The Second Disc did a run-through earlier this month concerning Universal Music Enterprises' "Rarities Editions," repackagings of the second discs of various Universal Deluxe Editions. Some of them were worth it if you avoided buying the Deluxe Edition before, but a few lacked the bonus tracks that were on some of the deluxe titles' first discs. However, they must have been enough of a success for UMe, because another seven in the series have been announced for April 27. Thus, it would be worth
News Round-Up: Broken Wings, Hendrix Rocks, Phish in Exile and Film Score Tidbits
A big reissue is coming from indie reissue label Friday Music: a 25th anniversary reissue of Welcome to the Real World, the 1985 sophomore LP by Mr. Mister. This record, which spawned the Top 10 hits "Broken Wings," "Kyrie" and "Is It Love," is remastered direct from RCA's original master tapes and comes in a digipak. (No bonus tracks, but outside of a dance mix and dub for "Is It Love," there were none, really.) Amazon has this one listed for an April 20 release. (Thanks to Pause & Play for
Reintegration
Hooray! Slicing Up Eyeballs reports that the triple-disc reissue of Disintegration by The Cure seems to finally have a release date. The reissue press release was recently posted to The Cure's official site with a May 24 release date from Polydor/Universal in the U.K. Hopefully this means a May 25 release from Rhino in the U.S. will be locked down before long. There have been far too many inexplicable delays of '80s reissues in the States lately. Stay tuned as always for more!
No-Brainers
One of the biggest unasked or unanswered questions about The Second Disc is: why catalogue stuff? Is the site meant to conjure up memories of musical generations past? Is it trying to remind labels that their back catalogues should be treated with the utmost care in conjunction with their burgeoning new acts? Is there something else about it? The answers are maybe, yes and yes. At heart, though, The Second Disc has more to do with journalism than anything. Journalism, they say, is the first
Broken Promises, Broken Habits
This is getting ridiculous. Duran Duran's EMI reissues have suffered yet another delay - the third or fourth this year. The deluxe editions of Duran Duran and Seven and the Ragged Tiger, previously set for March 30 and April 20, have now been bumped to May 18. This complements the recent news that the next wave of reissues - covering Notorious and Big Thing - will hit stores on July 6 instead of the planned June date. (The deluxe reissue of side-project Arcadia's So Red the Rose is still set for
Back Tracks: Squeeze
If The Second Disc has any European readers, allow me to express my intense jealousy that Squeeze, one of the best British pop bands I can name, is embarking on a tour in your neck of the woods later in the year. It pleases me that Squeeze is not an unknown entity in the United States (the first Squeeze concert I partook in, at Radio CityMusic Hall in 2008, looked pretty sold out), but ask any casual or younger music fan and you'll likely get blank stares. This may change if you sing a few bars
Reissue Theory x4: Chaka Khan (and Rufus Too)
The Second Disc is a day late (but no less enthusiastic) in wishing Chaka Khan, The Queen of Funk Soul, a happy birthday. Chaka has had, to say the least, an illustrious career, first as a member of Rufus then as a wildly successful solo artist in the late '70s and '80s. What is the secret to Khan's ongoing popularity? Chalk it up to three things. First, there's that powerhouse voice - at once sensuous and celebratory. There's also the great sounds she surrounds her vocals with, whether it's
Lena Horne Soars, The Lion Roars
As previously mentioned, Hip-O Select had yet another release up their sleeve: Lena Horne Sings: The M-G-M Singles Collection. It's a set of 16 early Lena Horne classics cut for M-G-M Records in the '40s and '50s and largely unavailable on CD until now. There's a heap of standards, including "'Deed I Do," "Where or When," "I've Got the World on a String" and "The Lady is a Tramp," plus liner notes from Horne biographer James Gavin. Pre-order it here and hit the jump for some specs (culled
Rick James Coming Into Your Life Again
Just a day after readying a deluxe edition of Meet the Supremes for the world, Hip-O Select comes through with a pair of out-of-print Rick James titles. Fire It Up (1979) and Garden of Love (1980) are both making their way to CD (the latter being pressed on CD for the first time) with a few bonus tracks. The original artwork will be replicated for each and complemented with liner notes by Yale music professor Michael Veal. Links are here and here and full song specs are below. Rick James -
Devo's "Duty" Has a Tracklist
Amazon has posted the tracklist for the upcoming reissue of Devo's Duty Now for the Future coming from Warner Bros. The band's sophomore LP is getting a CD and vinyl reissue on April 13, just in time for Record Store Day, and it'll feature five B-sides as bonuses. Check it out after the jump!
Insanity, Bohemian-Style
Legacy recently hipped their Facebook fans to the pre-order page for the double-disc Legacy Edition of This is Big Audio Dynamite, the 1985 debut LP by Big Audio Dynamite. Led by Mick Jones, who was at the time recently fired as guitarist of The Clash, BAD was quite the stylistic melting pot, fusing punk with reggae and club music and garnishing it with samples aplenty. The new edition, released for the album's 25th anniversary, includes an extra disc of rare and unreleased remixes. Have a look
Re-Meet the Supremes
Although the track list was up and running at Amazon some time ago, Meet The Supremes: Expanded Edition is finally up for pre-order from Hip-O Select. And this two-disc set has a lot of rarities for Motown fans. The set has the original stereo and mono versions of the LP, a four-song set from the Apollo Theater in 1962 (touted by Universal as "the earliest known Supremes live recording"), seven more live tracks from 1964 and more than a dozen unreleased alternate takes. The packaging looks
Reissue Theory: Various Artists - "Soup for One: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"
There may not be enough positive words to write about Nile Rodgers. The sole surviving member of The CHIC Organization (which included bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson), Rodgers helped shape the sound of late '70s and early '80s pop and R&B, either as a performer with CHIC, a producer - often alongside Edwards - for Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, Madonna and others or even as a sampled artist (see The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
Never Gonna Give You Up. No, Really.
In a move that proves that any reissue is possible, or at least probable, the Edsel label has set an April 13 release date for expanded reissues of Rick Astley's Whenever You Need Somebody and Hold Me in Your Arms. Yes, you are reading this right. You are also reading correctly that each reissue will be two discs with expanded liner notes by Pete Waterman Entertainment, Ltd. expert Tom Parker. More info is here, here and here and a detailed tracklisting for each is after the jump.
Every Day Should Be Record Store Day
And perhaps it is, depending on how often you buy from one. The fourth annual Record Store Day is happening in less than a month (April 17) but already a lot of releases have been announced for the occasion. Best of all, there are some neat releases for catalogue fans out there, too. You can have a look at the full list here, but here are some of the neatest catalogue offerings coming on Record Store Day. Devo, Duty Now for the Future (1979) (Warner Bros.) As previously mentioned, Devo's
Back Tracks: Alex Chilton
A potentially embarassing confession: it took the death of Big Star frontman Alex Chilton for me to realize just what I knew about him. I knew his name was the title of a Replacements song (thanks, Rock Band), I'd known of Big Star thanks to the justifiable hype over last year's box set from Rhino and I'd known a handful of his most famous, very solid compositions that he either wrote or popularized ("Thirteen," "The Letter," "In the Street") through inevitable cultural osmosis (thanks, That
Reissue Theory: Howard Jones, "Dream Into Action"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IT&hl=it&v=ZZEGHnAxEpo] Predicting the future is a tough game. While the above video - a possibly-not-entirely-live performance by Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby and Stevie Wonder at the 1985 Grammys - probably looked like the future of music some 25 years ago, it seems a little, shall we say, overdone in hindsight. But nobody will ever stop predicting the future - certainly not here at The Second Disc, where (ideally) every day
Still Your Dog
After a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and an upcoming reissue of their most iconic record, what more can The Stooges pull from their back catalogue? Not surprisingly, there's an answer: Rhino Handmade is prepping a two-disc reissue of the band's 1969 self-titled debut LP. Of course, as you may have read last week, the album already was given a double-disc reissue by Rhino in 2005. This set ups the ante by presenting a complete, alternate mix of the record and several unearthed songs. The
Slightly Cynical News Round-Up
To the surprise of almost nobody and the anguish of '80s catalogue fans, EMI has again reshuffled the dates for the next batches of Duran Duran reissues. Duran Duran, Seven and the Ragged Tiger and Arcadia's So Red the Rose are set for April 20 in the U.S. (note that the U.K. March 29 date for Duran and Tiger still stands - impatient fans, go for an import if you can). Additionally, Notorious and Big Thing will street on July 6, not June 7. Phil Collins hinted to The Rock Radio that more
Back Tracks: U2
Is it inherently lazy to do a U2 post on a music blog for St. Patrick's Day? Whether it is or not, it's done for two reasons. First, since The Second Disc is all about reissues, it's worth tipping a hat to Universal's ongoing series of U2 reissues. They have been some of the best on the market in recent years. The packaging is nice, the content is comprehensive and groundbreaking (in other words, the fan gets all those hard-to-find tracks he or she is looking for plus a score of vault material)
News Round-Up: Disintegrated, Devo and Lena Horne Unearthed
Chain of Flowers reports that the upcoming expansion of Disintegration by The Cure still lacks a release date. In a related story, ARRRRRRRGH. Amazon is taking pre-orders for a reissue of Duty Now for the Future, Devo's 1979 sophomore album. This title, due on April 13 (presumably with bonus content), follows the deluxe versions of Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and Freedom of Choice released last year. Hip-O Select tweeted a tease for an upcoming release: "Lena Horne did 16 singles on MGM
Reissue Theory: - Public Enemy, "Fear of a Black Planet"
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Fear of a Black Planet, the third album by hip-hop legends Public Enemy. Billboard did a great write-up about the album's impact after two decades, which dovetails rather interestingly into a highly-recommended recent documentary I had the pleasure to see last week. The film, Copyright Criminals, is a thought-provoking look into the rise of sampling in music and the ongoing legal challenges faced by samplers. Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, as well as
Cratediggers
Inspiration comes from strange places. My latest bout would never have happened if it hadn't been for a burst water heater. That part of the story's not worth recounting - suffice to say that a new carpet had to be installed in the basement - but while my family began moving furniture back downstairs, I made a crucial discovery: a shelf full of records and tapes that I'd never bother to look through. As we put the boxes back in their place, I intended to take a cursory glance through the
Back Tracks: ABBA
Continuing the Rock and Rall Hall of Fame coverage leading up to Monday night's induction, here is another catalogue retrospective for one of the artist inductees. In his latest book, 2009's Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman includes an essay praising ABBA for their intriguing critical status (contending that, like AC/DC, ABBA's work never operated near relevance or irrelevance, thereby guaranteeing that it will have a more lasting impact) as well as their somewhat unusual commercial
Back Tracks: The Stooges
We continue our ongoing Rock and Roll Hall of Fame pre-game coverage by looking back at another batch of reissue offerings from one of the inducted artists. The Stooges were one of those bands that were in the right place at the wrong time. Their music was raucous and energetic, their antics were nothing short of ostentatious. But when they rolled onto the scene in 1969, they really had no place in the rock music landscape behaving the way they did. Sure, other big rock bands of the day were