When Sony announced in September 2009 that rights had been acquired from EMI Music Publishing to reissue Phil Spector's Philles catalogue after years of neglect from the ABKCO label, great anticipation was in the air. A major campaign was planned by Sony's Legacy division with projects in development including "Artist's Playlists, Best-of collections, and first-ever releases of Philles studio rarities - as well as facsimile reproductions of original singles and albums," but since that heady
One is Not the Loneliest Number
Exactly one year ago today, The Second Disc uploaded its first post, an assessment of the best reissues of the prior year. It was taken from my personal Facebook page, which I'd been posting thoughts on music and pop culture here and there for some time. I was a college graduate working in a part-time job I was not particularly fond of, in dire need of something to fill time. After some deliberating over what a blog about reissues and box sets - my favorite kind of music - should be called
More Howard Jones Reissues on the Way
Note: in my haste I forgot to accredit the fine Addicted to Vinyl for first mentioning the Wounded Bird reissue of The 12" Album, which in turn led to my checking for new remasters and having something to report. Thanks, guys! The Howard Jones box set from late last year, which compiled remasters of Humans Lib and Dream Into Action alongside a bonus disc of vintage live cuts - was a fun if light tribute to one of the more underrated artists of the '80s. Happily, Jones' independent label, Dtox
Reissue Theory: Haircut One Hundred, "Pelican West"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on well-known albums of the past and the reissues they could someday see. Today, a semi-obscure '80s band is dusted off - particularly their harder-to-find extended remixes. Really, this is all Jeff Giles' fault. The Popdose editor-in-chief tweeted a link that '80s one-hit wonder (at least in the U.S.) Haircut One Hundred are reuniting later this month to play their 1982 debut LP Pelican West in its entirety at London's
Review: John Williams, "Home Alone: Expanded Original Motion Picture Score"
When you discuss the best modern entry into the Christmas music canon, most discussion centers on Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You." The 1994 song did a fantastic job of paying tribute to the always-excellent A Christmas Gift to You from Phil Spector (1963), bringing the Wall of Sound to the '90s, and it's lived on for over 15 years. One Yuletide tune that deserves your attention from earlier in that decade, however, is "Somewhere in My Memory," the heartwarming main theme from
Reissue Theory: Quincy Jones, "Back on the Block"
Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on well-known albums of the past and the reissues they could someday see. This week, Quincy Jones' latest mingling with a new generation of artists leads to a recollection of the first (and best) time he did it. Last week saw the release of Q: Soul Bossa Nostra, the first full-fledged studio album by Quincy Jones since Basie and Beyond back in 2000. Now, Q is one of the greatest figures in pop and soul music alive today. He's
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.
Just in Case You Had No Rolling Stones LPs on Vinyl... (UPDATED 10/12)
...or if you have no idea what to do with the $1,000 or so you put aside for gifts for that Stones fan in your family this year, you finally have an answer. MusicTAP reports that UMe's releasing a massive pair of remastered, 180-gram vinyl box sets that cover a good chunk of the band's discography. The Rolling Stones 1964-1969 features 11 of the band's ABKCO-owned U.K. studio albums, from 1964's self-titled LP to the 1975 outtakes compilation Metamorphosis, and also throws in two additional 12"
Come and Get It, In One Shot: The Apple Box Set Announced
After months during which EMI kept us all guessing, official specs were finally released for the Apple Records reissue campaign, and The Second Disc duly reported that information back on August 5. As with most projects related to The Beatles and/or Apple Corps, however, there were as many questions as answers, even after the “final” information had been posted on the official Apple website. For one thing, why downloads? Fans were sharply divided as to how they felt about the practice of
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
Short Takes: (Almost) Trackless Reissues from Sabbath, Madness and Howard Jones
With the holiday reissue bonanza in full swing, it's no surprise that announcements of expanded titles and box sets are coming in fast. Some of them, it seems, are coming in faster than the actual information behind them, like track listings and such. These next couple titles you're about to read about have nothing more than rough information about them right now, but we wanted to at least bring them to your attention when more info springs up. Hit the jump to check out some developments on 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
New Concord Reissues on the Way, None of Which Are Ray Charles-Related
From Paste magazine, we have word of a few expanded reissues due from the Concord catalogue, which will include titles by The Vince Guaraldi Trio, Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, Chet Baker and The Bill Evans Trio. Still no word on another intriguing Concord catalogue title - Ray Charles' Rare Genius: The Undiscovered Masters, supposedly due for release October 26 - but these might be of interest to our jazz-minded readers. None of these have been reported on Concord's own site
"One-Eyed Jacks" a Kritzerland Smash
The first and only film directed by Marlon Brando, the 1961 western One-Eyed Jacks isn't as well-remembered as many of the screen legend's other accomplishments. But with a cast including Brando as bank robber Rio (inspired by Billy the Kid), Karl Malden as his former partner-turned-sheriff Doc Longworth and Ben Johnson as new cohort Bob Emory, and a revolving door of screenwriters including Sam Peckinpah and Calder Willingham, One-Eyed Jacks had much to distinguish it. It was the final film
Elvis Has Left the Building: Costello's "Pomp and Pout" Postponed (Again!)
Back on June 8, The Second Disc apprised its readers of a new collection being prepped by Elvis Costello for release on the Hip-o label. Entitled Pomp and Pout, it would be the first compilation of Costello’s Universal recordings, drawing on 10 years and 18 tracks. Originally scheduled for July 13 release, it was postponed to later in July, and then to late in August. Now, with the August 24 release date approaching, it appears that Pomp and Pout has either been postponed, or pulled altogether,
The Tra-La Days Are Back: Wounded Bird to Offer Sedaka Two-on-One
Neil Sedaka famously proclaimed that "The Tra-La Days Are Over" as the title of his (unfortunately out-of-print) 1973 album. But thanks to Wounded Bird (as if the label hadn't announced a big enough bonanza for reissue fans already!), fans of rock and roll's golden age have another chance to enjoy Sedaka's days as king of the shoo-be-doos and tra-la-las. Little Devil and His Other Hits/The Many Sides of Neil Sedaka is set for release on September 7 according to Pause and Play. For an artist with
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
They've Done It Again - Delayed It, That Is
The next batch of Duran Duran reissues (Notorious and Big Thing) have been pushed back to September from July. Are you surprised? I'm not. Let's hope EMI exists by the fall. (Thanks to Slicing Up Eyeballs and Duranasty for their patient reportage.)
Obligatory a-ha Post (Plus One for The Cure)
The a-ha deluxe editions are out exclusively on Rhino's Web site. Do it now! Okay, now that that's cleared up, another brief Rhino tidbit of '80s goodness. In a sign that The Cure's Disintegration is finally coming out in its deluxe, three-disc form (on June 3), Rhino's offering a special collectible to the first 500 pre-orders - a nine-track promo disc of choice cuts from the new set entitled 3x3x3. Cure fans are not going to want to pass this one up, so head here and get 'em while they're
Reissue Theory: "Stoney and Meatloaf"
This week sees the release of Hang Cool, Teddy Bear, the 11th studio offering from Meat Loaf. The outsized rock personality skyrocketed to fame with 1977's Bat Out of Hell, the theatrical rock opus penned by Jim Steinman and produced by Todd Rundgren. As Meat prepares to unleash his latest work (cheekily placing a roman numeral "IV" on the album's back cover, making it clear that he intends Hang Cool as another Steinman-less sequel to Bat), could there be a better time for a Reissue Theory-style
Reissue Theory: Various Artists - "Soup for One: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"
There may not be enough positive words to write about Nile Rodgers. The sole surviving member of The CHIC Organization (which included bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson), Rodgers helped shape the sound of late '70s and early '80s pop and R&B, either as a performer with CHIC, a producer - often alongside Edwards - for Diana Ross, Sister Sledge, Madonna and others or even as a sampled artist (see The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash
Reissue Theory: Howard Jones, "Dream Into Action"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IT&hl=it&v=ZZEGHnAxEpo] Predicting the future is a tough game. While the above video - a possibly-not-entirely-live performance by Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby and Stevie Wonder at the 1985 Grammys - probably looked like the future of music some 25 years ago, it seems a little, shall we say, overdone in hindsight. But nobody will ever stop predicting the future - certainly not here at The Second Disc, where (ideally) every day
Channel One
There's a lot of older music fans out there who would give anything to "bring things back" - whatever that might mean to them. Bring it back to the days of radio hits, record stores and so on. Optimistic though we may be, we're pretty much resigned to the fact that most things aren't going to revert back to the way they were. One notable exception exists in the catalogue world, though: it's a simple four-letter word that is quite literally changing the way we listen to our older music. It's
News Round-Up: Meet The Supremes (Again), Costello Clues and More Stones
Amazon has posted the track list for Hip-o Select's upcoming deluxe reissue of Meet The Supremes before Hip-o Select actually did. Read it here and expect an analysis here soon. It seems that Japan is getting a SHM-CD release of Live at Winterland, San Francisco by Elvis Costello and The Attractions in June. It'll be out on Universal, but not part of The Costello Show series of live material. Will it end up part of the series in America? Doubtful, since the show was recorded only a few days
That's Why They've Done It Again (UPDATED 3/4)
A break from the usual weekend radio silence to report on a very exciting story over at Slicing Up Eyeballs: EMI's Dutch Web site has added reissues of Duran Duran's Notorious and Big Thing to their catalogue schedule. Both titles have a release date of June 7, and will ostensibly serve as companion pieces to the great, recent deluxe editions of the Duran discography (Rio and a vintage live show, Hammersmith '82, were released last fall, and 2 CD/1 DVD versions of Duran Duran, Seven and the
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