Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! John Williams and The Boston Pops, The Complete Philips Recordings (Decca) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Decca will celebrate John Williams' 90th by turning the clock back to 1980 when the famed composer-conductor took the baton from the legendary Arthur Fiedler to lead The Boston Pops Orchestra into a new era. John Williams and The Boston Pops: The Complete Philips Recordings boasts 21 CDs and 22 albums originally released on
Happy 2022! Welcome, friends, to The Second Disc's 12th Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards! Once again, we've all faced unprecedented challenges over the past twelve months. A year that began with hope and promise has ended with further uncertainty for many of us. But music continues to fill a significant role in our lives, providing solace, comfort, and escape in a time unlike any other. With that spirit in mind, The Second Disc wishes to recognize 2021's cream of the catalogue music crop -
This weekend, iconic filmmaker Steven Spielberg finally achieved his dream of directing a musical, with a stunning new version of the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim classic West Side Story. Longtime observers of Spielberg's filmography know that musicals have been a hidden passion of sorts: not only is his work so intrinsically tied to song (notably the scores of John Williams, who's done one for nearly all of his films), but he's flirted with musical numbers in films before, from the
On February 8, 2022, John Williams will turn 90. Over the course of an extraordinary career, he's earned 25 Grammy Awards, five Oscars (out of 52 nominations, second only to Walt Disney), four Golden Globes, and three Emmys. Rather than resting on his considerable laurels in recent years, he's remained prolific, most recently scoring 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and serving as Music Consultant for longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg's highly-anticipated remake of West Side Story.
Like the consumption of Thanksgiving turkey and waiting in line for Record Store Day exclusives, La-La Land's Black Friday announcements of their final (and often biggest) archival soundtrack releases of the year is a holiday tradition. In 2021, the label did not disappoint, unveiling five rare, unreleased and expanded score titles from across five separate decades. From horror classics to brilliant stage musical adaptations and even a stunning Golden Age score, there's really something for
Even though it's only the middle of September and it is not even fall yet, announcements are beginning to be made about the upcoming Christmas season. Real Gone Music is continuing its yearly holiday tradition with a batch of holiday albums, including a CD debut and three vinyl represses, due in October and November. The lone CD reissue in the slate, due November 5, is Merry Christmas, Baby, one of the earliest compilations of Christmas music singles from 1956. Subtitled Intimate Christmas
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Dusty Springfield, The Complete Atlantic Singles 1969-1971 (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The Complete Atlantic Singles 1968-1971brings together Dusty Springfield's 24 U.S. single sides released during her tenure at Atlantic. These tracks have been remastered from the original mono tapes by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision, and all but the eight sides pulled from Dusty in Memphis have never before appeared on CD in
As legendary film composer John Williams heads toward his 89th birthday in 2021, Deutsche Grammophon is giving fans a present in the form of a new expanded edition of his latest concert release, just three days before his big day. Released just this past August and noted as 2020's best-selling classical album, John Williams in Vienna presented the five-time Oscar winner leading the Weiner Philharmoniker and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter - the soloist on 2018's Across the Stars collaboration
2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story sharply divided fans and Star Wars aficionados. The film, chronicling the early years of Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian, endured a bumpy - and very public - road to theatres that saw original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) replaced by veteran Ron Howard. But while reviews were mixed on the film, one crucial element consistently earned well-deserved recognition: John Powell's score. In recent
October is thick with not only great archival horror soundtracks, but favorites from all genres! Let's dive in to eight great film score reissues from this past month. Intrada rolled out titles from three iconic composers. This week sees an expansion of the late James Horner's score to The Land Before Time (1988). The second collaboration between animator Don Bluth and producer Steven Spielberg (this time with George Lucas in tow) told the story of a group of juvenile dinosaurs roaming the
For the 42 years Star Wars has been a pop cultural force, musical oddities have followed in the wake of its starship engines. Sure, legendary composer John Williams put an interstellar jazz number in the middle of his almost operatic score to the original 1977 film, but that didn't predict a chart-topping disco song, or Christmas albums, or quirky EDM, or various other ephemera in the ensuing decades. When Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire was released in 1996, amid a major comeback for that
The week started with May the Fourth, so it might as well end with another trip to a galaxy far, far away! Our latest #TSDTweet will take a listen to John Williams' original soundtrack to Star Wars: the 1977 double album that launched one of the composer's most lengthy and recognizable works. Williams composed the music to eight other Star Wars films between 1980 and 2019, in addition to contributing new works for the 2018 spin-off Solo: A Star Wars Story and the newly-opened Galaxy's Edge at
With May the 4th occurring yesterday, it seemed only natural that there might be some Star Wars music-related news, or some great catalog-related material from the film series' iconic composer, John Williams. Luckily, fans got both! Not one but two Williams-oriented titles were announced yesterday. First, from Deutsche Grammophon comes John Williams Live In Vienna, a new live set taken from concerts conducted by the five-time Oscar winner earlier this year. Anticipation for the shows were
La-La Land Records kicks off March with a killer pair of archival score releases by two of the most famous film composers of all time! The label will premiere Jerry Goldsmith's oft-requested The Swarm (1978) and expand John Williams' underrated Far and Away (1992) this month. Having kicked off a disaster movie craze in the '70s by producing The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno (both of which featured scores by Williams that were recently given deluxe treatment in a box set from
Welcome to our final Release Round-Up of 2019! This edition covers today's releases as well as those of the next two weeks, the quietest time of the year for new releases. The weekly Release Round-Up will be back on January 10. In the meantime, Happy Holidays to all! Frank Zappa, The Hot Rats Sessions (Zappa/UMe) 6CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada This 6-CD box set explores Frank Zappa's 1969 primarily instrumental solo
It wouldn't be Black Friday without an announcement of one last killer batch of archival soundtracks from La-La Land Records. The impressive slate of titles the label announced are on sale now, and we've got the scoop on all of them! First up, it's a second, long-promised collection of music from Star Trek Voyager, the third live-action spinoff based on Gene Roddenberry's iconic sci-fi series that aired between 1966 and 1969. Hot off the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)
From all of us here at Second Disc HQ to all of you, we hope you've enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving in the company of beloved family and friends. Record Store Day Black Friday is now almost upon us, so we thought we'd spotlight a few particularly exciting releases arriving to your local brick-and-mortar record shop! Here's our round up of RSD BF must-haves! We're kicking off with Sam's list, and then we'll follow with Randy and Joe's! Aretha Franklin, The Atlantic Singles Collection 1968
A defining classic of horror film and a late-period Spielberg-Williams collaboration are just two of La-La Land Records' recent archival soundtrack releases. The latest in the label's Universal Pictures Film Music Heritage Collection is rescued elements from a soundtrack that's more than 80 years old: Franz Waxman's score to The Bride Of Frankenstein. One of the first critically acclaimed blockbuster sequels, Bride continued the story of Universal's 1931 adaptation of the iconic Mary Shelley
The major labels aren't the only ones who'll be part of Record Store Day Black Friday this year. A number of impressive indies (and other major labels with notable catalog friendly material) have announced exciting additions to the RSDBF slate. What's more, we've got coverage of some exciting new music from artists as diverse as Paul McCartney, Tank and the Bangas, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and Norah Jones! First up... Chuck Berry, Chuck Berry In London (Elemental) By 1965, the British
Sure, you can wait to find Real Gone's lineup of holiday-themed titles under the tree, but why wait? A trio of merry Yuletide albums will be available on color vinyl on November 1, including Cyndi Lauper's Merry Christmas... Have A Nice Life!, the Home Alone Christmas soundtrack compilation, and the soundtrack to Love Actually. First up: Cyndi Lauper's Merry Christmas... Have A Nice Life! This often-overlooked slice of Lauper's discography is a fresh spin on the time-honored tradition of
Look, up in the sky! (You knew we were going to say that!) Following remastered releases of the scores to Superman II, Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace in 2018, La-La Land Records returns to the one that started it all: a brilliant new remastered edition of John Williams' score to Superman: The Movie, landing just a few months after its 40th anniversary. (In an amazing confluence of events, today's announcement comes on "Superman Soundtrack Day," the same date as two previous
Hours of unreleased soundtrack music? Oft-requested titles from favorite composers and popular film series? It's definitely Black Friday season at La-La Land Records! The venerable soundtrack label closed the book on 2018 with five brand-new film and television score expansions - a total of 18 discs' worth of material, including three works involving one of the most successful living soundtrack composers and projects related to two world-renowned franchises. First up, La-La Land's successful
La-La Land Records' current slate is nothing short of super-powered, with six(!) titles streeting this month with a root in comic books - five of which come from DC Comics properties. By far the biggest of the titles in terms of both depth and recognition is the debut standalone release of Ken Thorne's scores to Superman II and Superman III, the first two sequels to 1978's blockbuster adaptation of The Man of Steel. Richard Donner's original film was memorably scored by John Williams;
Just in time for Halloween, Varese Sarabande has announced a new CD featuring arguably the greatest fictional horror character of all time: Dracula. Varese's latest entry in their CD Club is an expanded presentation of John Williams' score to the 1979 film version of Dracula. The 2-CD set Dracula: The Deluxe Edition is available for preorder now and due to start shipping the week of November 5. Dracula, the character, of course needs little introduction. Created by Bram Stoker in 1897 for
Fans of John Williams' soundtracks for the films of Steven Spielberg have plenty of reasons to phone home lately, thanks to La-La Land Records! The film score label this month issued two expansions of Spielberg-Williams scores - one making its vinyl debut, the other on CD - and there's more yet to come. Longtime readers of The Second Disc no doubt know our love for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (founder Mike Duquette's all-time favorite film). Spielberg's blockbuster about the tender friendship