As reported by a whole bunch of sources, it looks like Universal will be reissuing Derek and The Dominos' immortal album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs for its 40th anniversary. Derek and The Dominos was Eric Clapton's way of getting out of the limelight following his tenure in Cream and Blind Faith. The guitarist just wanted to play, rather than face the adulation he was getting from critics and fans ("CLAPTON IS GOD," said the famous graffiti tag), and he joined up with organist Bobby
Review: Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, "Collaborations"
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,
UPDATE: Helplessly Hoping for Stills DVD-A Remaster?
With its scheduled release date now mere days away, has Rhino U.K. pulled the plug on the CD/DVD-A remaster of Stephen Stills' 1970 solo debut of the same name? As of the morning of September 4, the Amazon U.K. listing was revised to show the set as "Temporarily out of stock," while the release date was baffingly changed to January 1 (!), 2010. By evening, the "DVD-A" of the title had been replaced with "DVD." While the mystery isn't yet solved, it's likely that Stephen Stills won't be shipping
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:
"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
Release Round-Up: Week of November 2
Another week, another batch of reissues! Wings, Band on the Run: Special Edition (Concord) After reissues of John Lennon's solo catalogue and the Apple Records discography, another Beatles-oriented campaign kicks off with a new reissue of Band on the Run, Paul McCartney and Wings' classic LP. It's the first of his classic discs to be re-released on Concord, and will be available in a wide variety of formats. (Best of all, it's the first drop in the bucket - an insert inside the sets
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
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
Friday Feature: "Psycho" Sequels
Back in May, The Second Disc did a Friday Feature on the chilling, iconic and somehow commercially unreleased score to Alfred Hitchock's Pyscho, written by Bernard Hermann. With Halloween approaching (and a killer screening of Psycho planned tonight at New York's Film Forum), what else is there to write about? Those of you with particularly steel-trap-like memories may recall a set of sequels - sequels! - to the film, released in the 1980s. If that weren't inexplicable enough for you, they
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
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 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
Release Round-Up: Week of October 26
And now, here it is: the catalogue titles coming to your local stores this week. Various Artists including James Taylor, Billy Preston and Badfinger, The Apple Records remasters (Apple/EMI) This year's Beatles remasters are remasters of albums on The Beatles' short-lived Apple label. There's a lot of great, varied stuff to be hand across many genres. There's 14 individual remasters plus a new compilation with some other hard-to-find tunes (Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records), not to
Stooges Live Show, Out-of-Print Box Set Unearthed (UPDATED 10/25)
For a band that nobody seemed to care about when they were together, The Stooges have really done alright for themselves. All three of their major studio albums have been reissued multiple times to varying degrees of acclaim. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year for their contributions to the early punk rock scene before anyone knew exactly what punk was. And Rhino is planning a few Stooges-oriented holiday gift ideas to close out a banner year that saw
Tell Us About It: Analyzing the Potential Billy Joel Slate for 2011
It's no surprise that Legacy's intention to reissue the Billy Joel catalogue in 2011 has been met with a lot of enthusiasm and expectation. For better or worse, Joel has been one of the most intriguing artists in the American rock canon: he found success writing deceptively traditional pop songs in an AOR era, he performed them from behind a piano, he used that talent to springboard a relationship with one of the hottest supermodels in recorded history and - unlike nearly all of his
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