Imagine narrowing down your favorite band to just one song. We couldn't do it! But some very fastidious Japanese fans of Queen did - and their choices are forming a new compilation due this month. For Greatest Hits In Japan, Queen and Universal Music opened a vote in the country where just one track from the iconic British rock group could be selected for a compilation timed to the upcoming Japanese tour by Queen + Adam Lambert. Nearly 20,000 votes were collated, and the top 12 tracks made
The title of Hollywood Records/Mercury Records' upcoming box set dedicated to Freddie Mercury's solo works certainly has an apt title: Never Boring. The late Queen frontman used his solo recordings to explore the realms of pop, rock, and even opera as a singer and songwriter. Due on October 11 from Hollywood in the U.S. and Mercury in the rest of the world, the 3CD/BD/DVD Never Boring has been compiled and produced by longtime Queen collaborators and Bohemian Rhapsody soundtrack co-producers
Record Store Day 2019 is just under five weeks away. In anticipation of the April 13th celebration of vinyl, The Second Disc presents a round-up of Universal Music Group's RSD selections! The Charlatans, Us and Us Only - LP, clear vinyl - 1,000 copies Originally released in 1999, Us and Us Only was the British alt-rock group's sixth album. It will be reissued for the first time ever for Record Store Day, pressed on limited-edition transparent vinyl. Charlie Parker, Charlie Parker With
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Frank Sinatra, Sings for Only the Lonely: 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Capitol/FSE/UMe) 2-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1-CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2-LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada On Frank Sinatra's 1958 Capitol concept album masterwork, he sang for Only the Lonely. But now, 60 years on, that classic is being revisited for everyone in a new 2-CD anniversary edition. Frank Sinatra
Today would have marked Freddie Mercury's 72nd birthday. While the Queen frontman has been gone since 1991, his powerful voice has hardly been silenced. On October 23, the big-screen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, authorized by his bandmates in Queen, will have its premiere in the United Kingdom - and four days before that, a rarities-packed soundtrack album will arrive from Hollywood Records (U.S.) and Virgin EMI/Universal (U.K.). Bohemian Rhapsody: The Original Soundtrack features 22
2018 is already shaping up to be a great year for music documentaries; one such movie, Elvis Presley: The Searcher, recently debuted on HBO to rapturous notices. Soundtracks to two more probing films are on the way from Universal On June 8, the label will deliver both Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars and Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story. No single compilation can successfully capture the entirety of Eric Clapton's remarkable career, though many from various labels have tried. Life in 12
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. Of course, from this day which conjures nostalgic and warm feelings comes a celebration of a different kind with this year's annual Black Friday - and Record Store Day's miniature cousin to April's yearly event. In keeping with tradition, Mike, Randy and I have once again selected our top picks of the numerous titles being released tomorrow from
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Queen, News of the World: 40th Anniversary Edition (UMC (U.K.) / Hollywood (U.S.) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K.) Queen's sixth album, 1977's News of the World, is being generously expanded for its 40th anniversary in a new 3CD/1DVD/1LP box set. The original album is presented on CD and LP. The first bonus CD, the entirely unreleased Raw Sessions, presents an alternate version of the original album from demos, outtakes and live
Queen's sixth album, 1977's News of the World, is being generously expanded for its 40th anniversary in a new 3CD/1DVD/1LP box set, to be released in November. Following the typically grandiose rock of A Day At the Races a year before, Queen and longtime engineer Mike Stone, now promoted to co-producer, found themselves pursuing various rock styles and dialing back some of their more ornate impulses. This is arguably nowhere more prominent than in the landmark one-two opening salvo of arena
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a host of holiday offerings (including three new titles from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music!) and much, much more! Jack Jones, The Jack Jones Christmas Album (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music proudly bring Jack Jones' 1964 Kapp Records classic to CD for the very first time! The Jack Jones Christmas Album features lush renditions of "White
Queen are going back into the archives for the holidays, unearthing their complete radio sessions for the BBC and beyond. Queen On Air: The Complete BBC Sessions will be available in a variety of formats collecting just about every note by the band ever transmitted over the airwaves in their native country. Only a small handful of these performances have ever been released, and their place in the band's history is hard to dispute, predating their first studio album. Freddie Mercury, Brian
A new Freddie Mercury anthology will be released this fall, chronicling the late Queen singer's solo tracks on two CDs and 13 vinyl singles. Messenger of the Gods: The Singles features 25 tracks recorded by Mercury and released between 1973 and 1993--several of which were never released in America, or released widely on CD. Among the set's rarer treasures is Mercury's first "solo" single, credited to Larry Lurex in 1973. The single, featuring covers of Phil Spector's "I Can Hear Music"
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up which continues this autumn's tradition of having each week packed with box sets from heavy hitters - in this case, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground, The Who, Queen, Grateful Dead, Frank Sinatra, and they're still not all! Plus: CD and vinyl reissues, anthologies, and much more! The Beach Boys, Beach Boys' Party: Uncovered and Unplugged (Capitol) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) The first disc of this 2-CD, 81-track set features the
Over the past couple of weeks, we've told you about the 2015 Black Friday Record Store Day offerings from Legacy, Omnivore and Real Gone Music. Well, the full list of releases which are coming out on November 27 has been announced and we've got the details below including new titles from Rhino, Varese Sarabande, Hear Music and more! The entire list is over 125 items long, so we've just highlighted some entries below in which you might be interested. The full listing can be seen at
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up - maybe the biggest and most diverse yet of 2015! David Bowie, Five Years (Parlophone) 12 CD Box Set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 13 LP Box Set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. New remasters of David Bowie (a.k.a. Space Oddity), The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory and Pin Ups are collected in a new box set along with existing versions of Ziggy Stardust (in both the original and 2003 mixes), Aladdin Sane, Live Santa Monica '72, the Ziggy Stardust
CONGRATULATIONS! The following five entrants have won two amazing limited edition vinyl releases from Queen legend ROGER TAYLOR and OMNIVORE RECORDINGS! If you entered our contest and your name is on the list below, please drop us a line at theseconddisc-at-gmail-dot-com or a Private Message on Facebook: Adam Robinson David E. Reichel, Jr. Andy Swanson Tom Saltarelli Beth Fordice
Omnivore Recordings has recently continued its series dedicated to the solo catalogue of legendary Queen drummer Roger Taylor with definitive new reissues of Taylor’s first two solo records – Fun in Space and Strange Frontier! We’d like you to have share in some of that fun with this very special giveaway! FIVE LUCKY WINNERS will receive a bundle of the new clear vinyl pressing of Fun in Space and the translucent red vinyl edition of Strange Frontier – and once these limited editions are
On the heels of 2014’s career-spanning box set The Lot and the single-disc anthology The Best, Omnivore Recordings continues to unfold the solo story of Queen’s Roger Taylor with two reissues due on March 24. On that date, the label will unveil expanded editions of Taylor’s first two solo albums, 1981’s Fun in Space and 1984’s Strange Frontier. Fun in Space found Taylor truly striking out on his own, as all of the sounds heard on the record were performed and played by him save “approximately
Welcome to Part One of our two-part review round-up featuring some of Omnivore Recordings’ releases from late 2014! Just when one thinks the Big Star well has run dry, Omnivore Recordings surprises with a treat of the magnitude of Live in Memphis (OVCD-107). On October 29, 1994 at Memphis’ New Daisy Theatre, Big Star founding members Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens, were joined by Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies for an overflowing set of Big Star classics and covers in front of an
The Monkees, The Monkees: Super Deluxe Edition (Rhino Handmade) (Exclusively available directly from label) It's Monkeemania all over again: Davy, Micky, Peter and Michael are back with a 3-CD expansion of their debut album featuring 100 tracks - 45 of which are previously unreleased! ABBA, Gracias Por La Musica: Deluxe Edition (Polar/Universal) (Amazon U.S. Link TBD / Amazon U.K.) ABBA is saying "Thank You for the Music" - in Spanish! The band's Spanish-language 1980
On November 10, Queen returns with a new anthology – available in both single- and double-CD iterations with 20 and 36 songs, respectively – that intends to live up to its title, Queen Forever. While the collection eschews a traditional “greatest hits” approach (and with it, hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You”), it premieres three songs including a long-anticipated collaboration with the late Michael Jackson. In addition to the three “new” tracks available on both editions,
Omnivore Recordings is greeting autumn with projects from a couple of, well, big artists. By big, we mean perhaps the biggest cult band of all time – Big Star – and if that’s not big enough, how about the drummer from one of the biggest rock bands in the world? As in, Roger Taylor of Queen? On October 27, Omnivore will issue the first-ever retrospective of Taylor’s solo work in anticipation of the November 11 U.S. release of his complete, all-encompassing solo box set, The Lot. On November 4,
The Beatles, The Beatles in Mono (Apple/UMe) Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Here it is - a massive white box filled with 14 newly-remastered vinyl LPs from the Fab Four, all in original mono - just the way the boys intended all those years ago! The Midnight Special various editions (StarVista/Time Life) Deluxe 11-DVD Box Set: StarVista 6-DVD Set: Amazon U.S. 1-DVD: Amazon U.S. The groundbreaking late-night music show is celebrated on a variety of releases featuring live
After a 40-year wait, a pair of pivotal early shows by Queen will see official release, it was announced yesterday. 1974 saw the British quartet release their second album, Queen II, earn their first U.K. Top 10 single ("Seven Seas of Rhye") and embark on their first headlining tour. While some critics found a headlining slot at The Rainbow a daunting challenge for such a new band, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor sold even the most skeptical observer at their March date
Tears for Fears, The Hurting: Deluxe Edition (Mercury/UMe) The landmark debut album from the U.K. hitmakers celebrates its 30th anniversary with a new double-disc deluxe edition stocked with rare single-only material and a deluxe box set version with a bonus disc of John Peel sessions and the In My Mind's Eye live concert film on DVD. 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. 3CD/1DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Van Morrison, Moondance: Expanded Edition (Warner Bros./Rhino) Though Van would rather you