Influential thrash-metal band Anthrax were celebrated in the U.K. this week with The Island Years, a new budget box set combining four of their most notable albums, plus a bevy of bonus material. The New York City-based quintet, dubbed one of metal's "Big Four" alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer, earned early accolades in the mid-1980s, signing to Island Records and garnering fans for their intense musical style and accessible, non-serious image. The band's colorful MTV-style
Review: Paul Simon, "The Complete Albums Collection" and "Over the Bridge of Time"
I. Hello Darkness, My Old FriendMore than 45 years ago, Paul Simon dramatized a journey “to look for America” in the song boldly and simply called “America.” Over 3-1/2 gorgeously elegiac minutes beginning with hymn-like vocalizing, Simon abandoned conventional song structure and rhyme to portray two young people searching for the heart of this promised land. The conversational lyric is both deceptively simple and densely packed. Optimism (“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes
Review: Tony Bennett, "Live at the Sahara: Las Vegas 1964"
It's been a busy week for Tony Bennett, one of the few artists today for whom "legendary" truly applies. Bennett, 87, supported the release of Live at the Sahara: Las Vegas, 1964 as well as the digital release of his entire Columbia Records catalogue with a "digital day" for the books. Bennett engaged in a HuffPost Live Chat, took questions on Twitter via the hashtag #AskTony, shared videos on Facebook, and even participated in a reddit AMA. Here's to the next 87, Tony! Though named for
Soundgarden's Sub Pop Years to Be Remastered and Expanded
Acclaimed grunge outfit Soundgarden are revisiting their years on the Sub Pop label with a new remastered compilation due in November. Before they burst onto the national scene with 1991's Badmotorfinger, the Seattle quartet (featuring vocalist Chris Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and - at first, bassist Hiro Yamamoto, ultimately replaced by Ben Shepard in 1990) started off their career with a pair of EPs for the famed local label. 1987's Screaming Life, recorded with
La-La Land Unleashes "Dead," "Black Beauty"
La-La Land's soundtrack reissues this week include a title that's perfect for Halloween and an offbeat score by a composer normally responsible for music that's perfect for Halloween. That latter title is the first up this week: in 1994, Danny Elfman - known best for his offbeat scores for Tim Burton (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, countless others) - was commissioned to write a soundtrack for Warner Bros.' adaptation of Black Beauty, the acclaimed
Special Review: Joe Grushecky, "Somewhere East of Eden"
As these words are being published, we're in Day 10 of the U.S. government shutdown, with no end apparently in sight. Could Joe Grushecky have picked a better time to release his seventeenth and latest solo album, the poltiically-charged and socially-conscious Somewhere East of Eden (Schoolhouse/Warner Nashville 2-535518, 2013)? Grushecky has always evinced that he cares deeply for America, and for its citizens - particularly the blue-collar, working class. On Eden, the rootsy
Don't Cry for Yesterday: Duran Duran EP to Be Reissued for Record Store Day
While Duran Duran don't appear to be reissuing The Wedding Album for its 20th anniversary like we suggested, they will be celebrating the album's legacy with a special reissue on Record Store Day. Birmingham's favorite pop band will reissue 1993's No Ordinary EP on 10" white vinyl for Record Store Day's Black Friday event in North America. Beyond the success of singles "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone," both Top 10 hits off the band's seventh studio album, Duran Duran - at the time, comprised
Personality Crisis: "Lipstick, Powder and Paint" Reveals New York Dolls' Inspirations
“While I was layin’ in a hospital bed/A rock ‘n’ roll nurse went to my head/She says, ‘Hold out your arm, stick out yo’ tongue/I got some pills, boy, I’m ‘a give you one!” It was no surprise that The New York Dolls – crown princes of debauchery, seventies-style – would include a cover of Bo Diddley’s oddly jaunty 1961 single “Pills” on their 1973 debut album. While The Dolls – lead vocalist David Johansen, rhythm guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, lead guitarist Johnny
Classic CCR Box Set Choogles Back Into Print
A box set of Creedence Clearwater Revival's official studio and live discography, first released in 2001, is getting reissued again for the holiday box set season. Creedence Clearwater Revival was a six-disc set collecting all of the Southern (by way of California) rock band's studio albums - Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968), Bayou Country, Green River, Willy and the Poor Boys (all 1969), Cosmo's Factory, Pendulum (both 1970) and Mardi Gras (1972) - along with both of their posthumous live
Review: The Paley Brothers, "The Complete Recordings"
If The Brill Building had survived as the fulcrum of pop songwriting activity through the 1970s, chances are that Andy and Jonathan Paley would have been found in a cubicle there, turning out one infectious pop nugget after another like “Come Out and Play” and “Here Comes My Baby.” As it turned out, the category-defying Paley Brothers were men out of time. Singers as well as songwriters, they were signed to the Sire Records roster between the Ramones and Talking Heads, and managed to bridge
Intrada Conjures Up Magic, "Miracle"; Kritzerland Returns to "Alien Nation"
This week has seen some great archival soundtrack releases courtesy of Intrada and Kritzerland - all featuring some big names in the film score world. Kritzerland's latest title is already shaping up to be a hot one: a greatly expanded double-score reissue from the cult classic Alien Nation. This 1988 film featured James Caan and Mandy Patinkin as partnered cops in a future Los Angeles where a race of aliens, called Newcomers, have landed on Earth and have done their best to fit in with our
Interview: Going Full Circle with Richard Barone of The Bongos
Richard Barone, frontman for New Jersey-based power-pop act The Bongos, describes his career as centered around the theme of "full circle." This year, Barone has revisited a lot of captivating and familiar territory from his lengthy career. The Bongos were the closing act at legendary Hoboken club Maxwell's in July, having (as members of the band "a") been the venue's first act. Onstage, they announced the release of a "lost" Bongos album, Phantom Train, recorded primarily at Compass Point
Review: The Alan Parsons Project, "I Robot: Legacy Edition"
How to follow an art-rock concept album based on the macabre tales of nineteenth-century author Edgar Allan Poe? For The Alan Parsons Project, the answer was apparently a simple one: look forward rather than back. So the second album by the progressive-rock "group" - in actuality producer-engineer Parsons, chief songwriter-executive producer Eric Woolfson, and a rotating cast of musicians and vocalists - was inspired by the writing of Isaac Asimov and explored artificial intelligence in a
Review: Claudia Lennear, "Phew!"
Claudia Lennear might have spent much of her career 20 Feet from Stardom, as per the acclaimed documentary of that title. But on her 1973 Warner Bros. solo debut album, the onetime background singer and member of Leon Russell’s Shelter People was front and center. That LP was titled Phew!, perhaps not the most likely name for a heady brew of funk, rock and soul by the striking singer who gave inspiration to both David Bowie and Mick Jagger. But “Phew!” is an accurate expression of relief now
Baby, It's Burt: "The Warner Sound" and "The Atlantic Sound" Compile Rare Bacharach Tracks
In his 85th year, Burt Bacharach has kept a pace that would wear out many a younger man. In addition to performing a number of concert engagements, the Oscar, Grammy and Gershwin Prize-winning composer has released a memoir, continued work on three musical theatre projects, co-written songs with Bernie Taupin and J.D. Souther, and even penned a melody for Japanese singer Ringo Sheena. Though Bacharach keeps moving forward, numerous releases this year have looked back on his illustrious
The Discs (Are Out Tonight): Bowie's Newest LP Expanded to Three-Disc Set
Of all the comeback stories in 2013, perhaps none may have been more intriguing than the master of comebacks, David Bowie. The legendary rocker kicked off his 66th year with a surprise announcement: his first album of new material in a decade. Recorded in secret over a two-year period with producer Tony Visconti, The Next Day was met with critical acclaim - our own Joe Marchese called it "an angry, electric exploration of where he is now, where he was then, and where he will likely be...not a
Back to Ocean Boulevard: Eric Clapton's "Give Me Strength: The '74/'75 Recordings" Expands Three Vintage Albums
What’s better than one deluxe edition of an Eric Clapton album? How about three? And how about if they’re housed in one package? On November 26 December 10, Universal Music Group will unveil the 5-CD/1-Blu-ray box Eric Clapton – Give Me Strength: The '74/'75 Recordings, featuring remastered and expanded versions of 461 Ocean Boulevard, There’s One in Every Crowd and E.C. Was Here, plus additional material and a Blu-ray of surround mixes. Housed in a hardbound 60-page book, the box set is an
Hey, Ho, Let's Go: Rhino Boxes Up Some Ramones Records on CD
Rhino continues its affordable/collectible album box set streak with New York's own Ramones. The Sire Years 1976-1981 is just that: a box collating Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy and (from 1978's Road to Ruin onward) Marky's first six albums for Seymour Stein's label - three hours of classics from one of the defining bands of the punk rock movement. Ramones (1976), Leave Home, Rocket to Russia (both 1977), Road to Ruin, the Phil Spector-produced End of the Century (1980) and Pleasant Dreams (1981)
It's a New Reissue, Charlie Brown! Classic Christmas LP Expanded Again (and Reissued Again!)
UPDATE (9/27/2013): If you missed this remaster of A Charlie Brown Christmas (which we later reviewed) last year, fear not: it's being released again - same disc, same master - with special "Snoopy Doghouse" packaging on October 22, 2013. That version can be bought by clicking the image above. ORIGINAL POST (8/23/2012): Around Second Disc HQ, it's hardly a Christmas season without good friends and family, beautiful decorations, and classic holiday music. For this holiday, a new CD edition of
Review: Harry Nilsson, "Flash Harry"
When Harry Nilsson's The RCA Albums Collection was finally unveiled earlier this year by Legacy Recordings, many finally stood up and took notice of the gifted singer-songwriter whose art deftly blended the high and the low, the angelic and the devilish, the euphoric and the melancholy. That astounding box set included each one of Nilsson's albums for the RCA label - in other words, his entire solo discography save one album. And now, that final missing link is finally here, on CD to join its
RPM Rescues "The Sixties Sounds of Tim Andrews" On New Anthology
Will the real Chris Andrews please stand up? Well, that’s easier said than done. Singer/songwriter Chris Andrews is known for penning hits such as Sandie Shaw’s “Girl Don’t Come” and “Long Live Love,” but there’s another Chris Andrews who rose to prominence during the same era – and also did so in Swingin’ London. This man of the same name recorded with The Gremlins and The Fleur de Lys, and sang the lead on the 1967 hit U.K. single “Reflections of Charles Brown,” issued under the name of
Gary Moore is "Back on the Streets" with Bonus Tracks
In addition to more reissues from Thin Lizzy, Universal U.K. will reissue the first solo album by one of the band's guitarists, Gary Moore. Back on the Streets, released by MCA in 1978, was, on a technicality, Moore's second solo effort, after 1973's Grinding Stone, released by CBS and credited to The Gary Moore Band. Prior to that album, Moore at the age of 16, played guitar in the Irish psych-blues outfit Skid Row, led by a young Irishman named Phil Lynott. Though Lynott was dropped from the
American Tunes: Legacy Announces Complete Paul Simon Box, New Single-CD Anthology [UPDATED 9/24]
UPDATED 9/24/13 [UPDATES IN BOLD TO ORIGINAL POST OF 8/19]: And here’s to you, Mr. Simon. There isn’t much that Paul Simon hasn’t accomplished in his 50+ years as a professional musician, singer, and songwriter. Born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Queens, New York, Simon has racked up 12 Grammy Awards, an Emmy, a Kennedy Center Honor, the first-ever Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and Academy Award, Golden Globe and Tony nominations. That’s not to mention being one-half of the most
East Meets West on Kritzerland's Reissue of "Rising Sun"
Kritzerland's latest soundtrack reissue marks the full release of the underrated score to 1992's Rising Sun by legendary Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu - his first and only assignment for an American film. Part murder mystery, part diplomatic treatise, Rising Sun was the first novel released by bestselling author Michael Crichton after the blockbuster release of Jurassic Park in 1990. The film version, starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes as two cops investigating the brutal death of an
Stamp of Genius: New Ray Charles Compilation Coming to the Post Office (and Beyond)
Tomorrow sees the release of a new compilation of tunes by the late, great Ray Charles, to commemorate his latest posthumous achievement: a stamp from the United States Postal Service.Ray Charles Forever is far from your typical hits-packed compilation; the biggest "hits" of note are Charles' takes on "America the Beautiful" and Leon Russell's "A Song for You," for which Ray won a Grammy for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance in 1993. The songs on display run the gamut of his entire discography
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 363
- 364
- 365
- 366
- 367
- …
- 443
- Next Page »