Kickstart My Heart”) all the way to modern-day releases like 2008’s Saints of Los Angeles and 2024’s Cancelled EP. The album closes with a new recording of the band’s famed power ballad “Home Sweet Home,” featuring duet vocals with Dolly Parton. (The…
From Japan to ‘Rapture’: Deep Purple Remix, Expand Albums from Mk. II and VIII Line-Ups
Two very different albums from Deep Purple’s long history will be remixed and reissued this summer: 1975’s Made in Japan and 2005’s Rapture of the Deep. Coming from Rhino on August 15 – 52 years since the first of the concerts represented on the original LP were staged – a new super deluxe edition of Made in Japan, spanning 5CD/1 Blu-ray or 10 LPs, offers new mixes by Steven Wilson of the original album and the complete trio of concerts it came from, complete with bonus encores and a few original single edits. The band’s…
The Weekend Stream Extra: A Guide to ‘MTV Unplugged’ on Paramount+ (Part 5)
Welcome to a special Sunday feature of The Weekend Stream, which takes a look at one of MTV’s great live music programs thanks to a recent reissue of one of its best-known episodes. We’re running a five-part deep-dive on every episode of MTV Unplugged that’s currently streaming on the station’s parent streaming network Paramount+! (Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 can be read here, here, here and here.) The turn-of-the-millennium shot in the arm afforded to MTV by a big-budget teen-pop explosion and the channel’s eventual 20th anniversary in 2001 – growth not immediately deterred by the explosion…
The Weekend Stream: June 21, 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 classic film score gets remixed for a major anniversary; a modern jazz great reunites two-thirds of a classic rock band; and it’s funny how time flies for Tears for Fears. All this, plus morsels of news on potential reissues from Bruce Springsteen and Duran Duran, and two tributes to singers we lost this week. John Williams, JAWS (Original Motion Picture Score – Remastered) (Back Lot Music) (Apple /…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 20
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. Christopher Cross, Christopher Cross: Expanded Edition (Omnivore) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Omnivore will offer an expanded reissue of the self-titled debut album from Christopher Cross, the unforgettable 1979 release that became a commercial juggernaut and propelled the unlikely star to the music business’ upper echelon. The CD or 2LP release features 11 bonus tracks such as the rare non-album single “Mary Ann” and a…
To Cut a Long Story Short: Spandau Ballet’s Early Years Compiled for New Box
A new box set will trace the early years of U.K. New Wave icons Spandau Ballet – offering three formats in one package. Everything is Now – Vol. 1: 1978-1982 will collect albums, singles, live material, demos and videos from the group’s earliest period as a 6CD/Blu-ray/2LP set. The box will offer new vinyl pressings of the band’s first two LPs, Journeys to Glory (1981) and Diamond (1982); collections of 7″ and 12″ material from each album on CD; a rare full remix of Diamond issued on a 12″ box set edition of the album…
Just Squeeze Me: Craft Collects Miles Davis’ 1955 Prestige Sessions on “Miles ’55”
Following last year’s release of Miles ’54: The Prestige Recordings, collecting the legendary trumpeter’s 1954 sessions, Craft Recordings is turning the clock forward to Miles Davis’ 1955 with – what else? – Miles ’55. Due on August 22 in various formats including 3 LPs, 2 CDs, and both standard and high-resolution digital, Miles ’55 will bring together sixteen recordings cut by Davis at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Hackensack, New Jersey for the Prestige label. Ashley Kahn (author of Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece) observes in the…
Grab the Next Train: Marshall Crenshaw’s ‘From the Hellhole’ Collects Remixed EP Tracks
Having gained control of his first two Warner Bros. albums and partnered with Yep Roc to get expanded editions back in print, power-pop hero Marshall Crenshaw will next revisit his celebrated mid-2010s EP material with a new compilation this summer. From the Hellhole is essentially a resequenced, expanded version of #392: The EP Collection, a 2015 album drawn from tracks he’d recorded in his home studio from 2012 to 2015 and released on various 10″ EPs distributed in limited quantities to independent retailers for Record Store Day. Those discs included re-recordings of…
This Shark’ll Swallow You Whole: New ‘JAWS’ Soundtrack Reissues Are Surfacing
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 rising up from the depths 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 available digitally this Friday, June 20 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)….
Feel My Way: Omnivore Goes Grunge with Green Apple Quick Step 2-CD Anthology and Vinyl Reissues
Omnivore Recordings has announced that the label is going back to the ’90s with three upcoming titles from Seattle grunge band Green Apple Quick Step. The 2-CD Dizzy: The Medicine Label Anthology is due out on July 25. It contains both of the band’s albums for the label as well as several bonus tracks. In addition, each album is going to be released individually on vinyl. Founded in 1992, Green Apple Quick Step’s members included lead vocalist Tyler Willman, guitarists Daniel Kempthorne (a.k.a. Daniel J. Travanti of The Briefs) and Steve Ross,…
Love Will Keep Us Alive: Cherry Red, Esoteric Reissue Jim Capaldi Tribute with Steve Winwood, Pete Townshend, Cat Stevens, Joe Walsh, More
Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings has revisited the 2007 concert release Dear Mr. Fantasy: A Celebration for Jim Capaldi in a new 2CD/1Blu-ray edition. Following the singer-songwriter-drummer’s death on January 28, 2005 at the age of 60 from stomach cancer, many of his friends came together on January 21, 2007 at the Roundhouse in London’s Camden Town to pay tribute and support one of his favorite charities, The Jubilee Action Street Children Appeal. This release preserves that extraordinary evening with Capaldi’s former Traffic bandmate Steve Winwood, Yusuf Islam a.k.a. Cat Stevens, Pete Townshend,…
Iconoclassic Plans Happy the Man’s First Two Albums, Dwight Twilley’s ‘Old Time Rock & Roll’ on CD Debut
It’s going to be one hot summer for Iconoclassic Records, who’ve got remastered editions of two prog rock classics and the first official release of a late period Dwight Twilley release coming to CD this summer. On July 4, Iconoclassic will reissue the first two albums by Happy the Man: their 1977 self-titled debut and 1978’s Crafty Hands, originally released on the Arista label. (HTM have become prog’s Taylor Swift of sorts, securing the master rights to these albums themselves to license to the label.) Formed in Harrisonburg, Virginia, the group was influenced…
Love is the Seventh Wave: Sting Digital Deluxe Editions to Make CD Debut in Japan
Starting in 2021 and continuing annually, albums in Sting’s solo catalogue have been reissued with bonus tracks for various anniversaries. This year, fans have asked themselves if that will continue, and, perhaps, if this material will ever receive a physical release. The answers appear to be “yes” and “yes, if you’re willing to import from Japan.” On July 11, Universal Music Group Japan will issue SHM-CD editions of the former Police frontman’s …Nothing Like the Sun (1987), The Soul Cages (1991), Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993) and Brand New Day (1999) with bonus discs of B-sides, remixes and edits – along…
Pieces of My Life: Elvis’ L.A. Recordings Anthologized in New Box Set
Last year’s Elvis Presley box set was Memphis, devoted to the King’s lengthy history with recording studios in the Tennessee city that became his home. Ahead of another annual Elvis Week at his Graceland estate, the next box set will trace his connections to a recording studio on the West Coast. Sunset Boulevard, available August 1, is a 5CD set featuring Presley’s work at RCA Records’ Studio C in Hollywood – one of the more important studios he’d record in through his final recording years in the 1970s. Like Memphis before it, the…
The Weekend Stream Extra: A Guide to ‘MTV Unplugged’ on Paramount+ (Part 4)
Welcome to a special Sunday feature of The Weekend Stream, which takes a look at one of MTV’s great live music programs thanks to a recent reissue of one of its best-known episodes. We’re running a five-part deep-dive on every episode of MTV Unplugged that’s currently streaming on the station’s parent streaming network Paramount+! (Parts 1, 2 and 3 can be read here, here and here.) The seventh and eighth seasons of MTV Unplugged aired in 1996 and 1997, which were sort of its last years as a regular program. By then, the show locked into a comfortable…
The Weekend Stream: June 14, 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. This week we’ve got it all, from Bakersfield country to Billy Joel on Broadway; actors who sing and singer-songwriters who act in short films; Tony Joe White going disco and Josh Groban’s hits going super-size. You’ll find something to love – we guarantee it! Wynn Stewart, Songs of Wynn Stewart (Capitol Nashville) (Apple / Amazon) After starting his major label career in the mid-’50s on Capitol, country singer/songwriter Wynn Stewart…
A Second Disc Interview: Timothy J. Smith Forges a New Path with SuperVisible
If you’ve been reading The Second Disc for some time, you know that one of our highlights is The Weekend Stream, our spotlight of catalogue material that makes its way – either first or primarily – to streaming and download services. The TSD team has the shelves to prove our love of CDs or vinyl, but the joy of discovering a lost classic or future favorite from the past is what really drives us, and The Weekend Stream is run in that spirit. And it might not run at all if not…
Release Round-Up: Week of June 13
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. Grateful Dead, Gratest Hits (Grateful Dead/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Rhino assembles a single-CD or single-LP, nine-song Gratest Hits [sic] from Grateful Dead, marking the band’s 60th anniversary with the original studio versions of such classics as “Truckin’,” “Sugar Magnolia,” and “Touch of Grey.” Read more here. Neil Sedaka, Sedaka’s Back [Expanded Edition] (Neil Sedaka Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Neil Sedaka remasters and reissues the 1974 Rocket Records…
Where to Now, St. Peter? Elton John’s RSD-Exclusive Rainbow Theatre Live Album Gets Wide Release
An archival live album from Elton John, released earlier this year for Record Store Day, is getting a wider release this summer. Live from the Rainbow Theatre with Ray Cooper will come back to LP as well as bow on CD and digital on July 25, featuring all 12 tracks from the original release plus one extra, a disc-closing rendition of “Goodbye.” The British piano pop icon, who released the collaborative studio album Who Believes in Angels? with Brandi Carlile in April, curated the album, drawn from six stripped-back dates at the London venue….
You Can’t Sit Down: Craft Offers Rare Memphis Soul in Concert on ‘Stax Revue: Live in ’65!’
The Southern soul of Stax Records truly knew no boundaries. This summer, a classic instance of its staying power, recorded live in concert, will be revisited on a new 2CD/2LP set. Stax Revue: Live in ’65! expands a pivotal pair of concerts undertaken at the 5-4 Ballroom in Los Angeles 60 summers ago when the Memphis label – newly bolstered by a distribution deal with Atlantic Records – took several of its marquee acts to the West Coast (many for the first time) for a spirited club set packed with favorites by…
Laughter in the Rain: “Sedaka’s Back” Returns on CD, LP, Digital Formats
Near the end of their Grammy-winning, chart-topping 1975 rendition of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield’s “Love Will Keep Us Together,” Toni Tennille threw in an ad-lib not written by lyricist Greenfield: Sedaka is back…! Indeed, the singer-songwriter who had begun his career in 1957 was enjoying a new string of successes including his own No. 1 that same year, “Laughter in the Rain.” Tomorrow, Friday, June 13, Sedaka’s own label will reissue the Rocket Records album which relaunched his career in America. An expanded edition of Sedaka’s Back will arrive on CD,…
In Memoriam: Brian Wilson (1942-2025)
The passing of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson on June 11, 2025 – just two days after the loss of another singular titan of ’60s pop/rock, Sly Stone – obviously hits Team Second Disc and all our treasured readers hard. Here’s a brief tribute from Mike to a man who could hear (and create) music like no other. There are really two things I want to get out of the way in talking, briefly, about Brian Wilson. I could go on at length about his raw talent: the ways every person on…
In Memoriam: Sly Stone (1943-2025)
“I am everyday people,” boldly proclaimed Sly Stone on Sly and The Family Stone’s 1968 chart-topping single. “I am no better and neither are you/We are the same, whatever we do/You love me, you hate me, you know me and then/You can’t figure out the bag I’m in…” Using straightforward, direct language, a penchant for nonsense words that nonetheless carried weight (ooh-sha-sha, scooby-dooby-dooby, boom-laka-laka-laka), and the funkiest grooves ever to find their way to a vinyl platter, the artist born Sylvester Stewart pointedly commented on the era in which he lived. Leading…
These Magic Moments: Omnivore Collects Doc Pomus Demos on New Box Set
Over a career spanning five decades, Doc Pomus – born Jerome Solon Felder in 1925 – penned some of the most memorable songs of all time: “Viva Las Vegas.” “Save the Last Dance for Me.” “Lonely Avenue.” “Can’t Get Used to Losing You.” “Sweets for My Sweet.” “This Magic Moment.” “Hushabye.” With hits performed by the likes of Ray Charles, The Drifters, Andy Williams, Dolly Parton, Bobby Darin, and, of course, Elvis Presley, Pomus’ songs transcended genre and era. Bob Dylan dedicated his 2022 book The Philosophy of Modern Song to Pomus,…
The Kinds U Find in a Secondhand Store: Paisley Park Celebration Hints At Posthumous Prince Releases
This weekend’s digital release of another unreleased Prince track could indicate the gears of the late artist’s estate could start moving once again. At a panel for the annual Celebration fan event in and around Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis and Chanhassen recording complex Paisley Park, representatives for the estate and distributing partner Legacy Recordings discussed potential box sets, vinyl releases and digital initiatives – as well as some frank discussion on the infamously-canned Ezra Edelman documentary for Netflix. Present at the panel were Prince Legacy LLC’s L. Londell McMillan, Charles F. Spicer,…