When Rhino released Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones – a 4CD, 74-track collection – in 2001, it was a valiant attempt to tell a story that was still being written. The gifted bandleader, composer and producer, who passed away at the age of 91 in 2024, had an enduring way with sound, be it jazz, pop, R&B, rock or even film and television scoring. His decades of work with the 20th century’s greatest luminaries made him a tremendous (if controversial) raconteur, with countless stories to tell and luminaries to work alongside….
The Weekend Stream: November 22, 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. A real grab bag for you before the Thanksgiving holiday: cut songs from Broadway comedies, rarities from a ’60s soul/rock legend, an inexplicably remastered charity single, rare 12″ mixes and remastered jazz. Have a listen, won’t you?? Various Artists, Monty Python’s Spamalot (Original Broadway Cast Recording/20th Anniversary Edition) (Decca Broadway) (Apple / Amazon) Something to (always) look on the bright side of life over: a new reissue of the music…
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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…
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Release Round-Up: Week of October 24
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles out today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska ’82 (Columbia/Legacy) 4CD/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4LP/Blu-ray: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada It’s no surprise that, as Hollywood recounts the story of Bruce Springsteen’s most striking solo release with the film Deliver Me from Nowhere (out today), a box set tells the tale of the (literal) tape. Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings are releasing Nebraska ’82, a new box set showcasing the start-to-finish journey of Bruce’s most…
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Release Round-Up: Week of September 19
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today including – did we ever think we’d get the chance to say this? – the CD debut of Buckingham Nicks! As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Buckingham Nicks (Rhino) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. (gold) / Amazon U.K. (baby blue) / Amazon Canada (gold) In just over 15 years of reporting at The Second Disc, it’s a sentence we never thought we’d write: Buckingham Nicks is getting its first-ever reissue. The 1973 album from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks…
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Release Round-Up: Week of August 22
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 Who, Live at The Oval 1971 (Polydor/UMe) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Initially available as part of the band’s revived Wholigan Fan Club, The Who’s Live At The Oval 1971 is coming to general release. The album finally canonizes the group’s celebrated performance at “Goodbye to Summer,” a British benefit concert for the people of Bangladesh. Featuring several songs from the band’s just-released Who’s Next, including “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Won’t Get…
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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…
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Release Round-Up: Week of October 18
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Long After Dark: Deluxe Edition (Geffen/UMe) 2CD/Blu-ray Audio: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD/Blu-ray Audio (with Amazon-exclusive stickers): Amazon U.S. 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Tom Petty Store (Exclusive) Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ fifth studio album has gotten a deluxe makeover. Geffen/UMe have revisited 1982’s oft-overlooked Long After Dark, originally released on Backstreet Records, in various formats including 2LP and 2CD+Blu-ray. The bonus disc, featuring outtakes…
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Release Round-Up: Week of September 27
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today. As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Chicago, Chicago at the John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971) (Rhino) 3CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Chicago at the John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971) arrives on 3 CDs, 4 LPs, and digital formats, preserving the band’s show in the U.S. capital. The concert was recorded just eight days after the opening of the Kennedy Center. …
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Touch My Heart: Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Expands “From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music” Box Set
Back in 1998, The Country Music Foundation teamed with Warner Bros. Records to release From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music. The 3-CD box set was divided into three thematic discs – The Stringband Era, The Soul Country Years, and Forward with Pride – which reflected on the immense contributions of African-Americans to country music in 60 songs. Today, the spotlight shines even more brightly on the black experience in the genre, in no small part due to the release earlier this year of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. The album…
Dear Little Buttercup: Rhino’s “Start Your Ear Off Right” Features America, The Doors, Grateful Dead, “Three Amigos,” More
Rhino is once again inaugurating the new year with a Start Your Ear Off Right campaign, launching this Friday in brick-and-mortar independent record stores (and if the past is any indication, at Barnes and Noble locations across the United States). The vinyl-only slate, which is spread out over the next four release weeks, concentrates on classic rockers (The Doors, Foghat, America, Grateful Dead, Velvet Underground, Black Sabbath, Stevie Nicks, Yes) with a healthy dose of R&B legends (Ray Charles, Curtis Mayfield, Zapp and Roger) and a late country music great (Eddie Rabbitt)…
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The Weekend Stream: July 29, 2023
Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there’s plenty of great new/old music to float you into the weekend. Big things happening in this column: two big box sets from a legendary prog-turned-pop outfit, rare mixes from one of pop’s most legendary performers, tons of remixes from a soulful producer/performer and 200(!) classical titles from a legendary British label. Whew! Genesis, Archive #1 (1969 – 1975) / Archive #2 (1976 – 1992) (Atlantic/Rhino/Craft) Archive #1: iTunes / Amazon…
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Release Round-Up: Week of October 21
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today! Lou Reed, Words and Music – May 1965 (Light in the Attic) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Black Vinyl LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Yellow Vinyl LP: Light in the Attic Store Cassette: Light in the Attic Store CD/2LP/7″ Vinyl Deluxe Edition: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Light in the Attic Store Light in the Attic launches The Lou Reed Archive Series with Words & Music, May 1965. Available on CD, cassette, and multiple vinyl formats, Words…
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Release Round-Up: Week of September 23
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Joni Mitchell, The Asylum Albums (1972-1975) (Elektra/Rhino) 4CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 5LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Joni Mitchell’s Archives campaign rolls on with this new 4-CD or 5-LP box collecting four of the inspirational singer-songwriter’s most acclaimed and beloved studio albums, all recorded for David Geffen’s then-new Asylum Records label: For the Roses (1972), Court and Spark (1974), and The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975), as well as Joni’s first live album, Miles of Aisles (1974). All four albums have been newly remastered by Bernie Grundman, and Mitchell’s friend Neil Young has contributed an essay to…
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As You Walk on By: New Box Celebrates the Music of John Hughes Films
A wise philosopher…or maybe a punk kid…or maybe an astute screenwriter?…once wrote “Life moves pretty fast – if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” A new box set devoted to that iconic filmmaker – the late John Hughes – will help fans enjoy some of that life a little more through a diverse collection of pop songs he helped bring to the masses. Life Moves Pretty Fast. The John Hughes Mixtapes offers four volumes of songs from the writer/director’s popular comedies and teen dramas….
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Release Round-Up: Week of May 6
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles out today including a very special pair from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music! Melissa Manchester, Live ’77 (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Real Gone Music) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music proudly present the premiere release of Melissa Manchester’s Live ’77, recorded by Arista Records in October 1977 at Gainesville, Florida’s Great Southern Music Hall but unreleased until now! The 21 songs on Live ’77 – the singer-songwriter’s very first live album – include Manchester’s hits…
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Keeping the Faith: Billy Joel’s “Japanese Singles Collection” Arrives on 2 CDs and 1 DVD
Last weekend, Billy Joel played his first concert of 2022 at Hollywood, Florida’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino; he’s scheduled to resume his long-running residency at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on February 12 after a brief postponement due to the Omicron variant. The piano man is celebrating his 50th year as a solo artist with a variety of projects including the recent release of The Vinyl Collection Vol. 1 which reissued albums from his first decade. Over in Japan, the end of 2021 saw a new 2CD/DVD collection from Sony. …
Release Round-Up: Week of November 5
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Billy Joel, The Vinyl Collection Vol. 1 (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) This 9LP slipcased box set collects Billy Joel’s first six solo studio albums plus his first live album and a box set-exclusive pressing of Live at The Great American Music Hall – 1975, a previously unreleased concert recording on 2 LPs from the famed San Francisco venue. All of the albums have been sourced from the original master tapes and prepared by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound. Jensen previously mastered Joel’s entire albums discography for 2011’s…
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Release Round-Up: Week of September 10
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Chicago, Chicago at Carnegie Hall: Complete (Rhino) (Rhino.com) For the first time, Rhino brings together all eight of Chicago’s concerts between April 5-10, 1971 at New York’s Carnegie Hall in one deluxe, 16-CD box set. The original 4-LP box Chicago at Carnegie Hall was a commercial smash, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200. This set features every note played by the band as newly restored by the band’s Lee Loughnane and engineer Tim Jessup. The box takes the form of a white folio embossed with Chicago’s famous logo. In…
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Review: Aretha Franklin, “Aretha”
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Otis Redding may have written the song, but Aretha Franklin owned it. The singer was only in her mid-20s when she left Columbia Records after five years and seven albums but she wasted no time in making music history when she signed with Atlantic Records in December 1966. By the middle of 1967, she’d had long-sought-after hits with “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” and “Respect” and was proclaimed The Queen of Soul by a Chicago disk jockey. Some reports indicate the “crowning” as having happened in…
UPDATE: Jump to It! Rhino Confirms New Release Date for Career-Spanning “Aretha” Box Set
It was late in 2015 when audiences across the country watched Aretha Franklin take the stage at The Kennedy Center Honors to salute honoree Carole King. The undisputed Queen of Soul tore into King, Gerry Goffin, and Jerry Wexler’s “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman” with blazing intensity and thrilling authenticity. She had not just sung these lyrics but lived them. Nearing the song’s finale, she simply but defiantly dropped her fur coat to the floor, creating an instant viral moment that elicited tears and cheers in equal measure. That…
Do I Ever Cross Your Mind: Ray Charles’ Post-Atlantic Recordings Explored on “True Genius” Box Set
Ray Charles formed Tangerine Records in 1962 as part of the creative freedom he earned by jumping from Atlantic Records to ABC-Paramount. In addition to many of his Charles’ own recordings, Tangerine issued music from Louis Jordan, Percy Mayfield, Jimmy Scott, Ike and Tina Turner, and other artists championed by The Genius. The label closed in 1973 when Charles departed the ABC roster, but the Ray Charles Foundation has recently reactivated it for a special 6-CD anthology celebrating its founder. True Genius, due on September 10, is a book-style package featuring nearly…
Short Takes: Acoustic Sounds Continues Verve, Impulse! Reissue Series; UMe Breaks Out Individual Traffic LPs from Box Set; Omnivore Collects Emitt Rhodes’ The Palace Guard
Impulse! Records’ 60th anniversary celebration continues all year with Verve/UMe and Acoustic Sounds’ ongoing series of deluxe audiophile reissues drawn from the label’s storied catalogue. The full 2021 slate of releases – 2-3 per month through December – has been announced. It features some of the heaviest hitters from the Impulse! discography including Ray Charles, Gil Evans, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane. A number of titles from the Verve catalogue will also be reissued including classic LPs from Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, and others. All titles in the…
Give It Up! Rhino, Run Out Groove Celebrate Black Music Month in June with Charles Mingus, Roberta Flack, Curtis Mayfield, The Time, More
On June 7, 1979, President Jimmy Carter recognized June as Black Music Month. Thirty years later, President Barack Obama, the first African-American to hold the nation’s highest office, commemorated the designation. He noted that the rich legacy of black music had encouraged citizens “to dance, to express our faith through song, to march against injustice, and to defend our country’s enduring promise of freedom and opportunity for all.” This June and into July, Rhino and sister imprint Run Out Groove will celebrate Black Music Month (or African-American Music Appreciation Month) with a…
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“It’s What’s Happening, Baby!” Historic, All-Star Music Special Returns To TV After 55 Years
It’s What’s Happening, Baby! That’s the name of the 1965 television special hosted by influential New York disk jockey Murray Kaufman, a.k.a. Murray The K. Over the course of 90 minutes, the jocular, hep-talking Murray (who christened himself The Fifth Beatle as an early friend and supporter of the Fab Four) shared musical performances by the day’s biggest pop and soul acts including The Supremes, Dionne Warwick, Ray Charles, The Righteous Brothers, The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Johnny Rivers, Herman’s Hermits, The Temptations, The Ronettes, Martha and The Vandellas, Patti LaBelle and The…
