This week's Reissue Theory is something a bit different: a proposal to reissue a record that's never actually been released! When people talk about phenomenal live artists, the conversation doesn't often turn toward Sting's solo career. The Police were a hell of a live act - they built their career on constant touring all over the world - but Sting's solo career, however good, always has an air of stuffiness to it. How could the same singer currently on tour with a symphony orchestra ever be
Today's installment of Reissue Theory is going to tread over familiar ground, in honor of two bands who turned out some great live sets last night at New Jersey's State Theater: Cheap Trick and Squeeze. Though both bands have their share of hardcore fanatics, they didn't seem to be as vocal last night - at least one person was heard musing after the show that neither band catered to the greatest-hits crowd (Cheap Trick's set mixed most of the favorite early tracks with new material - the band
It's not hard to see why Nik Kershaw was considered a teen idol in the 1980s, but it is hard to understand why this was the case after listening to his music. The British guitarist released several great albums of atmospheric yet accessible guitar pop-rock, but it seemed a bit heavier than the usual teen idol fare of generations past or future. Kershaw's best-known output don't deal with typical teen fare. His biggest singles, "Wouldn't It Be Good," "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" and "The
If you told anyone following the music industry in 1958 that David Seville's musical legacy would be eagerly consumed by kids more than 50 years into the future, they might laugh. After all, Seville's greatest "discoveries" aren't exactly real - they're in fact a trio of animated chipmunks named Alvin, Simon and Theodore. And their musical style - a high-pitched warbling that made novelties like "Witch Doctor" and "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" into left-field, award-winning hits
The music industry is too often based upon unreachable expectations. An artist will sell millions of copies and gain critical acclaim and widespread public admiration on one album, and get lambasted come the next record for not perfectly matching the arc of their predecessor. Ridiculously, nobody takes the time out to realize that holy crap, for some fleeting moment, an artist unified the public through their music. Even if an artist is only fleetingly consistent (like Guns N' Roses) or
We're sure readers of The Second Disc are relaxing after what was surely a delightful Fourth of July. (I know I am.) But if you've managed to pry yourself away from your back porch or grill and have a look at our humble catalogue compendium, allow yourself to consider - in honor of our country's independence - a true American musician. One who, in his musical travels, fought for truth, justice and the American way. He may not have been exactly as he seemed, but his work is worth the appreciation
The music industry is a crazy place. One year your band's putting on a crazy stage show that equally satirizes and utilizes the grandest excesses of rock, the next minute you've got a hit single with most of the members of Toto for support. Such is the tale of The Tubes, one of many ambitious, underappreciated bands from the '70s and '80s. During the band's early tenure on A&M from 1975 to 1981, they had a significant following thanks to their funny songs (first single "White Punks on Dope"
We continue our summer set of Reissue Theory posts with a big star whose musical career is now just a footnote. But that footnote gave us, in part, one of the best-loved summer songs of the '90s. Of course, we're talking about DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. Sure, the latter is now known worldwide by his real name, Will Smith. And he's a mega-movie star whose box-office power is relatively unmatched. He's even better known for his star-making turn as the lead in the still-funny NBC sitcom
Joe's Reissue Theory post on Brian Wilson's Imagination sparked some thought on the much-welcomed beginning of summer, and other catalogue titles that commemorate the season. This in turn provoked a recollection of the ongoing mania over some Katrina and The Waves remasters awhile back. Earlier this year, KaTW member/principal songwriter Kimberley Rew took to an indie label to reissue The Waves' first four original LPs, complete with bonus cuts. The Bible of Bop (a 1981 compilation featuring
Monday, June 21 marks the first day of Summer 2010. How appropriate, then, that the 68th birthday of Brian Wilson was a mere day earlier on June 20. Few musicians, if any, have contributed as much to the American myth of summer as Beach Boys leader Wilson. Years after galvanizing popular music with albums like 1966's much-reissued Pet Sounds and singles such as the same year's psychedelic "Good Vibrations," Wilson embarked on a solo career in 1988. Like so much of the man's journey through life,
Our continuing look at The Time's back catalogue culminates with some of the biggest hits in the band's career - and the weird career turns that seemed to prevent them from ever enjoying them as a band. By 1982, The Time were a well-received seven-piece electro-funk outfit that could play rings around other live bands. Despite their live quality, none of their studio efforts were their own, with Prince meticulously playing all the instruments and guiding lead vocalist Morris Day through all his
After last week's Prince binge on The Second Disc, it was inevitable that we'd double back to some of The Purple One's best side projects. One of those great ensembles is The Time, arguably the funkiest band to come out of Minneapolis in the 1980s and a criminally underrated side-project to this day. The Time was basically Prince's rearranged version of a similarly named local funk outfit, Flyte Tyme. That band was led by vocalist Alexander O'Neal and featured among its ranks keyboardists Monte
In the penultimate entry of Prince Week (I know, this is Day 7, but we got one more piece for you tomorrow), The Second Disc turns its attention to one of the most fertile times in Prince's life. From 1986 to 1987, just two short years, His Royal Badness managed to record enough material for a good four or five albums; it should go without saying that this material would be greatly served in a box set from Rhino at some point in time. Hit the jump to get your world rocked with a story of lots
In determining what was going to make up the contents of Prince Week, a great deal of agonizing was endured over where to place Prince's many side projects. Prince, ever the purple brain trust, developed a lot of side projects over time, particularly during the beginning of his success as a pop artist. The Time, Sheila E. and Vanity 6 are still the best acts he ever squired in the early Paisley Park years, but there were plenty others that deserve a look back someday - and ultimately, the sheer
On this day, seminal '90s pop-punk band Green Day gets the kind of musical immortality only reserved for a select few. That's right, today's the day that the Green Day: Rock Band video game hits stores. Fans will finally be able to control Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool as they ascend from obscurity to supposed sellouts. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: I don't get the concept of selling out at all. So many supposed fans get mad when their beloved local act
For whatever reason, your loyal reissue reporter has been listening to a lot of Huey Lewis and The News. No, it's not a Patrick Bateman thing. It's just that The News - that pub-rock ensemble that powered a lot of mid-'80s radio - are just crazy listenable. They really bridged a gap between straight-up blues-rock and synth-driven pop, creating a style that really holds up some 25 years or so later. It's a style that's kind of underrepresented on CD, though. Sports was expanded in 1999 with live
I'm not sure how old I was when I learned what a remix was. I certainly didn't have a childhood of going through 12" singles and hearing alternate, longer versions of my favorite pop songs. But I do know that when I first started realizing that songs would be edited for radio (or extended for single consumption), my mind was blown. This increased tenfold with the discovery of remixes through the '80s. Say what you will about the music at that time, some of it was made better by remixing on
One of the hardest parts of being a reissue fan is waiting. Sometimes a project will get announced, then delayed or cancelled outright. Those long gaps between reissues can be irksome, particularly when the delay time fails to lead to any improvement or innovation in the packaging and presentation of a catalogue title. Other times, though, the reason behind the lack of a reissue is simply that nobody thinks to re-release it. Take, for instance, one of the better bands of the 1980s - Tears for
The Star Wars saga continues at The Second Disc with a trove of often-ridiculous but always intriguing musical curios devoted to the films. It's as much a story of disco and a rock legend from New Jersey as it is about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. And it's yours to read after the jump.
"Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package ! Re-evaluate the songs Double-pack with a photograph Extra track (and a tacky badge)" - "Paint a Vulgar Picture," The Smiths Sometimes one wonders why a band as listenable, influential and obsessed over as The Smiths doesn't get much in the way of back catalogue treatment. Outside of a few compilations (most recently 2008's The Sound of The Smiths) and a box set of reproduced singles, that's been more or less it; the albums haven't been repressed since
So...um, Wang Chung is reuniting. There aren't really that many ways to set such a thing up. Sure, there's this enthusiastic press release, detailing a new record and a tour - but other than that, there's not much to say, I suppose. Granted, that's probably because Wang Chung (comprised of non-Asians Nick Feldman and Jack Hues) are seen by many as a one-hit wonder for inescapable party anthem "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" - a song that arguably hasn't aged all that well (the departed Blender
Eighty-two years ago today, a Kansas City, Miss. couple named Bert and Irma Bacharach welcomed a son, Burt, into the world. In 1957, the young songwriter met a lyricist, Hal David, at a meeting in the Brill Building in New York City. The rest, as they say, was history, with some of the most enduring popular songs of century flowing from their pens. This is a difficult fact to grasp if you're a young person. Nowadays, people couldn't really care less who writes the songs that make the whole
This week sees the release of Hang Cool, Teddy Bear, the 11th studio offering from Meat Loaf. The outsized rock personality skyrocketed to fame with 1977's Bat Out of Hell, the theatrical rock opus penned by Jim Steinman and produced by Todd Rundgren. As Meat prepares to unleash his latest work (cheekily placing a roman numeral "IV" on the album's back cover, making it clear that he intends Hang Cool as another Steinman-less sequel to Bat), could there be a better time for a Reissue Theory-style
The Second Disc's Mother's Day Mania continues with a Reissue Theory look at Celine Dion's Falling Into You, the Canadian chanteuse's fourth English-language LP and one of her all-time best. Wait, what? For some, it is weird to label a Celine Dion record as good. Even more forgiving folks will come down hard on her for what some would consider her increasingly schmaltz output over the years (particularly after the inescapable "My Heart Will Go On" helped propel Titanic to an even wider
Today is Cinco de Mayo, so The Second Disc is going to bring you two of the most unusual Spanish-oriented pop music endeavors in recent memory. These are two deluxe editions with very different sounds, but they're connected not only by record label group but their wacky reinterpretation for Spanish audiences. Viva la musica after the jump!