After a series of smaller "Drops" over the past two years, Record Store Day is (mostly) back to a one-day event, and the big day is tomorrow: Saturday, April 23. Over 250 titles will be available at independent stores everywhere - including some CD releases, too! That's plenty of albums in almost every genre imaginable, so visit RecordStoreDay.com in the U.S., RecordStoreDay.co.uk in the U.K., and RecordStoreDayCanada.ca in Canada for the complete list, and sound off below as to which titles
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Rod McKuen, New Ballads (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Real Gone celebrates the late Rod McKuen with a slate of releases this week. For the 1970 album New Ballads, the singer-songwriter teamed with renowned arranger-conductor Don Costa for this remarkable collection of songs including "As I Love My Own," the dramatic Jacques Brel collaboration "I'm Not Afraid," "Thank You for Christmas," and a composition which
"Imagine Andy Williams reinventing himself as Stockhausen," The Guardian once wrote of the amazing journey of Scott Walker. The pop idol turned crooner turned shocking avant-garde auteur died this week at age 76, but not before leaving behind one of the most fascinating catalogues of the rock era. An American and child actor on Broadway who found his success in England as one third of The Walker Brothers, Scott could have been content reliving his glory days of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine
"Imagine Andy Williams reinventing himself as Stockhausen," The Guardian once wrote of the amazing journey of Scott Walker. The pop idol turned crooner turned shocking avant-garde auteur died this week at age 76, but not before leaving behind one of the most fascinating catalogues of the rock era. An American and child actor on Broadway who found his success in England as one third of The Walker Brothers, Scott could have been content reliving his glory days of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine
Over the past few weeks, Universal has announced a varied assortment of upcoming vinyl releases, including a rarities collection from the Godfather of Soul, a compilation of early Scott Walker, two Meat Loaf titles arriving on vinyl for the first time ever in the States, and a celebratory 10th Anniversary edition from U2. It's set to be a vinyl-filled February and March, and The Second Disc has all the details! First up, Geffen/UMe is serving up two new editions of celebrated Meat Loaf
Last year, the Bella Union label released a collection that fell under the radar. Happily, we here at Second Disc HQ have discovered Paradise: The Sound of Ivor Raymonde, available in 1-CD, 2-LP, and digital formats. The name of Raymonde will surely be familiar to fans of Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, or The Walker Brothers, but those are only three of the artists with whom the late producer-arranger-conductor worked his magic. Paradise, co-curated by his son Simon Raymonde of Bella Union
Hours of unreleased soundtrack music? Oft-requested titles from favorite composers and popular film series? It's definitely Black Friday season at La-La Land Records! The venerable soundtrack label closed the book on 2018 with five brand-new film and television score expansions - a total of 18 discs' worth of material, including three works involving one of the most successful living soundtrack composers and projects related to two world-renowned franchises. First up, La-La Land's successful
Where Part 1 of our Back Tracks feature left Scott Walker, he was in a creatively barren period, cranking out albums of AM pop and country, a far cry from the Brel songs and even the Brill Building tearjerkers that characterized his best work. Having left the sublime pop symphonies and edgy chansons behind, he found inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. In 1975, The Walker Brothers reformed, much to the surprise of many. The group recorded the LP No Regrets, which they followed up with
This week, Scott Walker released his latest studio album, Soused, a predictably unpredictable collaboration with drone-metal band Sunn O))). To mark the occasion, we’re reviewing the musical iconoclast’s complete discography in this two-part Back Tracks series originally presented in June 2010 and freshly updated! The music business is famous for hyperbole, but it’s no exaggeration to say that few have had a career anything like that of Scott Walker. An American who skyrocketed to fame on
Ray Parker Jr. & Run-DMC, Ghostbusters: Stay Puft Edition Super Deluxe Vinyl (Legacy) The Marshmallow Man is back! The Stay Puft Super Deluxe Edition Vinyl is a limited edition collectible that every Ghostbusters fan will want to take home! Co-produced by The Second Disc's Mike Duquette, this set contains the No. 1 hit single “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr. and the “Ghostbusters” rap by Run-DMC for the film’s hit sequel, with both tracks on a white 12” single in a deluxe, puffy,
David Bowie did the unthinkable in this media-obsessed age when, on the date of his sixty-sixth birthday (January 8, 2013), he managed to catch the world off-guard to announce his first new album in a decade. Bowie and his cohorts had kept The Next Day a secret, proving that the iconoclastic artist could still do things his way. In six decades, from the 1960s through the present, David Bowie has kept his fans guessing what might come next. And while Bowie's sound is one of the most
Ace Records’ latest addition to its Songwriters Series, Colour My World: The Songs of Tony Hatch, should come with a warning label – CAUTION: THESE SONGS WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY. A composer, lyricist, producer, arranger and A&R man (whew!), Hatch was a hitmaker par excellence, and one of no small skill for imparting joy through his music. Petula Clark’s bright 1964 single “Downtown” alone would likely have assured Hatch a place in the Book of Pop, Swingin’ Sixties chapter. But listening to a
Various Artists, Chicago Hit Factory: The Vee-Jay Story 1953-1966 (Charly) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.) This import box set tells the story of great R&B label Vee-Jay Records via a whopping 10 discs, 269 tracks (including 112 hits) by more than 120 different artists, and a 72-page book. Artists include Jerry Butler, The Four Seasons, The Beatles, Gene Chandler, Little Richard, Betty Everett, The Dells and The Standells! Jazz, gospel, blues and doo-wop all figure prominently along with the
Time stands still for Burt Bacharach. Rumer’s 2010 single “Some Lovers,” from Bacharach and Steven Sater’s musical of the same name, is the most recent track on Universal U.K.’s new box set Anyone Who Had a Heart: The Art of the Songwriter. Yet 2010 melts into 1965 like a ray of sunshine on the “cloudy Christmas morning” in the song lyric. Sleigh bells gently underscore wistful flugelhorns as it begins, with Rumer’s dreamy, comforting vocals gracefully gliding over the bittersweet melody.
Upon the late 2012 release of Scott Walker's album Bish Bosch, U.K. newspaper The Guardian posed the question, "Were you hoping this might be the album that would see Scott Walker return to lush, beautiful balladry?" The answer: "Well, tough." Indeed, the iconoclastic singer-songwriter has pursued a defiantly singular path creating intense, nightmarish and never-uninteresting soundscapes on albums such as Bish Bosch. His work over the past two-plus decades has been removed, of course, from
If you see me walking down the street, and I start to cry…or smile…or laugh...there’s a good chance I might be listening to a song by Burt Bacharach. Since beginning his songwriting career with 1952’s instrumental “Once in a Blue Moon” as recorded by Nat King Cole, Bacharach has provided the soundtrack to many of our lives, often in tandem with lyricist Hal David. (Their first collaborations date to 1956, including The Harry Carter Singers’ “Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil,” and Sherry