The Weekend Stream: April 25, 2026

Welcome back to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles making digital debuts, plus new works from legacy acts and even some personally curated favorites. Some of our favorites lead this pack: an archival Prince single, a new Duran Duran song, a vintage George Michael EP, outtakes from The Beach Boys, demos from Andy Partridge – and plenty more where that came from. Prince, “With This Tear” (NPG/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) Last Tuesday, the 10th anniversary of Prince’s death, The Artist’s estate released the latest posthumous…

Continue Reading

Holiday Gift Guide Review: Prince and The Revolution, ‘Around the World in a Day (Deluxe Expanded Edition)’

In theory, the posthumous care and handling of an esteemed discography with the deep potential for archival excavation like Prince’s would be an easy if daunting task. When the pop icon died unexpectedly in 2016 with no will and considerable assets to settle, the art of memorializing him through reissues moved with almost shocking precision: solid expansions of several of his best-loved ’80s albums, a handful of notable archival one-offs, and the reinstatement of his digital and physical catalogue of the ’90s and ’00s back into print. After the estate settled in…

Continue Reading

The Second Disc’s Guide to Record Store Day Black Friday 2025

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. (And with plenty of delicious food, too!)  Now, Record Store Day’s annual Black Friday event is upon us, so we’re spotlighting a dozen of the most eagerly anticipated releases arriving to your local independent brick-and-mortar record shop! Here are our personal picks for RSD BF must-haves; visit Record Store Day’s official website for a list of participating retailers.  Happy Listening, and have a great…

Continue Reading

Release Round-Up: Week of November 21

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today!  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. The Beatles, Anthology Collection (Capitol/Apple/UMe) 8CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Official Store 12LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Official Store The Beatles’ Anthology Collection premieres remastered editions of the original three collections of rarities and outtakes compiled by George Martin and released through 1995 and 1996, available across six CDs or nine LPs. Martin’s son Giles, who remastered those albums for this release, also curates a new collection, Anthology 4, across a further two CDs or…

Continue Reading

Power to Consume: Legacy Unveils Record Store Day Black Friday Slate with Prince, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, More

We’re continuing our look at this year’s Record Store Day Black Friday releases with a rundown of the nine titles coming your way on Friday, November 28 from Legacy Recordings.  These include classics from Miles Davis, Prince, and Billy Joel, a rarity from Bob Dylan, a spirited Danny Elfman soundtrack, and more!  Click here for a list of participating Record Store Day shops, and stay tuned for more RSD Black Friday news here at The Second Disc! Cage the Elephant, Live from The Vic in Chicago (RCA/Legacy) (2LP – Yellow and Black Splatter vinyl;…

Continue Reading

Paisley Park is in Your Heart: Prince’s ‘Around the World in a Day’ Expanded for 40th Anniversary

Due credit to the Prince estate: they made good on one of their promises. The late artist’s estate will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Prince and The Revolution’s Around the World in a Day with a deluxe edition gathering all the non-LP material from the original release. Available November 21 in a variety of formats including 2CD and 140-gram 3LP editions, the set will feature the 1985 follow-up to Purple Rain, along with 13 non-LP remixes and B-sides – four of which will make their debut on CD. (The set includes no outtakes…

Continue Reading
Categories:
Tags:

The Weekend Stream: August 30, 2025

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. We’ve got one Vault track from Prince, four albums unearthed by SuperVisible Multi Media, five rare mixes from Bowie and Jagger, and more than 100 hard-to-find cuts from Connie Francis – now that’s some rock and roll math! Prince, “Sign O’ the Times” (Live in Rotterdam 1987) (NPG/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) A welcome respite from sharing fabricated, possibly AI-generated inspirational quotes on social media, the Prince estate has released…

Continue Reading

Come Spend the Night Inside a Second Sheena Easton Box Set

Cherry Red is wasting no time following its first anthology of Sheena Easton’s EMI recordings with its follow-up this fall. Strut – The Complete EMI Recordings Vol. II, due from Cherry Pop on October 31, picks up where its predecessor Modern Girl left off, following the same structure: most of the discs offer expanded and slightly altered programs covering the albums A Private Heaven (1984), Do You (1985) and No Sound But a Heart (1987). The inclusions of alternate versions or mixes in place of or beside some originals makes for even more unreleased tracks on this set:…

Continue Reading
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:

The Weekend Stream: July 5, 2025

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. Lots of Fourth of July musical statements were made this week, from a Prince rarity coming out of the vaults to Ben Folds’ surprisingly politically charged, surprise live album. Plus, the last two albums by a terrific British rock band and a new song from an American classic rock act reflecting on its 30 years together (even the last few tough ones). Prince and The Revolution, “America” (NPG/Legacy) (Apple /…

Continue Reading

The Kinds U Find in a Secondhand Store: Paisley Park Celebration Hints At Posthumous Prince Releases

This weekend’s digital release of another unreleased Prince track could indicate the gears of the late artist’s estate could start moving once again. At a panel for the annual Celebration fan event in and around Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis and Chanhassen recording complex Paisley Park, representatives for the estate and distributing partner Legacy Recordings discussed potential box sets, vinyl releases and digital initiatives – as well as some frank discussion on the infamously-canned Ezra Edelman documentary for Netflix. Present at the panel were Prince Legacy LLC’s L. Londell McMillan, Charles F. Spicer,…

Continue Reading

The Weekend Stream: June 7, 2025

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. This week brings posthumous recordings by Prince and Donna Summer, a new spin on Star Wars disco, and plenty of cast recordings leading into the Tony Awards this Sunday! And just a quick programming note: our Unplugged series is taking the week off, but will be back with some new and exciting Weekend Stream extra content very soon! Prince, “Free” (Acoustic) (NPG/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon) “The Vault is now…

Continue Reading

Release Round-Up: Week of April 25

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today!  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Neil Young, Oceanside/Countryside (Reprise/NYA) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Neil Young is unveiling another once-lost album with the release of Oceanside Countryside which arrives on CD today following its vinyl release.The LP was recorded from May to December 1977; the first side comprised solo Young performances, while most of the second featured a full band. It never saw release, though.  Instead, Comes a Time hit store shelves in October 1978.  Both albums…

Continue Reading

Oooh, This I Need: Adam Mattera Talks ‘Dearly Beloved: A Prince Songbook’

Last year, The Second Disc had nothing but good things to say about Dearly Beloved: A Prince Songbook, Cherry Red’s triple-disc tribute to the music of Prince. The set told a story of The Artist’s massive impact on pop, rock and soul by way of songs he gave others to record and a galaxy of genre-bending covers. In a year of considerable challenges in Prince fandom, it was a veritable oasis in a desert. Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Mattera, the curator and producer of Dearly Beloved. For…

Continue Reading

The Second Disc’s Guide to Record Store Day 2025: Our Favorite Picks

Tomorrow, Record Store Day is once again upon us! It’s that time of year where music lovers and vinyl flippers get together at their favorite physical music retailers and wait in line to snag some treasured albums – almost all of which are pressed on vinyl instead of CD (or, you know, sold on secondary marketplaces for above their retail value).  This year, the list tops out at over 300 titles, so there’s very nearly something for everybody.  It wasn’t easy to narrow our choices down to around 20 titles, but here…

Continue Reading

They Will Have Their Way: Legacy Plans Packed Record Store Day Slate

Is it just us, or has Record Store Day felt a little muted in recent years? Obviously the annual Black Friday celebration boasts less titles than the festivities held every April, but it’s sometimes been a struggle to identify great archival titles or worthy re-pressed discs. Well, that certainly isn’t the case this year: labels seem to have gone into overdrive stockpiling interesting LPs and singles worth a second (or first!) look – and one of the strongest showings might be Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings, who are bowing no less than 16…

Continue Reading

Holiday Gift Guide Review: ‘Dearly Beloved: A Prince Celebration’

The holidays are a time of good cheer and gratitude, where we all (in theory) come together to share in a common joy. There has not been a lot of common joy if you’re a Prince fan; we don’t need to re-litigate it more than we did this summer, but it’s worth noting that the quest to make intriguing, posthumous Prince projects under the current estate organization has maybe gotten worse than when we published our editorial. But there have been celebrations of The Purple One that honor his restless creative spirit….

Continue Reading

Eternity: Cherry Pop Reissues Sheena Easton’s “No Sound But a Heart”

Following the deluxe 2CD expansion of Do You earlier this year, Cherry Pop has continued its upgrade and overhaul of Sheena Easton’s discography with a remastered vinyl edition of her 1987 album No Sound But a Heart.  For her eighth album and final set with EMI, Easton turned to the prevailing “multiple producers” approach so prevalent in the 1980s.  As those producers included Narada Michael Walden, Phil Ramone, Nick Martinelli, and Keith Diamond, the Scottish singer was in good hands on 1987’s No Sound But a Heart.  While the album isn’t one…

Continue Reading
Categories:
Formats:

The Weekend Stream: December 6, 2024

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. Elton John’s most recent recording gets a remix, plus some rare Prince-produced ’90s R&B, a comeback track from one of 2010s pop’s most underrated performers, and some Christmas curios you’ll have to hear to believe. There’s even a tearjerker music video from…Coldplay? Check it all out! Elton John, “Never Too Late” (Acoustic Version) (Mercury/EMI) (iTunes / Amazon) Elton’s recently released team-up with Brandi Carlile, which closes the documentary…

Continue Reading

Release Round-Up: Week of November 15

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today…and, with the holidays approaching, it just might be the biggest release week of the year!  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. George Harrison, Living in the Material World: 50th Anniversary (Dark Horse) 2CD/2LP/1BD/1-7″: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada As the studio follow-up to his landmark triple album All Things Must Pass, George Harrison further explored his spiritual and physical selves on…

Continue Reading

The Weekend Stream: October 26, 2024

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. We’re positively packed this Saturday: posthumous tracks from Van Halen, Luther Vandross and DMX; a great deluxe live set from Linda Ronstadt; plus some Halloween and Christmas surprises…and, to top it all off, a call to action to aid one of our favorite power-pop acts of the last 40 years. Edward & Alex Van Halen, “Unfinished (Between Us Two)” (self-released) (official site) Alex Van Halen just released Brothers, a heartfelt…

Continue Reading

Joy in Repetition: Cherry Red’s ‘Dearly Beloved’ Pays Tribute to Prince, the Songwriter

Between the muted 40th anniversary celebration of Purple Rain and the bizarre drama over an estate-sanctioned Netflix documentary on his life and career, Prince fans could probably use a win lately. A new compilation from Cherry Red looks like it might finally offer one. Dearly Beloved – A Prince Songbook is an unexpectedly robust-looking 3CD set that will pay tribute to the Minneapolis icon as a songwriter – one whose classic hits have become pop standards, with so much talent overflowing from his person that he penned more than a few massive hits…

Continue Reading

Two Sides of Cornbread: New Compilation Plays Tribute to Unsung Minneapolis Legend

The name Cornbread Harris might only resonate with the most devoted acolytes of Minneapolis, Minnesota’s rich history of R&B music. A new compilation, produced by Harris’ biographer, aims to change that. Anthology is an eight-track look into the musical career of James Harris, Jr., better known as Cornbread – a key figure and forefather in the Twin Cities’ contribution to America’s musical landscape. Featuring a mix of rare and unreleased material spanning from the first single Harris played on in 1955 to recent recordings he’s made, Anthology is a living testament to an…

Continue Reading

Hard to Say It’s Over: Sheena Easton’s “A Private Heaven” Returns to Vinyl in Expanded Form

Cherry Red’s Cherry Pop arm began its association with Sheena Easton with the 2021 release of The Definitive Singles 1980-1987.  The 3-CD, 51-song collection brought together the Scottish singer’s A-sides including both 7- and 12-inch singles during that period.  Since then, Cherry Pop has refreshed much of Easton’s discography including expanded editions on CD of Madness, Money, and Music, Take My Time, and A Private Heaven, and the first-time release of Live at the Palace, Hollywood in audio and video formats. Vinyl-only releases have included remastered editions of 1983’s Best Kept Secret…

Continue Reading
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:

Purple Drain: What’s Going On with the Prince Estate?

In his too-brief life and vastly influential music career, Prince was known for every trait associated with genius: eclectic, kinetic musical ideas; a restless creative spirit; and of course, a mercurial side – known to change his own mind or direction at the slightest whims. In the eight years since his untimely passing, it seems the custodians of his affairs have got the mercurial part right, and that sometimes seems about it. A series of surprising successes and near-misses today in reissue production culminates in one of the biggest banana peels surrounding…

Continue Reading

The Weekend Stream: May 25, 2024

Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. This week has another rare track by Prince, promo for the new Beach Boys documentary, a powerful new remix by a legendary diva and more! Prince, “Silver Tongue” (NPG/Legacy) (iTunes / Amazon) A third Musicology-era rarity has landed digitally, following “United States of Division” and “Magnificent.” “Silver Tongue” was a “virtual B-side” to “Call My Name” from the 2004 album, a rare co-write between The Artist and singer Nikka Costa, who…

Continue Reading
Scroll to Top