Thanks to everyone's favorite all-consuming pop star Lady Gaga, this week's releases actually start a day earlier. Think of it as like being in England! New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys, NKOTBSB (Columbia/Jive/Legacy) Imagine a greatest hits EP for each band, augmented with three bonus tracks featuring all nine boy band members working together like some sort of insane, teenybopper Voltron. (Official site) The Monkees, The Monkees Present: Expanded Edition / Changes: Expanded
Mark your calendars, friends: a new batch of ICON budget compilations are due from Universal. Between May 3 and 24, UMe is releasing a clutch of ICON sets that run the gamut from country (Willie Nelson, Hank Williams) to R&B (New Edition, Kelly Price), from classics (The Mamas & The Paps, Louis Armstrong) to modern day heroes (Gin Blossoms, Rob Zombie). As usual, there's not much in the way of brand-new or rare material, although some titles have some one-off tunes to their credit.
It seems that the Cherry Red family of labels' slogan should be "expect the unexpected." Each label is run by a different team, resulting in an extremely diverse array of offerings. Steve Stanley's Now Sounds celebrates, but isn't strictly limited to, the musical era of 1964-1972. Past reissues have encompassed such styles as harmony and sunshine pop (Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends, The Association), folk (Janis Ian), light psychedelia (Colours), "Bacharock" (The Golden Gate) and