This week, rock band Linkin Park released their fourth studio album, A Thousand Suns. The results are, sad to say, not pretty; since 2007's Minutes to Midnight, the California rap-metal band has become more of an angsty Depeche Mode-lite with U2 aspirations and a guaranteed spot on every soundtrack to a Transformers film. Maybe it's the middle school nostalgia talking, but they were something else when they first burst onto the scene a decade ago. Chester Bennington, the throaty lead singer,
This May Be the Contents of the CHIC Box: Or, Can Anyone Speak Japanese?
Thanks to funk ambassador Donald Cleveland for this tip: a Japanese Web site called Disk Union has published what looks like a preliminary track list for Warner France's upcoming CHIC box set. Though it's not final - and the other text, being loosely translated from Japanese to English, isn't quite coherent or more descriptive than anything else we've read, it looks like some genuine rarities are going to be in this set, including excerpts from one particularly tantalizing unreleased
Tartare and Cameo Parkway Heat Up: Morris Day, Ric Ocasek, Dee Dee Sharp, Dino, Desi & Billy On Tap
On September 9, The Second Disc sadly reported on the axe falling on more of the beleaguered Rhino Records staff, and the company's plans to delve further into the on-demand CD realm. One such initiative is the Tartare imprint being offered by WMG/Rhino in conjunction with Collectors' Choice Music. Another 20 Tartare titles are on the way from Collectors' Choice, and this group again spans decades, from the 1950s through the 1990s. Track listings are not available (indeed, not every title has
Friday Feature: "The Naked Gun"
It was a show so ridiculous, it'd make you wonder how it made the airwaves. It boasted some of the most out-there moments and uproarious sight gags on television. It was consistently funny, no matter how many times you watched an episode. Naturally, it was canceled. I'm of course talking about Police Squad!, the madcap spoof of police dramas that aired for six episodes on ABC in the spring and summer of 1982. Despite its creative pedigree - it was created by Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David
Labor Day Special Reissue Theory: Stephen Schwartz and James Taylor, “Working”
The Second Disc Archives are open! We're reprising this look at a musical which united the talents of Stephen Schwartz, James Taylor, Mary Rodgers, Micki Grant and Craig Carnelia, while our story also features "appearances" along the way by Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Warnes and Rupert Holmes! Welcome to our Reissue Theory special: Working! On Monday, September 6, 2010, America celebrated its 128th Labor Day, all but the first 12 of them recognized as a
"TNG" Box Boldly Goes Where Few Have Gone Before
Film Score Monthly has announced its fifth box set, and like the others, it's quite an undertaking: Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project collates 14 discs' worth of music from the famous television series plus a heap of other Trek goodies from composer Ron Jones. Jones, best known for some surprisingly notable scores to animated television works (including the Disney cartoons DuckTales and Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers along with turns on Family Guy), composed scores to 42
"Beauty and the Beast" Reissue Adds Something There That Wasn't There Before
Given The Walt Disney Company's notorious penchant for avoiding most soundtrack releases on CD - Michael Giacchino's score to Up is probably one of the few Oscar-winning scores in history to never have been pressed on CD, and Randy Newman's Toy Story 3 soundtrack is another digital-only affair - it's nice to see Walt Disney Records reissuing the soundtrack to Beauty and the Beast, one of their crowning achievements, on CD once more. However, it's far from the best presentation the music has ever
Review: Frank Sinatra, "September of My Years"
Frank Sinatra was always one to face the world head-on. So it was with his turning 50. The man who had pioneered the “concept album” with a string of themed records for Capitol began thinking of an LP that would allow him to plant his feet squarely in the present, 1965, and reflect with every ounce of experience he’d acquired in the many lives he’d led over a mere 50 years. The album that would become September of My Years began its life inspired by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “September
The Porpoise is Waiting No More: Monkees Flick Hits Blu-Ray
Hey hey! Attention all readers! We take a break from our regularly-scheduled coverage of audio reissues to bring you news of an important music-related video release: the Blu-Ray debut of the Monkees’ 1968 surreal film odyssey Head! With the Criterion Collection’s November 23 release as part of a massive box set dedicated to the films of BBS Productions, Head makes its eagerly-awaited appearance on Blu-Ray. (The box set will also be available in the DVD format.) To call Head a trip is to put it
Visit Hollywood, 1962, with "Billy Barnes' L.A." from Kritzerland
In his interview with The Second Disc, producer Bruce Kimmel promised to reissue some long-lost musical revues among Kritzerland’s future releases; he makes good on his word with Monday morning’s announcement of the 1963 Los Angeles cast recording of Billy Barnes’ L.A. Billy Barnes’ L.A. opened on October 10, 1962 at that city's Coronet Theatre, still in use today as part of the Largo music and comedy club. It was recorded the following January at the legendary United Recording Studio on Sunset
Friday Feature: The Rocky Story
Today saw the release of the widely-hyped The Expendables, in which Sylvester Stallone gathered as many action movie heroes, past and present, and shoved them all into a film. By all accounts, it doesn't seem to have worked as well as it could have. And that's more or less latter-day Stallone for you. (Seriously, have you seen Rambo?) With that in mind, this week's Friday Feature takes you to a simpler time. A time where Stallone was a young actor with a dream, which he turned into a
Tartare Mega-Post: 20 More Titles Now Available
You've got to hand it to the folks at Collectors' Choice Music: when they launch a new catalogue initiative, they don't mess around. After an initial offering last month of 10 releases on the new Tartare imprint, CCM has just announced a further 20 titles to bolster the budding Tartare lineup. The genres covered in this batch are incredibly diverse: from folk songs to groovy psychedelia, polkas to 1990s jangle pop, deep soul to disco, jazz to country. In short, there really is something for
The Second Disc Interview #2: From Hollywood, It's Bruce Kimmel!
Producer, director, writer, actor, composer, lyricist, raconteur – any and all of those words could be used to describe Bruce Kimmel. After helping to launch the Varese Sarabande label over thirty years ago and christening its still-ongoing soundtrack series with his score to The First Nudie Musical (which he also wrote, co-directed and acted in), Kimmel founded the Bay Cities label. Between 1989 and 1993, he and his Bay Cities colleagues were among the very first to reissue classic film
The Second Disc Interview #1: A Soulful Chat with Harry Weinger
It is with the greatest pride that The Second Disc presents its first-ever interview, bringing you closer to the catalogue music world we all love so much. Our first interviewee is one of the most notable names from the world of reissues. Harry Weinger, vice-president of A&R for Universal Music Enterprises, has been part of the music business for more than 30 years, writing for publications like Rolling Stone, Vibe, Billboard and Cashbox before becoming a staff writer for PolyGram's
Back Tracks: Burton and Elfman
It turns out the reissue of Batman wasn't the only Danny Elfman-related catalogue news at this year's San Diego Comic-Con: Elfman shared at a panel discussion that Warner Bros. is planning a box set devoted to the composer's longtime collaboration with director Tim Burton. It's not much of a surprise that such a set would happen. Burton and Elfman's collaboration is one of the strongest director-composer bonds in Hollywood. And while neither men are collaborating with the kind of urgently great
Back Tracks: The Apple Tree, Part II - The Beatles, Sort Of
What has it been, two weeks since The Second Disc promised a continuation of our Back Tracks series regarding the Apple Records discography? Regardless of the gap, it's time to continue our look back. Part 1 covered all the previous reissues of the records that are to be reissued in October. Part 2 will cover all the Apple releases that involve The Beatles; by this, we mean anything that had a Beatle involved by name.* (For the sake of clarity, we're not including anything actually by The
More Score to Adore
With no shortage of catalogue film score news and announcements in the past week, The Second Disc adds to that with two releases from Intrada and a few rumblings about La La Land. First, the releases: Lalo Schifrin's score to the newspaper drama The Mean Season and George Delerue's fanciful score to the Glenn Close comedy Maxie, both released in 1985, are getting their first-ever releases as part of Intrada's Special Collection. Both albums feature a new sequencing experiment for the label: big
"Batman," "Krull" to Be Expanded by La-La Land
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AdEHOta-Uc] La-La Land Records has announced its next batch of catalogue soundtrack reissues - and they're two big names to fans of '80s action/fantasy films. Danny Elfman's iconic score to the 1989 film version of Batman and James Horner's music from Krull (1983) are getting lavish expanded releases for the month of July. Batman, part of La-La Land's Expanded Archival Collection series, will feature, for the first time ever, the full score as
Back Tracks: Rupert Holmes
“If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain”…Come on, you know how it goes, sing along…“If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain…” So goes the song that got Rupert Holmes into the record books as singer/songwriter of the last No. 1 hit of the 1970s and the first of the 1980s. While it may be the most famous song penned by the idiosyncratic artist/composer/producer (and collaborator of artists ranging from Streisand to Sparks!), it’s merely the tip of the iceberg for Rupert
Aretha on the Quad
Apparently Rhino's reissue of Chicago's debut LP in quadraphonic stereo was a success, because the label has commissioned another title for the same deluxe treatment: the 1973 compilation The Best of Aretha Franklin. This set features some of The Queen of Soul's biggest hits for Atlantic, including "Respect," "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman" and "I Say a Little Prayer." A few rarities abound, as well: "Rock Steady" is presented in an extended form exclusive only to the quadraphonic
Review: "Promises, Promises: Original MGM Broadway Cast Recording"
The Fourth of July isn’t usually a holiday known for gifts. But your humble reviewer felt as if he got a gift, and what a gift!, on July 3 when Kritzerland’s limited edition deluxe 2-CD reissue of the original cast album of Promises, Promises (KR 20015-9) arrived in the mail. As a result, much of the weekend was spent listening to an album I’ve known for years, but hearing it as if for the first time. For background on this release, see The Second Disc’s post of June 14 and join us after
Friday Feature - "Jaws: The Revenge"
Let's get the facts out of the way first: Jaws: The Revenge (1987), the third sequel to one of the best horror films of all time, is terrible. It is quite possibly the worst movie ever made. It is so bad that I once watched the film with a friend and we ended up taking a break (with the film, not with our friendship, though that could have just as easily happened). The plot is ludicrous: Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary), the widow of Roy Scheider's heroic police chief from the first two Jaws films,
Prince Week Day 5: Prince in Other Places
Prince's influence has been discussed far and wide, from fashion to music videos to the actual, Hendrixian quality of his guitar playing. But it's always unusual when the mercurial purple genius decides to directly contribute to another artist's canon, particularly since one really never knows where he's going to end up next. What follows is a chronological list of ten of Prince's most interesting "guest appearances." Half of them are actual guest appearances, the other half either songs he
Prince Week Day 3: He Would Die 4 U
This particular installment of Prince Week is an unorthodox one. The Second Disc is usually a place for just catalogue type stuff, since that is the gateway to most of our feelings about classic music. But sometimes the feelings themselves are worth writing about, if they're particularly strong. It's with this in mind that The Second Disc presents a bit of an emotions-based look at Prince's music. The following (admittedly lengthy) essay is something I've worked on for a few years in college,
Friday Feature: Prince on Film
The Second Disc reader Robert Altman was predicting the future when he suggested a week devoted to Prince a few days ago. Prince - one of the most polarizing and intriguing figures to ever saunter onto the pop music scene - deserves reams (or gigabytes, in this case) written about his music and its impact, and The Second Disc promises to deliver in that regard. From this Friday to next Friday - going right through Prince's 52nd birthday on Monday - TSD will present a few features on Prince's