Welcome to the first installment in a special series of holiday-themed Back Tracks in which we’ll explore an artist’s entire seasonal catalogue! When it comes time each year to create my annual Christmas mix for family and friends, it’s always an uphill battle to not open with Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” From the brassy fanfare to the upbeat chorus, it may be one of the ultimate Christmas anthems. This cherished song from the team of Edward Pola and George Wyle made its debut in 1963 on…
Back Tracks: INXS
As promised, today’s Back Tracks takes a look at the music and reissues of INXS in honor of its fallen frontman, Michael Hutchence, who died 13 years ago yesterday. Don’t change after the jump.
Back Tracks: Menken at Disney
This week will see the release of Disney’s newest animated feature, Tangled, a quirky retelling of the Rapunzel tale. As has been custom for the best of Disney’s animated features, the film will feature songs and score from Alan Menken, the musical genius who gave Disney some of its greatest music of the past 20-plus years. Menken came to Disney in the late 1980s after his musical with lyricist Howard Ashman, a peppy, Wall of Sound-inspired take on Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors, was adapted into a successful film in 1986. The…
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 Bernard Herrmann. Part of the reason for Psycho‘s longevity…
Back Tracks: Culture Club
It’s safe to say we’ve given Boy George more than enough time to realize his crime. The beleaguered singer has had more than his share of legal troubles throughout the ’90s and 2000s, and that has occasionally overshadowed the music he put out in the 1980s. This is a shame, since Culture Club was one of the better U.K. pop bands of the early ’80s. Don’t let George’s gender-bending look fool you. Heaven knows that’s become the primary takeaway for nostalgists, but there’s a lot more underneath the eye makeup and braids….
Back Tracks: Michael Jackson’s Video HIStory
It pains me to report on unsubstantiated news from the reissue world, but this one needs to be addressed in some way: TMZ reported last weekend that Sony was prepping a compilation of Michael Jackson’s music videos (allegedly titled Vision) for the Christmas rush. Yeah, it’s TMZ, not a known source of catalogue info, but they did prove their mettle in covering Michael Jackson’s death (for better or for worse), so let’s at least serve the news to you with more than a dash of salt. But let’s say, for kicks, that…
Back Tracks: Morrissey
When discussing the increasing amount of catalogue projects and compilations surrounding one Steven Patrick Morrissey, it’s easy to turn his words against him. “Reissue! Repackage!” he sings with derision on The Smiths’ “Paint a Vulgar Picture.” “Re-evaluate the songs/Double-pack with a photograph/Extra Track (and a tacky badge).” Would the man who wrote and sang that song in 1987 have contempt for the man who, on this day, has reissued his first solo compilation, Bona Drag, 20 years on, with tracks long stored in a vault? Perhaps not; since the days of The Smiths,…
Back Tracks: Laura Nyro
Laura Nyro (1947-1997) never became as famous as her songs. In an all-too-short 49 years, Nyro provided major hits for a diverse array of artists from Three Dog Night and Blood, Sweat & Tears to Barbra Streisand and most famously, The Fifth Dimension. Yet her own albums never achieved mainstream success, with audiences largely preferring to hear her compositions performed by others. (In this respect, she could be compared to her contemporary Jimmy Webb.) Perhaps this was just as well for the woman who matter-of-factly stated she was “not interested in conventional limitations.”…
Back Tracks: The Spielberg-Williams Connection
As I write this, Steven Spielberg is currently at work on his next film, an adaptation of the World War I-themed British play War Horse, due for a release a year from now. This means that, before long, composer John Williams will begin to write his 26th score for a Spielberg picture. The duo have been an almost immortal force in the film business for nearly 40 years, from their first collaboration, 1973’s The Sugarland Express, to next Christmas’ The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, for which Williams is in…
Back Tracks: The Buggles
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiJ9AnNz47Y] Famed U.K. producer Trevor Horn has done so much in his lengthy career, but his next step looks to be a revisiting of one of his most discreetly influential projects: The Buggles. Horn announced on his Web site that The Buggles – a synth-pop duo consisting of Horn and Geoff Downes – are returning in some capacity on September 28. The announcement may have been best time on August 1, a date which they will be forever identified with; on the beginning of that day in 1981, a music video they’d…
Back Tracks: The Cars
The above picture is a bit of a shock, if you haven’t seen it yet: all four of the surviving members of The Cars – Ric Ocasek, Elliott Easton, Greg Hawkes and David Robinson – in a recording studio. It was posted to the official Facebook page for the Boston-based rockers on Thursday. No caption, no explanation. Just the members of The Cars, possibly gearing up for some new music. And who’d have thought? Since the band broke up in 1988, chances seemed slim where a reunion was concerned. The death of…
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 Beatles – most of us…
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 Holmes. Over the course of…
Back Tracks: R.E.M. – The I.R.S. Years
Today, the 25th anniversary reissue of R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction hits stores. Athens, Georgia’s favorite rock band has spent the past five years or so establishing their place in the pop-rock firmament: since 2006, the band’s early recordings for I.R.S. Records – a six-year span between 1982 and 1987 – have been the center of much catalogue attention from EMI and Universal (each has a piece of the I.R.S. catalogue). The four members of the band – vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and (now-retired) drummer Bill Berry…
Back Tracks: The Apple Tree, Part I
The news of the Apple Records catalogue getting a new remastering and reissuing is one of the many catalogue stories one should file under “cautious optimism.” It is awesome to have these classic, underappreciated records from luminaries like Badfinger, James Taylor and Billy Preston back into local record shops, bearing fresh digital remasters by the team that did a pretty darn good job on last year’s Beatles remasters. But there are things we have to remember as fans. First, pretty much all of this material has been put out on disc before…
Back Tracks: Michael Jackson Part 2 – The Epic Years and Beyond
After poring through Michael Jackson’s Motown years, we commemorate the year anniversary of his passing with a look at the material he recorded as an adult for Epic Records. If the J5 material was platinum, much of this stuff is uncut diamond – and the world is eagerly waiting to see what Sony will do with this material for catalogue purposes. (A multi-album deal has been struck, with the first batch of material likely due for the holidays, alongside a new video game based on Jackson’s music.) Again, this can’t possibly as…
Back Tracks: Michael Jackson Part 1 – The Motown Years
With Friday being the year anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, The Second Disc would be at fault for not commemorating The King of Pop’s recording career and its representation through catalogue preservation. But to quote a dusty outtake from The Jackson 5, we’re gonna change our style. Your humble correspondent cannot possibly say anything about Jackson’s career that hasn’t already been said in the year since he passed away. There are plenty of other resources for such a thing – I recommend Popdose’s ongoing multi-part retrospective – but here will be simply…
Prince Week Day 6: Life in the Madhouse
In determining what was going to make up the contents of Prince Week, a great deal of agonizing was endured over where to place Prince’s many side projects. Prince, ever the purple brain trust, developed a lot of side projects over time, particularly during the beginning of his success as a pop artist. The Time, Sheila E. and Vanity 6 are still the best acts he ever squired in the early Paisley Park years, but there were plenty others that deserve a look back someday – and ultimately, the sheer volume of…
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 –…
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…
Back Tracks: The Solo Bacharach
May 12, 2012: Happy 84th birthday, Burt Bacharach! The living legend was recently the recipient, with longtime lyricist Hal David, of The Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, bestowed upon the team by President Barack Obama. In celebration of the maestro’s birthday and this great honor, we’re republishing this special installment of Back Tracks, exploring Bacharach’s solo career from 1965’s Hit Maker! through 2008’s Live at the Sydney Opera House! Age hasn’t slowed Burt Bacharach. The composer, who celebrated his 82nd birthday on May 12, has had a rather active 2010. His…
Back Tracks: Ronnie James Dio
The loss of Ronnie James Dio resounds greatly in the world of metal. The famed vocalist, best known for his time in Black Sabbath and his own eponymous band Dio, had a powerful voice that few in the hard rock spectrum could compete with. He was a prolific talent who left behind not only a lot of influences, but a lot of catalogue work from a half-century(!) of recording. That’s right: Dio first got his start way back in 1957 as a bassist for The Vegas Kings, a teen-rock outfit that saw plenty…
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 VH1 dating show Rock of Love. Fortunately, there were probably some who heard…
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