It wouldn't be the holiday season without a few reissues of recent works, and we've got a big one coming up in just a month: a sprawling three-disc version of Lady Gaga's monster hit album Born This Way. Love her or hate her, the New York girl born Stefani Germanotta has gone from Madonna-aping pop singer to bizarro pop-cultural force since her 2008 debut. The release of this year's Born This Way, her second studio-length effort (following 2009's excellent EP The Fame Monster and a throwaway
In case you've been living under a rock for the past year or so, Mumford & Sons isn't the name of a trendy country boutique. It's a rather great, roots-oriented band turning out some of the best, harmonically dense Americana-tinged rock on the scene right now. (Naturally, they're not from around these parts, calling West London their home.) In the year since Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More was released in the U.S., the quartet's songs, namely "Little Lion Man" and "The Cave," have become
Canadian indie-rockers Arcade Fire have had a pretty successful year. Their third studio album, The Suburbs (2010), was a critical and commercial smash, topping the Billboard charts and netting them a Grammy for Album of the Year. And while their victory may have turned some heads, it was well-deserved; The Suburbs is an appealing, sprawling rock epic the likes of which are all too rare these days. In case you missed it the first time around, the band is set to re-release the record on June 27
If you've been waiting to pick up Lungs, the impressive debut album by Florence and The Machine, you now have a new incentive to buy it: an expanded edition is hitting U.S. shelves this month. Lungs was a smash hit upon its release in the band's native England in 2009; the album debuted at No. 2, held off only by The Essential Michael Jackson after the week of his passing. Sixty-two weeks later, the album still resides in the U.K. Top 40, and the album has since peaked within the Top 20 in the
Another neat recent reissue for your perusal: a deluxe box set version of Brothers, the latest release by garage-blues band The Black Keys. The Akron, Ohio duo - comprised of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney - have been on the rise since the early 2000s. Their simple, raw sound and simple sense of marketability (their tunes have featured in dozens of films and advertisements) have won them over a great amount of fans, from ZZ Top to Danger Mouse, who produced the
Figures: try to start a new feature and it seems to be all that happens. Yet another reissue of an incredibly recent record is coming your way this holiday season - the debut by firebrand pop star Ke$ha. Kesha Sebert is one of those love-her-or-hate-her musicians on the scene today. Her debut album, Animal, is packed with inescapable pop hooks, thanks mostly to the production and songwriting talents of Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, a one-time Saturday Night Live band member who's produced hits
Another relatively recent reissue coming down the pipeline: alt-metal band Shinedown will reissue their most recent album, 2008's The Sound of Madness, in a new CD/DVD package that's actually quite heavy on bonus material. The album, which spawned several rock hits including the surprise crossover single "Second Chance," a Top 10 hit in the winter of 2009, will be expanded with nine bonus cuts and a DVD of music videos and live performances. The bonus tracks come from a variety of sources,
Here's another new feature for your consideration at The Second Disc: reissues of classic albums are the core of our coverage, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the other, odder batches of reissues. You know, the ones that come out after a record does alright on its own, to squeeze some more juice from the rinds. It's easier to be more cynical about these sets, but everything deserves its own place. Train, much like Ken Jeong's character on the show Community, is a band that can never