We continue our Prince week with a little something for the fans out there that may have never caught on to His Royal Badness enough to buy any of his music. Often times, in cases where you want to get a firm start on following an artist, a greatest-hits compilation is the way to go. But Prince, like many other rock legends, has more than one such set on the market. And money's tight for a lot of folks. So which one do you end up buying? Follow the jump for a detailed breakdown of each one.
It Might Be (The Soundtrack for) You
The Film Score Monthly label has prepped another two titles for release: two very different scores from two different composers, but winners both. First up is Jerry Goldsmith's in-demand score for the Sean Connery space Western Outland (1981). Goldsmith created a score that resembled his suspenseful approach to Alien from two years before, and it was augmented by some last-minute additions by Michael Boddicker (Buckaroo Banzai, Flashdance and session work for Michael Jackson) and Morton Stevens
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
Take Them On...Later
Another quick update on a catalogue reissue: Rhino has pushed back the shipping date of the upcoming Deluxe Editions of a-ha's Hunting High and Low and Scoundrel Days to July 6 in the U.S. and August 6 in the U.K. All together now: noooooooooooo.
Reissue Theory: "Born in the U.S.A.: The Remixes"
I'm not sure how old I was when I learned what a remix was. I certainly didn't have a childhood of going through 12" singles and hearing alternate, longer versions of my favorite pop songs. But I do know that when I first started realizing that songs would be edited for radio (or extended for single consumption), my mind was blown. This increased tenfold with the discovery of remixes through the '80s. Say what you will about the music at that time, some of it was made better by remixing on
Clouds on the Horizon
Even though The Second Disc is primarily geared toward catalogue matters, I'd be doing myself a disservice by not paying attention to music as it stands in the present day. There's a trend I've been trying to wrap my head around on the tech side of music, one which could actually have spectacular implications for catalogue works if done properly. They're calling it "the cloud" - mobile, streaming music services that keep the music on a server instead of directly downloading it to your computer.
Paul Simon to Embrace His Legacy
It may not be as big a news item as Paul McCartney shifting his solo catalog from sinking ship major EMI to rising indie Concord, but Paul Simon has told Showbiz411’s Roger Friedman of his plans to move his entire output from Warner Music Group to Sony/Columbia. Or more accurately, back to Sony/Columbia. Simon recorded his very first solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook, for Columbia’s U.K. arm in 1965, and of course, the entire Simon and Garfunkel catalog has long resided there. When Simon and
Back Tracks: WHAM!
The great thing about most reissues over the past few years is that labels seem to want to follow one rule: if they can reissue it, they will do their best. Of course there are people out there who like, say, Cutting Crew or a-ha - but who could have seriously predicted that labels would be open to the idea of reissuing those records with bonus cuts and all that? Of course, this rule makes some of the great bands without reissues - Prince, The Go-Gos, that one Buckingham Nicks album - look like
In Defense of Playlist
In today’s radically-changed music climate, it should come as no surprise that record labels are trying many different series and business models to figure out just what the heck will sell. These releases aren’t necessarily aimed at the audience reading this site, most often targeting the casual music buyer. As such, these greatest hits series – whether Sony’s The Essential…, Universal’s 20th Century Masters or EMI’s Classic Masters, just to name a few – tend to be scorned by many collectors as
Reissue Theory: Tears for Fears, "Elemental"
One of the hardest parts of being a reissue fan is waiting. Sometimes a project will get announced, then delayed or cancelled outright. Those long gaps between reissues can be irksome, particularly when the delay time fails to lead to any improvement or innovation in the packaging and presentation of a catalogue title. Other times, though, the reason behind the lack of a reissue is simply that nobody thinks to re-release it. Take, for instance, one of the better bands of the 1980s - Tears for
Boldly Going Back
Man, it's been a good week for Star Trek music enthusiasts. First Film Score Monthly announces a brand-new deluxe reissue of James Horner's score to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock last week. And now, Varese Sarabande has jumped ahead on the Trek timeline to give fans another new deluxe set: starting June 14, the label will ship Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition, featuring the complete score to last year's fantastic reboot of the sci-fi series. As if the movie wasn't great enough on its own
The Second Disc State of the Union
Readers: we need to talk. It's nothing bad. The Second Disc isn't going away, isn't reducing its output, nothing like that. We just need to talk about a few things. Around five months ago, The Second Disc was started with a list of great reissues that were released in 2009. It was a post copied from a Facebook note written some weeks before. A modest beginning, to be sure. It's hard to have high expectations about anything you're just starting out on, particularly a blog. How many blogs must
Back Tracks: Billy Idol
Lately, I've been unable to turn the radio dial to a rock-oriented radio station without happening on the music of Billy Idol. There's nothing wrong with that - Idol was one of the best artists of the '80s - but it's a bit jarring, if only because it's hard to think of Billy Idol as a rocker, in the truest sense. Sure, his music is dominated by some excellent guitar (usually from the axe of the fantastic Steve Stevens), and it has a bit of an edge thanks to Idol's irrepressible snarling vocals.
Paying the Price
Next week is going to be much more comfortable when it comes to posting on The Second Disc. After several months of bitterly typing and researching over a creaky, aging Dell PC (having lost a nearly-just-as-creaky Thinkpad T60 laptop), the weekend should see your humble correspondent upgrading to a Macbook. As a lifelong Windows user (barring my time writing and editing for my newspaper in college), it's an unusual but worthwhile transition, and I can't wait to regain simple pleasures like
Our Castle and Our Keep
After yesterday's Miles Davis pricing madness, The Second Disc brings you some much more appreciable madness, through another set of reissues by Madness, one of the best-known ska acts of the '80s. Continuing the band's ongoing reissue project, Salvo and Union Square Music has prepped the band's fourth and fifth LPs, The Rise & Fall (1982) and Keep Moving (1984), as double-disc deluxe reissues. Both sets will feature various remixes, B-sides and promo videos to boot. It's notable that The
Review: Otis Redding, "Live on the Sunset Strip"
“Are you ready for star time?” Considering that the star in question was “the one and only, Volt recording star Otis Redding," the answer was bound to be in the affirmative. That was the introduction granted Redding by emcee Al Brisko Clark at West Hollywood’s Whisky A Go Go on the evenings of April 8, 9 and 10, 1966. The Whisky was the happening nightspot on the Sunset Strip in ’66, immortalized by Johnny Rivers on a 1964 LP and frequented by a who’s who of the Los Angeles music scene. (See
The Setlist Situation
When Legacy announced a new compilation series called Setlist, featuring some of their roster's greatest hits in a live setting, some fans understandably started scratching their heads. The label's Playlist series, from which this new series obviously drew inspiration, made sense on a few levels. They were compilations priced for the budget-conscious, and sometimes had a few bones thrown to hardcore collectors in the form of single-only mixes or edits. For Setlist, however, the premise seems
News Roundup: Going for the Gold
Yet another sub-genre of the catalogue world is the audiophile reissue. Companies like Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Audio Fidelity and Analogue Productions specialize in reissuing classic titles for an audiophile audience, often utilizing the original master tapes for a release on gold CD, hybrid SACD or high-quality LP. With excellent sound quality as the main mandate, bonus tracks and new liner notes are rare on these releases which generally intend to replicate the original artwork and
From The King of the New York Streets to The Wolf King of L.A.
It seems that the Cherry Red family of labels' slogan should be "expect the unexpected." Each label is run by a different team, resulting in an extremely diverse array of offerings. Steve Stanley's Now Sounds celebrates, but isn't strictly limited to, the musical era of 1964-1972. Past reissues have encompassed such styles as harmony and sunshine pop (Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends, The Association), folk (Janis Ian), light psychedelia (Colours), "Bacharock" (The Golden Gate) and
The Trend
When The Second Disc's Exile on Main St. poll was posted, I mentioned that I had noticed a rather unusual trend in the purchase of the various deluxe sets that were available. As a member of the electronics/entertainment staff at a Target store, I was able to track a few of the big sets, some of which were only available through our retailers. Target was the only place to get the bonus disc of the deluxe edition (that is, the Rarities Edition), as well as the fan pack which bundled a t-shirt
Weekend Release Round-Up: SRV, Jayhawks, Sum 41 and More
This was a busy week for catalogue fans, what with the Elvis revelation from the other day and reactions to the new Exile on Main St. sets. Here, to close out the week, are a few announcements that fell through the cracks. The long-planned Legacy Edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble's 1985 sophomore LP Couldn't Stand the Weather now has a release date: July 27. The set will feature bonus tracks from the original recording sessions and a previously-unreleased live show on Disc 2.
Reissue Theory: Galactic Novelties
The Star Wars saga continues at The Second Disc with a trove of often-ridiculous but always intriguing musical curios devoted to the films. It's as much a story of disco and a rock legend from New Jersey as it is about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. And it's yours to read after the jump.
Friday Feature: The Star Wars Trilogy
It was three decades ago today that The Empire Strikes Back was released. Much has been written about what the movie did for the Star Wars trilogy as a cultural force (no pun intended), for sequels in general and so on. But let's not kid ourselves here: when Empire first came out, it was not seen as the masterpiece it is now. The New York Times gave this film - easily the most watchable of the three Star Wars movies - a largely negative write-up. But whatever the merit of such reviews nowadays,
Review: The Rolling Stones, "Exile on Main Street" Deluxe Edition
Few records hold the mystique of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. Myths have grown and books have been published in an attempt to explain the sprawling album. The story generally goes that 1972 found the band, literally, as tax exiles, seeking refuge across the English Channel in France. A villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer named Nellcote is rented. Music is made. Sex and drugs abound. Somehow in all this debauchery a record is produced, and that record is Exile on Main St. When Universal Music
Reissue Theory: The Smiths, "Meat is Murder"
"Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package ! Re-evaluate the songs Double-pack with a photograph Extra track (and a tacky badge)" - "Paint a Vulgar Picture," The Smiths Sometimes one wonders why a band as listenable, influential and obsessed over as The Smiths doesn't get much in the way of back catalogue treatment. Outside of a few compilations (most recently 2008's The Sound of The Smiths) and a box set of reproduced singles, that's been more or less it; the albums haven't been repressed since
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