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 Record Store Day event. In keeping with tradition, Mike, Randy, and Joe have once again selected some essential picks of the roughly 200 titles being released tomorrow at independent record stores
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the (non-Record Store Day) titles hitting stores today! Watch this space for our RSD Black Friday Picks! David Bowie, Divine Symmetry (An Alternative Journey Through 'Hunky Dory') (Parlophone) 4CD/1BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada This 4CD/1BD slipcased box set chronicling the twelve months leading up to the December 1971 release of David Bowie's fourth
I took a ride, I didn't know what I would find there... George Harrison's snarling takedown of the "Taxman" opened The Beatles' Revolver with a powerful sting. The so-called Quiet Beatle took on the first-person role with the relish of (and a musical nod to) a Batman villain. Though 1965's folk-rock-influenced Rubber Soul had seen the Fab Four's songwriting grow by leaps and bounds, Revolver matched the songwriting strides with revelatory studio processes including ADT (Artificial Double
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles in stores today! Miles Davis, That's What Happened 1982-1985: The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 (Columbia/Legacy) 3CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP Highlights: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The 3-CD box set (also available digitally) focuses on Miles Davis' final years at the Columbia label with which he had been associated since 1955 and on the three albums that closed out his
The Beatles' seventh studio album - and the bridge between Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - 1966's Revolver is recognized as one of the Fab Four's most groundbreaking as well as significant albums. With producer George Martin, the group employed studio wizardry to bring their new songs to life - tape loops, automatic double tracking, close miking, use of varispeed and reversed tapes, among other techniques that would soon be imitated by countless others - as well as
Everybody had a hard year/Everybody had a good time... The Beatles' twelfth and final studio LP may have been titled Let It Be, but that particular admonition has been all but ignored over the years. The album - recorded before, but released after, 1969's Abbey Road - was in some respects a step backward from the band's previous, experimental LPs as they sought a "back to basics" sound that didn't involve overdubs and studio wizardry. Ultimately, though, that approach was rejected. The
A book about a film about an album? The new coffee table book from Callaway Arts and Entertainment and Apple Corps, The Beatles: Get Back, is essentially that: a hardcover, 240-page tome based on the film footage shot in the buildup to The Beatles' final album, 1970's Let It Be. Get Back was, of course, the name of the first version of Let It Be. It's also the name of director Peter Jackson's upcoming three-part, six-hour documentary (the first part of which premieres November 25 on the
1971 was a banner year for cinema with such all-time classics as The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange, Carnal Knowledge, The Last Picture Show, and Shaft. The highest-grossing film of the year in North America was United Artists' Fiddler on the Roof. But Fiddler wasn't the studio's only musical of the year. Mere days before the Broadway adaptation hit cinemas, UA opened one of the most wild, inventive, outré, and unhinged films of the year: 200 Motels. Written, co-directed, and composed
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Steely Dan, Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live (UMe) CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The first Steely Dan live album since 1995's Alive in America, Northeast Corridor was recorded on the group's last tour at venues including New York's Beacon Theater, The Met Philadelphia, and others. (The band's nine-show Beacon residency in 2018 featured themed shows including performances of
While The Second Disc prides itself on connecting people to reissues and box sets they can keep on their shelves, it's no secret that listening audiences are also digital - catalogue music lovers, too - and our passion is connecting people to music from the past that they might adore. So we've introduced a new feature: The Weekend Stream, which focuses on hidden gems that recently made it to digital channels that might make your playlists a little brighter! The Beatles, Get Back (Take 8) EP
More than 50 years after its May 1970 release, The Beatles' Let It Be - the Fab Four's final original studio album - remains anything but the last word on the band. While the LP topped the charts in multiple countries including the U.S. and U.K., and included such beloved now-standards as "The Long and Winding Road," "Across the Universe," "Get Back," and the title track, the road to its release was anything but a smooth one. It was previously announced that the story would be chronicled this
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Neil Young, After the Gold Rush: 50th Anniversary [Vinyl + 7" Box] (Reprise) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) This 50th Anniversary remastered edition of Neil Young's classic album was released on CD in December; now the vinyl version arrives. The set includes two different recordings of the outtake "Wonderin'" on the bonus 45. The A-side was recorded in March 1970 in Topanga (previously heard on Archives Vol. 1) while the B-side is
Today, Paul McCartney fans everywhere have much to celebrate as the inimitable musician has announced the July 31st release of the latest volume in his ongoing Archives series - this one's a look back on Flaming Pie, an album that marked a sort of return to form upon its release in 1997. Inspired by the simpler, more immediate recording style that The Beatles used decades before, Paul McCartney returned to Abbey Road with some of his favorite collaborators, including Ringo Starr, George Martin,
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Hank Williams, Pictures from Life's Other Side - The Man and His Music in Rare Photos and Recordings (BMG) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) BMG salutes late singer-songwriter-legend Hank Williams with the release of Pictures from Life's Other Side - The Man and His Music in Rare Photos and Recordings. This lavish 6-CD collection presents all 144 tracks recorded by Williams for his 1951 radio show sponsored by Mother's Best Flour
During rehearsals for their landmark single "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield reportedly asked producer/co-writer Phil Spector just what he was supposed to do while Bill Medley took the lead on the powerful song. Spector's reply? "Go to the bank!" The producer wasn't kidding, as the anthemic ballad became a No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic, the fifth best-selling song of the U.S. in 1965, and the most-played song on radio and television of the entire 20th
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Kinks, Arthur, or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire [Various Formats] (BMG) 4CD/4-seven-inch single box: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / The Kinks Official 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / The Kinks Official 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / The Kinks Official The Kinks' 1969 concept album continued in the quintessentially British vein of The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation
It turns out the remixed, expanded Abbey Road isn't the only piece of The Beatles' catalogue getting reissued for the holidays. The group just announced the release of a box set gathering the band's singles on vinyl, to be released November 22. The Singles Collection includes original singles and B-sides on 22 pieces of vinyl, plus a newly created 23rd single featuring "Free As a Bird" and "Real Love," both single A-sides released to promote the multi-volume Anthology project in 1995 and
You Say You Want a Revolution Following the enormous, worldwide success of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles wouldn't have been faulted had they re-entered Abbey Road Studios and created another album of robustly melodic, lavishly orchestrated songs of whimsy and wonder. But Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr weren't interested in repeating themselves. When The Beatles arrived on November 22, 1968, roughly one and one-half years after Pepper, one didn't even
NEW YORK, NY - "We live in a perfect world of [these] anodyne, Instagrammed, perfect photographs, in-tune music, and everything in time, and The Beatles weren't that. The Beatles had a heartbeat to them, and the story of 'The White Album' is the story of that heartbeat, if you'd like." Last Wednesday morning, September 26, Giles Martin was holding court for an audience of about 70 at New York's famed Record Plant. The subject was, of course, the legendary 1968 double-LP formally named The
It's officially named for the band that created it, but to listeners around the world, the 1968 double-album will forever be known as The White Album. Its sprawling, eclectic lineup of 30 tracks showcased every side of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and cast its musical net wider from the baroque pop majesty of Sgt. Pepper's to a heavier celebration of all things, and all sounds, rock-and-roll. Just a few of its classic songs include "Back in the USSR," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "While My Guitar
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Various Artists, Stax Singles Vol. 4: Rarities and Best of the Rest (Stax/Craft) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Craft Recordings boxes up a fourth volume of rare singles from the Stax vaults. Volume Four lives up to its subtitle, collecting odds and ends from Stax and its various imprints by artists including not just the label's usual heavy hitters but also Big Star, Billy Eckstine, Delaney and Bonnie, and others. 80 pages of
George Harrison would have been 75 years old next month, and Craft Recordings is celebrating that milestone with the ultimate tribute to the former Beatle: a multi-format reissue of 2002's Concert For George. Available February 23, two days before Harrison's birthday, Concert For George will bow in five different physical configurations - the most enormous of which is an online-only box set, limited only to 1,000 copies worldwide and featuring the star-studded tribute show on two CDs, two
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Doors, The Singles (Elektra/Rhino) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K. 2CD/1BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K. Vinyl box set: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada / Amazon U.K. Singles compiles all 20 of the singles from The Doors' official discography. This not only includes every A and B-side from their core studio albums, but several albums recorded and released after the passing of frontman Jim Morrison, including
I. It Was Fifty Years Ago Today... I read the news today, oh, boy! It's a new day in Pepperland thanks to today's release of the most eagerly-anticipated reissue project of the year: the 50th anniversary deluxe box set of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This would be a landmark collection for any number of reasons: that Pepper is routinely considered one of the greatest albums, if not the greatest album, of all time; that this is the first-ever "Expanded Edition" of a
NEW YORK (NY) - Could it really be getting better? That was a fair question on the lips of the crowd assembled last Friday, April 28, at New York City's World of McIntosh Townhouse. The Second Disc was privileged to be among those members of the press assembled for a "first listen" to the upcoming 50th anniversary stereo remix of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, due for release on May 26 from Capitol, UMe, and Apple Records. Jeff Jones, the chief executive of Apple Corps,