George Harrison…the Radical Beatle? While you’re unlikely to find that description in many Beatles reference books, it’s not all that far-fetched a description. Exhibit “A” might be the new box set released by Dark Horse and Rhino just in time for the gift-giving season. While it’s arrived somewhat under the radar compared to higher-profile sets from the McCartney and Lennon camps, the music found on George Harrison's collection of Collaborations with Ravi Shankar will sound far more radical to
New Poison Comp is Hard to Swallow
Some of us get a bit jaded about catalogue projects sometimes. Not all of us can help it, but every now and then it doesn't hurt to stop and realize why we're so upset about a seemingly pointless compilation or repackage. That seemingly useless single-disc greatest-hits set that offers nothing new for a collector might be the entry point for a new fan into a certain artist's discography, turning them into as hardcore a fan as you and me. (And let's not forget the best-kept secret - so secret
Friday Feature: "GoldenEye"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUNP9xrOBd4] A not-so-shameful confession: when not working or updating The Second Disc, your humble catalogue correspondent's free time has been occupied by playing the new Wii game GoldenEye 007, a re-imagining of the Nintendo 64 game updated for the present with a newly retooled storyline by original co-writer Bruce Fierstein and featuring current James Bond star Daniel Craig as the British spy. Though my own hardcore gaming days are largely behind me,
Twenty Years and "Ten Legs"
To celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band - a celebration that unofficially kicked off back in 2009 with a massive reissue of their debut album - Pearl Jam will release Live on Ten Legs, a concert chronicle of the band in the 2000s. Culled from shows recorded between 2003 and 2010 (many of which have been offered by the band for download or direct-burn-to-order CDs), Live on Ten Legs will be available through the band's long-running Ten Club and in indie shops on January 18. It will be
Four Tom Waits LPs To Be Reissued on Vinyl
Vinyl collectors have another batch of reissues ahead: the first four albums by rock icon Tom Waits. The distinctive singer-songwriter - recently nominated for induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - will have his first four albums for Asylum Records reissued by Rhino on December 21. Additionally, Waits' own online store is selling limited edition sets of each album on red vinyl, limited to 1,000 copies each. Reacquaint yourself with the track lists to these unique albums after the jump.
New Tom Jones Compilation is Not Particularly Unusual
Despite the title, Greatest Hits Rediscovered, a new U.K. compilation from British heartthrob Tom Jones is pretty much what you'd expect of the man - two discs of hit singles. There are no album cuts and not a lot of glaring omissions, so if you want to get someone hooked on the Welsh singer with the big voice, this set's as good as any. Greatest Hits Rediscovered is out November 8. The track list is after the jump.
New Sinatra Box Coming from the U.K.
Another massive box set coming toward collectors from the U.K.: a set compiling all of Frank Sinatra's albums for his own Reprise Records label. Half a century after Sinatra founded it himself, The Reprise Years collates mini-paper sleeve replicas of all of Sinatra's standard albums from 1961's Ring-a-Ding Ding! to 1984's L.A. is My Lady and adds a deluxe booklet and DVD of Sinatra's A Man and His Music television specials from 1965 to 1967. Most of this material has been released before;
Sentimental Journeys: Day and Vee Compilations Still on Track
It's an inevitability in the catalogue world that, despite the best intentions of compilers, producers and labels, projects often get delayed. Doris Day made headlines last week when the legendary actress, singer and animal rights activist gave a rare, lengthy interview to longtime New York radio personality Jonathan Schwartz for WNYC-FM and Sirius/XM Radio. In the interview, Day revealed an immense modesty about her impressive body of work. On August 19, we reported on a new collection sure to
Fans of Paul's "Band" May "Run" for Best Buy Exclusive (UPDATED 11/2)
It's been a very good year for Beatles fans, especially those with deep pockets! First came The John Lennon Signature Box and reissue campaign, then George Harrison's Collaborations box set preserving his work with Ravi Shankar. Last Tuesday delivered a sparkling batch of Apple Records remasters, and after months of anticipation, Concord's Paul McCartney reissue campaign finally kicks off next Tuesday with the reissue of Band on the Run. The 1973 Wings smash takes flight in four configurations:
Crom Smiles Upon Us on This Day
One of the most-requested score expansions is finally happening - but with a twist. Basil Poledouris' score to the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian has been considered by many fans and critics to be one of the best film scores of the 1980s. It's a massive, classically-minded affair - easily as massive as the film's star, Arnold Schwarzenegger - with heavy use of leitmotif to represent various locations, moods and characters. The music has been lauded by fantasy fans for years, and opened the door
"Dead of Winter" Comes This Fall
Composer Richard Einhorn may be best known for Voices of Light, his 1994 work inspired by the 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. But Einhorn has a lengthy resume in both the worlds of classical and film, successfully marrying both in Voices. On Monday, Kritzerland began taking pre-orders for a world premiere release, Einhorn’s score to Arthur Penn’s 1987 thriller, Dead of Winter. Despite Penn’s stellar pedigree and a cast including Mary Steenburgen and Roddy McDowall, Dead of Winter
On False Icons
From the very beginning, the compilation record was at once a blind cash grab and an attempt at convenience. After a handful of years buying vinyl singles, what would be the point of buying a selection of those hits? Ah yes, the extra tracks were sometimes dealmakers. And if you'd never bought said hits, it was hard to beat a tightly packed compilation disc. Times have, of course, changed. Compilations should be rendered nearly obsolete by digital downloading; retailers like iTunes and Amazon
Reissue! Repackage! Repackage! Volume #4: It Ain't Heavy, It's Our "Brothers"
Another neat recent reissue for your perusal: a deluxe box set version of Brothers, the latest release by garage-blues band The Black Keys. The Akron, Ohio duo - comprised of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney - have been on the rise since the early 2000s. Their simple, raw sound and simple sense of marketability (their tunes have featured in dozens of films and advertisements) have won them over a great amount of fans, from ZZ Top to Danger Mouse, who produced the
Dinah's Dynamic Early Singles Collected on New Box
Another set promised by Harry Weinger in his chat with The Second Disc is ready for order. The Divine Miss D! The Keynote, Decca and Mercury Singles 1943-1953 is the latest project from Hip-o Select, that collates the early songs of Dinah Washington. The Queen of the Blues began her recording career as a singer for Lionel Hampton's big band in 1943, and would earn her crown by recording a long string of singles for Mercury through the next decade. Now, for the first time in the U.S., Hip-o
The Great Purple Freak-Out
It's no secret that The Second Disc HQ holds a lot of love for Prince - remember our weeklong blitz for The Artist back around his birthday this past June? - so this bit of news is, to put it mildly, rather massive. After the jump, learn what an Australian podcast got His Royal Badness himself to say about the potential future remastering of the Prince catalogue.
Rarities Editions, Round Three (UPDATED 11/1)
Remember Universal's Rarities Edition sets? The sets that issue the bonus material of a previously-released Deluxe Edition on its own? A trio of new Rarities Edition titles will street on Tuesday, November 2, and like the last two batches, The Second Disc wants to give a clear perspective to you, the reader, as to whether they're worth getting if you never upgraded to the original Deluxe Edition in the first place. Luckily, unlike the last two batches of Rarities Editions (which had some
Halloween Special Back Tracks: Anthony Perkins
Welcome to a very special edition of Back Tracks! For this week's Friday Feature, Mike took a look back at the music of Psycho. One of the few films still retaining the power to shock and thrill after some 50 years, the repercussions of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece are still felt today. And its musical legacy, enhanced via some very controversial sequels and remakes, encompasses some of the greats, with Jerry Goldsmith, Danny Elfman and Carter Burwell all having built on the foundation laid by
Reissue! Repackage! Repackage! Volume #3: Ke$ha's "Cannibal" Instincts
Figures: try to start a new feature and it seems to be all that happens. Yet another reissue of an incredibly recent record is coming your way this holiday season - the debut by firebrand pop star Ke$ha. Kesha Sebert is one of those love-her-or-hate-her musicians on the scene today. Her debut album, Animal, is packed with inescapable pop hooks, thanks mostly to the production and songwriting talents of Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, a one-time Saturday Night Live band member who's produced hits
Reissue Theory: New Radicals, "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on well-known albums of the past and the reissues they could someday see. A wave of '90s nostalgia leads this column to look back at one of the best one-hit wonders of the latter part of the decade. The presence of The New Radicals on that NOW '90s compilation brought some memories flooding back. Remember the first time you heard "You Get What You Give"? It was insanely poppy, it sounded kind of like a U2 outtake from an era U2
A Heatwave in November
This week has been unseasonably warm around The Second Disc HQ, and while that's not particularly fun, there is news of some heat of another kind - particularly, expanded reissues of the Heatwave catalogue coming your way from Cherry Red next month. The immortal disco band, which had a string of classic dance/soul cuts in the late '70s from the pen of member Rod Temperton (who also of course wrote some instant classics for Michael Jackson in the Off the Wall and Thriller days), will see no less
Reissue! Repackage! Repackage! Volume #2: Shinedown Double Their "Madness"
Another relatively recent reissue coming down the pipeline: alt-metal band Shinedown will reissue their most recent album, 2008's The Sound of Madness, in a new CD/DVD package that's actually quite heavy on bonus material. The album, which spawned several rock hits including the surprise crossover single "Second Chance," a Top 10 hit in the winter of 2009, will be expanded with nine bonus cuts and a DVD of music videos and live performances. The bonus tracks come from a variety of sources,
Now That's What I Call Aging
It's the most inevitable irony: the people behind NOW That's What I Call Music! have finally compiled a set devoted to the 1990s - the very decade U.S. buyers started getting their own versions of the long-running pop compilation series. The first NOW volume hit stores in England in 1983, but it didn't catch on until 1998 in the States. Three dozen standard volumes later (NOW 36 is due November 9), the latest special title in the series is NOW That's What I Call the 1990s, to be released the
The Cream of Keith's Crop
As if his new memoir wasn't exciting enough, Keith Richards has also got a compilation of his greatest solo material due out next week. Vintage Vinos (or Winos - Amazon and Keith's official site say Vinos but that just seems odd) compiles tracks from Richards' two solo albums for Virgin Records as well as a live album recorded with backing band The X-Pensive Winos (which included session luminaries Waddy Wachtel and Steve Jordan). It adds one rare track, an acoustic song called "Hurricane." The
Reissue! Repackage! Repackage! Volume #1: Another Trip to "San Francisco"
Here's another new feature for your consideration at The Second Disc: reissues of classic albums are the core of our coverage, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the other, odder batches of reissues. You know, the ones that come out after a record does alright on its own, to squeeze some more juice from the rinds. It's easier to be more cynical about these sets, but everything deserves its own place. Train, much like Ken Jeong's character on the show Community, is a band that can never
The Second Disc Interview #3: What's Happening "Now" with Steve Stanley!
The music may be then, but the place to be is undoubtedly Now. By that, of course, I mean Now Sounds. Launched in 2007 by Steve Stanley, the producer of over 50 titles for the Rev-Ola label, Now Sounds celebrates the rich and varied melodies created between 1964 and 1972, though the label isn't limited to that period. A labor of love for its founder, Now Sounds has established itself as the go-to label for fans of this golden era of both songwriting and record production. We've seen a career
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