Where Barry Manilow is concerned, it's best to let the facts speak for themselves. A Grammy, Emmy and Tony Award winner, Manilow scored his first Billboard No. 1 album in 1977, his most recent in 2006. His string of hit singles extended from 1974's chart-topping "Mandy" to 1983's Top 20 "Read 'Em and Weep," with 38 songs hitting the Top 40. He's recorded over 25 studio albums and released countless more live discs, compilations and soundtracks, and regularly plays to sell-out houses after over
Friday Feature: "Dirty Dancing"
Dirty Dancing is one of those movies that, on paper, should be a massive dud. It's a painfully by-the-numbers tale - rich girl becomes emotionally, culturally and sexually liberated by a dashing stranger and the art of (you guessed it) dirty dancing - but it is one of those movies that will not disappear from the public eye. And frankly, it's not hard to see why. Yes, as a story, Dirty Dancing is nothing special. But the production is something to behold. It immortalized its two young leads,
The Sun Still Shines on T.V.
Talk about timing. With hours to go before a-ha played their first U.S. date in years, the band's official Web site revealed a delightful pair of track lists for the promised deluxe editions of Hunting High and Low and Scoundrel Days from Rhino. The sets should be ready to pre-order May 11, says the band's site, and will be in the hands of fans by June. Check out these stunning track lists and some more a-ha thoughts and treats after the jump.
Long Live Live Music
It's going to be kind of a slow day at The Second Disc, as your roving reporter has tickets to see a-ha play to a sold-out crowd in New York City. Their Ending on a High Note Tour has been a top draw for '80s pop fans, but it's also led to a lot of thought concerning concerts and what they mean to us - not just as a reissue fan, but as a lover of music in general. While The Second Disc may be a haven for all the expanded and remastered news and commentary you can shake your SACD player at, I
Review: Frank Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim, "Sinatra/Jobim: The Complete Reprise Recordings"
"Tall and tan and young and handsome..." Those lyrics to Antonio Carlos Jobim's "The Boy from Ipanema" kicked off a bossa nova boom that saw virtually every noteworthy vocalist and jazz musician of the 1960s recording in the mellow Brazilian style. Frank Sinatra, though, was hardly one to follow a trend for hipness' sake. By 1967, the label he founded, Reprise, was turning its sights to Laurel Canyon and Haight-Ashbury, and the bossa craze was on the wane. Sinatra would, as always, record on his
Reissue Theory: Version Especial por Cinco de Mayo
Today is Cinco de Mayo, so The Second Disc is going to bring you two of the most unusual Spanish-oriented pop music endeavors in recent memory. These are two deluxe editions with very different sounds, but they're connected not only by record label group but their wacky reinterpretation for Spanish audiences. Viva la musica after the jump!
Helloooooooo, Baby!
It's odd that the work of Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr., known more commonly as The Big Bopper, doesn't get reissued nearly as much as one would think. The Big Bopper was, along with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens, one of the victims of the infamous Feb. 3, 1959 plane crash - "The Day the Music Died," as any rock fan can attest - but for some reason, Richardson gets short shrift. Buddy Holly got a fantastic box set last year from Hip-o Select and Valens got a similarly expansive box in 1998. Until
Recapturing the Magic
It was during a recent, animated conversation about back catalogue affairs that a stunning realization was made. Of all the major companies dealing in music and pop culture, there is one that has a surprisingly subdued place in the world of reissues. Were this company to change their mind about catalogue affairs and start utilizing their vast discography for more box sets and other special titles, it might be a step in revitalizing the whole reissue practice in general. I'm talking, of course,
Review: "Batman - The Movie: Original Motion Picture Score"
It's somewhat ironic that a man so closely associated with the lush, timeless music of Frank Sinatra would find such great fame (or notoriety?) as a composer scoring one of the most over-the-top television series ever. Yet such was the case of Nelson Riddle, who as arranger and conductor was a chief sonic architect of Sinatra's unprecedented run of Capitol concept albums and beyond. His television credits included such groundbreaking programs as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Naked City and Route
Friday Feature: "Commando"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teSmRfAtDOU] As a forgiving film fan, I was appalled by the recent news that 20th Century Fox was planning on remaking Commando, the 1985 action flick that became Arnold Schwarzenegger's first star vehicle after The Terminator the previous year. Hollywood's fascination with remakes is too well-known, but surely someone could have drawn a line with Commando. The film has Schwarzenegger as - what else? - a one-man wrecking crew named John Matrix determined
Back Tracks: Poison
The way culture advances nowadays, it's not surprising to realize you've forgotten certain ways you might have thought or felt about a musician in particular. For instance, when singer Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital last week after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage, I'm sure many people (especially younger ones with less perspective) immediately thought of Michael's career as a reality show star - he's currently on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice and has spent three years on the abysmal
Review: Carole King, "The Essential Carole King"
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” “(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman.” “Up on the Roof.” “You’ve Got a Friend.” All of these songs have found a permanent home as part of The Great American Songbook, and all come from the pen of one Carole King. Her repertoire as both singer and songwriter is celebrated with this week’s release of Legacy’s The Essential Carole King (Ode/Epic/Legacy 88697 68257 2), the first set to focus on both aspects of King’s now 50-plus year career. Producers Lou
Boxed In
Reaction to the recently-released tracklist for John Mellencamp's On the Rural Route 7609 box set has been a bit mixed, and for good reason. It's hard to greet a four-disc box set full of album tracks and just over a dozen unreleased outtakes with a price tag of nearly $100. But it's becoming clear that there's a bigger issue here at stake than Mellencamp fans getting soaked. Friends, the entire concept of a box set is in a state of crisis. It's been a long two decades since compact disc box
Soundtrack Miracles and More
A heads-up for two brand-new releases from indie soundtrack label Intrada. This week's batch is quite eclectic: first up is Laurence Rosenthal's score to the classic 1962 film version of The Miracle Worker, available for the first time on CD. This disc is sourced from Rosenthal's own first-generation mono 1/4" tapes and produced with full support from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film's distributor. This is a limited one at just 1,000 copies, so act fast. Intrada's other release turns to the small
R-O-C-K in the B-O-X
Awesome! After what feels like years, Island Records and Universal Music Enterprises have finalized a release date and track listing for On the Rural Route 7609, a career-spanning box set from John Mellencamp. Drawing from more than 30 years of recordings, this four-disc set features 15 previously unreleased recordings, liner notes by Rolling Stone veteran Anthony DeCurtis, Mellencamp's track-by-track annotations and 72 pages of notes and photos, all packaged in a book-style case. Hit the jump
Release Round-Up: Wilde and Grey Edition
We've got a few reissue notes (in case you missed them) to start off your week. First up, Cherry Pop is prepping another batch of Kim Wilde reissues. The label re-released Wilde's RAK-era LPs - Kim Wilde (1981), Select (1982) and Catch as Catch Can (1983) to a strong reaction from her fanbase, and are now prepping two-disc editions of Teases & Dares (1984) and Another Step (1986), Wilde's first two records for the MCA label. The latter is notable for being co-produced by Rod Temperton and
Back Tracks: Paul McCartney
Every now and then a catalogue-oriented story breaks into the mainstream. This week, we've had one of those moments: Paul McCartney is moving his back catalogue distribution to Concord Music Group from increasingly beleaguered EMI. Reissues will commence in August with a new pressing of Band on the Run, his high watermark with former band Wings. Of course, for someone of McCartney's caliber, this is not the first time his albums have been reissued. EMI did a massive remastering of 16
Friday Feature: "Licence to Kill"
Recent coverage of soundtracks on The Second Disc has been warmly received. To this end, we have added a the Friday Feature. Every Friday, you'll find some sort of article devoted to a soundtrack or film composer of merit. We hope you enjoy these trips through Hollywood's musical landscape! Our first Friday Feature deals with one of the oddest of the James Bond films. No, not Never Say Never Again (that's not really a Bond film, anyway). Licence to Kill was the second and final feature with
Review: Tom Lehrer, "The Tom Lehrer Collection"
The career of Tom Lehrer is an improbable one. A Harvard mathematics instructor by day and musical satirist by night, Lehrer was never particularly prolific. His entire output amounts to around 50 songs and a handful of albums which have been repackaged over the years. Most of his oeuvre was recorded between 1953 and 1965. Yet he was the recipient of a lavish 3-CD Rhino box set collecting most of his work in one place (The Remains of Tom Lehrer, Rhino R2 79831), and with that set now
Review: Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, "Live at the London Palladium"
Leave it to Bob Dylan. In his 2004 memoir Chronicles Volume One, he writes about the experience of listening to Judy Garland: "A couple of times I dropped a coin right into the slot and played 'The Man That Got Away' by Judy Garland. The song always did something to me...listening to Judy was like listening to the girl next door." He writes of the song's composer, Harold Arlen: "In Harold's songs, I could hear rural blues and folk music...there was an emotional kinship there." He continues,
Reissue Theory: Sting, "The Dream of the Blue Turtles"
The latest issue of Rolling Stone had a cover feature about the "State of Rock: 40 Reasons to Get Excited About Music" (a cover which featured terrible pop-rap group The Black Eyed Peas, so the list was slightly less than 40). As debatable as the list might be, one item on the list was actually somewhat intriguing - up and coming band I Blame Coco, led by Coco Sumner, daughter of the irrepressible Sting. Coco is not the first Sting spawn with musical tendencies - his oldest son, Joe, fronts the
Not Quite What You Need
It might be seen as unfair to criticize the catalogue-oriented decisions of INXS. Since losing lead singer Michael Hutchence in 1997, they've tried hard to find their way - finding a new singer through a reality show, recording an album with him, prepping a new album with a rotating stable of lead singers and so on. Rhino, the label that controls their back catalogue in the U.S., has released a lot of compilations in the interim as well, plus a few reissues of their late '80s/early '90s work
La La Land Blows Up White House, Catches a Wave
Wow! Commenter ~Rupe was some sort of a prophet today when he discussed the need for soundtrack labels to repress certain out-of-print soundtracks. The second of La La Land Record's soundtrack releases today (after David Arnold's complete score to the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day) fulfills that need in spades: the label is releasing a brand-new pressing of John Williams' score to the 1972 disaster classic The Poseidon Adventure. Williams gained early mainstream recognition as the musician
Release Round-Up: Lightfoot, Queen, ID4 and More
Amazon has posted pre-order links for new remasters for folk legend (and non-dead person) Gordon Lightfoot. Wounded Bird will distribute these new releases of the LPs he recorded for Warner/Reprise, from 1970's Sit Down Young Stranger to 1998's A Painter Passing Through (pre-order links are missing East of Midnight (1983) - not sure as to why). They're due June 8. EMI has set a May 31 release date for Queen's The Singles Collection Volume 3. This replicates 13 original 7" singles (sorry dance
Reissue Theory: Neil Diamond with a Bang!
Long before he read about a frog who dreamed of being a king – and then became one – Neil Diamond was an up-and-coming songwriter in the waning days of the Brill Building. After a few unsuccessful stabs at recording in the early part of the decade, Diamond was taken under the wing of Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Bert Berns. In January 1966, the hits started coming: first “Sunday and Me” for Jay and the Americans, then “I’m A Believer” and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,” both for the
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