Madonna, You Can Dance (Single Edits) / Rain (Warner/Rhino) Dance: iTunes / Amazon Rain: iTunes / Amazon Rhino keeps digitally uploading intriguing stuff from Madonna's single and remix catalogue, and this month saw two such releases: first, a bundle of mixes surrounding the Erotica favorite "Rain," then this week, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of remix album You Can Dance, an upload of the rare promo version that found all the tracks unmixed and edited to single-ready
The Island Records Years
The Island Records Years is an in-depth look on 9 CDs at the first decade-plus of Robert Palmer's solo work for Chris Blackwell's legendary label cut between 1974 and 1985. In addition to all of Palmer's studio and live albums from that time, six of the nine discs boast a total of 25 non-LP bonus tracks, remixes, demos and more. (The set is billed as "newly mastered by Phil Kinrade at AIR Mastering using digital sources provided by the Universal archive"; in 2013, Edsel reissued these albums
Give Me the News: Edsel Preps New Box Set of Robert Palmer Classics
For as long as CD reissues have been a thing, Robert Palmer's catalogue has been crying out for some real respect. The late blue-eyed soul singer, only 54 when a heart attack ended his life in 2003, has been in real need of rediscovery - and efforts to rebuild his discography for the modern age are few and far between. Next year, U.K. label Edsel will throw their hat in the ring (again) with a deluxe box set of his most famous work. The Island Records Years is an in-depth look at the first
Release Round-Up: Week of November 11
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, That Holiday Feeling! (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Real Gone Music) Real Gone Music presents a newly-remastered and expanded edition of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme's 1964 Christmas classic That Holiday Feeling! This new edition adds eight bonus tracks including all three of Steve and Eydie's songs from the 1969 RCA
An Interview with Scott Davies, Rubellan Remasters' One-Man Band
Scott Davies has learned a lot on the job. Once toiling in the business of IT, music fans now know him as the singular creative force behind Rubellan Remasters - the sole curator, engineer, designer and distributor of a handful of CDs covering respected catalogues by New Wave/alternative acts including Visage, Missing Persons, Divinyls and most recently Oingo Boingo, the alt-rock band led in the '80s and '90s by future film composer Danny Elfman. From 2021 to the present Rubellan remastered
It's Only a Paper Moon: Cherry Red's El Imprint Celebrates Director Peter Bogdanovich on New Anthology
Writer-director Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022) rose to fame as part of the "New Hollywood" movement of cinematic auteurs. While these maverick filmmakers shattered conventions and reshaped film to modern sensibilities, many had a deep and abiding love of the medium - and perhaps none more so than Bogdanovich. The onetime film critic and Museum of Modern Art programmer wrote extensively about Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks; shot The Last Picture Show in black-and-white; and
Release Round-Up: Week of November 4
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today! Billy Joel, Live at Yankee Stadium (Columbia/Legacy) 2CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Billy Joel's Live at Yankee Stadium, originally released on video, is getting a major makeover. The concert film, shot on June 22 and 23, 1990, has been restored and remixed from original audio and video elements for a 2CD/Blu-ray
Only the Strong Survive
Bruce Springsteen's new release, subtitled Covers Vol. 1, finds The Boss reinterpreting some of his favorite R&B songs including The Commodores' "Nightshift," Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)," Tyrone Davis' "Turn Back the Hands of Time," 4 Tops' "Seven Rooms of Gloom," The Temptations' "I Wish It Would Rain," and the Jerry Butler/Kenny Gamble/Leon Huff title track. He even indulges a bit of blue-eyed soul with Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio's "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore." Sam
Try to Remember: Stage Door Brings Rare "The Fantasticks" Mexico City Cast Album to CD
On May 3, 1960, The Fantasticks opened at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York's Greenwich Village. The intimate, eight-actor, two-musician musical by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt continued to light up the Sullivan Street stage until January 13, 2002 by which time it had earned the moniker "The World's Longest-Running Musical." Appropriately enough, the Playhouse closed along with the show- its 19th century Greek revival rowhouse home turned into glass-windowed luxury condominiums -
She'll Be Thunder: Tina Turner's "Break Every Rule" Goes Deluxe in November
Last year, Parlophone revisited Tina Turner's 1989 triumph Foreign Affair in a deluxe edition. Now, the label is turning the clock back to 1986 for a similar presentation of the artist's equally incendiary Break Every Rule. The 1986 album will be reissued on November 25 as a 3CD/2DVD box as well as on vinyl and as a 2CD expanded edition. Break Every Rule followed Turner's 1984 solo breakthrough, the four-time Grammy-winning Private Dancer (itself reissued as a 2CD Deluxe Edition in 2015).
England Rocks: Demon Collects Ian Hunter's CBS Years on 2-LP Set
Ian Hunter departed from Mott the Hoople in 1974, having guided the band from hard rock to glam through seven studio albums and such hits as "All the Young Dudes," "Honaloochie Boogie," "All the Way from Memphis," "Roll Away the Stone," and "The Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll." Upon leaving Mott, Hunter jumped into a solo career that continues to this day, having produced nearly two dozen studio and live LPs. Now, Demon Music Group is celebrating one period of Hunter's career with a 2-LP
Don't Be Afraid: Cherry Red, Esoteric Collect Keef Hartley Band's Complete Albums on "Sinnin' for You"
Drummer Keith "Keef" Hartley started his professional career rather auspiciously - replacing Ringo Starr in Rory Storm and The Hurricanes when Ringo was enlisted for duty with a certain fab foursome. Hartley went on to play with The Artwoods as well as with John Mayall before forming his own group. The Keef Hartley Band played at Woodstock and released six albums - five studio and one live - between 1969 and 1972 on Decca's "progressive" Deram imprint. Hartley would then release one solo LP
In Memoriam: Anita Kerr (1927-2022)
Tennessee native Anita Kerr (born Anita Jean Grilli) was only in her early twenties when her eight-voice choir achieved a spot on WSM Radio, venerable home of the Grand Ole Opry. Her weekly broadcasts led to a call to join "Mr. Country Music," Red Foley, in the recording studio for "Our Lady of Fatima." Foley's tune became a No. 16 Pop hit in 1950, and from there, Anita Kerr's career took off to the stratosphere. The Second Disc has just learned of the
Release Round-Up: Week of October 7
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of new releases arriving in stores today! John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band, Greatest Hits (Iconoclassic) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Iconoclassic offers the first-ever anthology from rock-and-roll revivalists John Cafferty and The Beaver Brown Band. Its 16 tracks encompass all nine of the band's chart hits (including "On the Dark Side") as well as fan favorites from the Eddie and the
Release Round-Up: Week of September 23
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Joni Mitchell, The Asylum Albums (1972-1975) (Elektra/Rhino) 4CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 5LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Joni Mitchell's Archives campaign rolls on with this new 4-CD or 5-LP box collecting four of the inspirational singer-songwriter's most acclaimed and beloved studio albums, all recorded for David Geffen's then-new Asylum Records label: For the Roses (1972), Court and Spark (1974), and The
An Orchestral James Bond Collection Finally Gets Its Shot
James Bond has been a suave secret agent on screen for 60 years - so an official musical companion getting delayed several years is nothing, right? Bond 25, an orchestral survey of the pop themes that have accompanied every picture based on Ian Fleming's Agent 007, is finally heading to stores this Friday, September 23, after a delay just slightly longer than the release of the most recent Bond film, 2021's No Time to Die, the fifth and final outing for Daniel Craig in the lead role.
Go Back, Jack, Do It Again: Steely Dan's Discography Gets Overhaul from UMe, Analogue Productions
Between 1972 and 1980, Steely Dan - the loose unit of like-minded musicians and singers led by songwriter-producers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen - released seven albums on the ABC and MCA labels. While Steely Dan was never a "singles artist," charting just three top ten hits, the band's albums were era-defining affairs; six of their LPs have attained at least Platinum status in the United States, with the seventh respectably going Gold. Now, that epochal catalogue defined by immaculate
Release Round-Up: Week of September 16
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today! Miles Davis, That's What Happened 1982-1985: The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 (Columbia/Legacy) 3CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP Highlights: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The 3-CD box set (also available digitally) focuses on Miles Davis' final years at the Columbia label with which he had been associated since 1955 and on the three albums that closed out his
The Second Disc Guesses the 'Thriller 40' Track List
It's hard to know what a Michael Jackson event release looks like today. For one, the King of Pop is very much dead; for another, November's impending release of Thriller 40 is the third reissue of the bestselling album. Are the vaults empty? Is the estate stingy? (This is, after all, the same Jackson estate that bizarrely changed the font on the cover, got very defensive about it, yet changed it again, with a new slipcase. Also, the upcoming Mobile Fidelity vinyl edition may have gotten the
Dee-Lightful! Stage Door Reissues, Expands Johnny Burke's "Donnybrook!"
"Dee-lightful Is the Word" for Donnybrook! The 1961 Broadway musical was based on Maurice Walsh's short story "The Quiet Man" which had famously been adapted by director John Ford and screenwriter Frank S. Nugent into the Academy Award-winning 1952 film of that name. The story and film had all of the ingredients of a successful musical, with a colorful Irish setting, larger-than-life characters, and vivid romance. Ultimately, Donnybrook! lasted just 61 performances at the 46th Street Theatre
Build Me Up, Buttercup: Cherry Red Collects The Foundations on "Am I Groovin' You"
When "Baby, Now That I've Found You" reached No. 1 on the U.K. Singles Chart in late 1967, The Foundations became the country's first multi-racial band to score a No. 1 single. The irresistible tune by Tony Macaulay and John MacLeod also topped the chart in Canada and peaked just out of the top ten in the United States, inaugurating a brief period of success for the groundbreaking group. The Foundations are well-remembered today for both "Baby, Now That I've Found" you and the Macaulay/Mike
Behind the Mask: Eric Clapton's '80s and '90s Studio Work Included in New Vinyl Box
A forthcoming vinyl box set will chronicle the highs and lows of Eric Clapton's solo career in the '80s and '90s, from pop-adjacent player to triumphant elder statesman. Rhino's The Complete Reprise Studio Albums Volume 1 will include six of Slowhand's LPs issued between 1983 and 1998 - from Money and Cigarettes to Pilgrim - as well as an eight-track selection of non-LP live tracks and B-sides that includes two unreleased songs. Nearly every album (save Money and Cigarettes) has been pressed
Sock It To Me, Baby: Ace Celebrates Bob Crewe on "Whatever You Want"
Yesterday, we looked at Ace Records' recent anthology dedicated to West Coast producer Gary Usher. Today, we're heading east... Stanley Robert Crewe of Newark, New Jersey studied architecture and tried his luck as a fashion model before turning full-time to music. Though the handsome young man was a teen idol-in-the-making, he found his truest calling behind-the-scenes. With writing partner Frank Slay, Crewe gifted "Silhouettes" to The Rays and "Tallahassee Lassie" to Freddy "Boom Boom"
Moment's Notice: John Coltrane's "Blue Train: The Complete Masters" Due in September
John Coltrane only recorded one album for Blue Note as a leader. 1958's Blue Train, featuring all original compositions plus one standard, would come to be overshadowed by the saxophone great's very next recording: the groundbreaking Giant Steps for Atlantic. But as a document of Coltrane in his hard bop period, Blue Train remains a top-notch record. Now, it's returning to vinyl, CD, and digital formats on September 16 in a variety of editions. Blue Train: The Complete Masters joins Blue
In Memoriam: Lamont Dozier (1941-2022)
We at The Second Disc are not musicians. Well - I don't want to speak for Joe, but outside of an enthusiastic karaoke night every now and again, I am not a musician. But I obviously think of what it takes to mix brain power and artistic expression so brilliantly in the creation of a song, as well as the struggles that every artist faces when trying to "make it." Earning a living is one thing, sure, but so is the magic of connecting with a friend or a stranger through a song of your own creation.
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