Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! David Bowie, Loving the Alien (1983-1988) (Parlophone) 11CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 15LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The fourth annual volume of Parlophone's ongoing series of box sets dedicated to the late David Bowie, Loving the Alien (1983-1988), arrives on 11 CDs or 15 vinyl LPs. This lavish set is filled with more exclusive material than any of its predecessors, as only three studio albums are
The Monkees are throwing a Christmas Party, and you're invited! On October 12, the group's first-ever Christmas album will be released via Rhino on CD, digital download, and streaming. Following in the acclaimed footsteps of 2016's Good Times!, Christmas Party will feature production by Adam Schlesinger, new vocals by Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork, and classic vocals from the late Davy Jones. On this festive set, The Monkees bring their distinctive sound to yuletide
Michael Nesmith always traveled to the beat of a different drum. While serving as one-fourth of The Monkees, Nesmith was expanding his musical horizons beyond the group's infectious Brill Building pop stylings. "I wanted beautiful music wherever I could find it," he writes in the liner notes to his new release on 7a Records. "But if I wanted to sing it myself and write it myself, I had to have an understanding of what that music was, and how to get to it. So, the first place I looked was in
Before embarking with Micky Dolenz on the acclaimed, currently-playing The Monkees Present: The Mike & Micky Show, Michael Nesmith staged another remarkable event earlier this year. For five performances only in January, Nesmith reformed his pioneering country-rock group, The First National Band. The FNB didn't venture out of California, but the sold-out concerts attracted worldwide attention. Now, everyone will have a chance to hear what they missed when 7a Records - the label dedicated
Though it's been over six years since his untimely passing at the age of 66, the music of Davy Jones still endures. 7a Records, the U.K.-based label devoted to all things Monkees-related, has just delivered another treat for longtime fans of the band and its charismatic, perennially boyish singer with the mop top. "Rainbows" b/w "You Don't Have to Be a Country Boy to Sing a Country Song" is a limited edition (500 units) 7-inch, 45 RPM single pressed on red vinyl. Both sides of the single
January is barely over yet, but 2018 is already shaping up to be another banner year for The Monkees. Davy, Peter, Michael, and Micky have just met The Archies in a zany time-travelling comic book adventure, and fans have had the perfect soundtrack: the new, 3-CD/1-45 RPM single super deluxe box set edition of sophomore album More of The Monkees (Rhino Handmade R2 560125) - in time to mark 51 years since the LP was first released, in January 1967. This sixth installment of the long-running
Welcome to this end-of-year Release Round-Up! The Monkees, More of The Monkees: Super Deluxe Edition (Rhino) Rhino delivers a 3-CD Super Deluxe Edition of The Monkees' 1967 sophomore album with mono and stereo versions of the album and a plethora of alternate takes, never-before-heard rarities, and a recently-discovered live recording! With 91 tracks (55 previously unreleased!), this set greatly expands upon the 2-CD iteration from 2006. Read all about it here! Herbie Mann,
Micky Dolenz always attracts a crowd whenever he's performing one of his hits-packed shows. Whether Dolenz is playing a large theatre or an intimate nightclub, the consummate entertainer brings the goods. Now, the Monkees specialists at 7a Records are unveiling a particularly exciting treat: a brand-new live album from Micky, and his first to be recorded with an orchestra. Micky Dolenz & The American Metropole Orchestra: Out of Nowhere will hit stores on November 17 in the U.K. (and one
There's more on the way from The Monkees - More of The Monkees, in fact! The long-awaited Super Deluxe Edition of the band's classic 1967 sophomore album has been confirmed for arrival from Rhino on December 15, with 91 tracks on three CDs - 55 of which are previously unreleased! This collection lives up to its Super Deluxe description with a plethora of alternate takes, new and vintage mixes, and perhaps most excitingly, newly-discovered live concert material from 1967. This new edition
By 1975, Michael Nesmith's bona fides as a groundbreaking pioneer of country-rock were well established. After his first solo LP, 1968's orchestral The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, the once and future Monkee had released six well-received albums and yielded a pair of hit singles, "Joanne" and "Silver Moon"- not to mention "Different Drum," a major hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. On November 27, 1975, Nesmith recorded an intimate set in London at the BBC Paris Theatre, during which
Randy Newman once observed of his friend Harry Nilsson, "The records Harry made, and the first records I made, it was like The Rolling Stones never existed." Indeed, before his famously chronicled lifestyle as a Hollywood hellraiser threatened to overshadow his reputation as a talent nonpareil (and left his once-angelic voice in tatters), Nilsson had carved out an artful niche of wit and whimsy. He expressed his musical muse in gentle psychedelia, baroque pop, folk rock, vaudeville
With its latest project, 7a Records has invited Monkees fans to Listen to the Bands - yes, plural. This recent 25-track collection features modern, independent artists all tackling Davy, Micky, Mike, and Peter's classic songbook - and making it even more special, all profits from the limited edition album will be donated by the label to the Davy Jones Equine Memorial Foundation. Appropriately, curators Glenn Gretlund and Iain Lee of 7a have made sure that many of the famous songwriting names
Late in 2015, Ace Records released the compilation Jon Savage's 1966: The Year The Decade Exploded to coincide with the publication of the author-historian's book of the same name. Now, Ace and Savage have followed that CD release with another volume - 1967: The Year Pop Divided. The 2-CD collection's mission statement is clearly set out: "MOR ballads were rife in the U.K. charts in 1967, but thankfully not on this dynamic collection of rock, soul, pop, and incipient funk and psych the teenage
Five decades ago, in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, a social movement was growing. Young people, with heads full of progressive ideas and evolving attitudes toward sex, drugs and rock and roll, were converging on the area to celebrate their personal freedom--an extension of that January's "Human Be-In" in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The "Summer of Love," as it was called, was the birth of the modern counterculture, and music played an integral role in the shaping,
Tomorrow, April 28, Varese Vintage will reissue one of the most delightfully unexpected Monkees-related titles in recent memory with the compact disc premiere of Stu Phillips Presents The Monkees Songbook, as played by The Golden Gate Strings. The 1967 Epic Records release featured ten favorites from the height of Monkeemania, all rendered in lushly orchestral "easy listening" style. Veteran composer-arranger Stu Phillips (Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider) spearheaded the project.
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Michael Nesmith, Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs - The Music (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Rhino Records offers a 14-track companion CD to Michael Nesmith's memoir Infinite Tuesday - An Autobiographical Riff (due on April 18). This collection has tracks from Nesmith solo as well as The Monkees and The First National Band, charting his singular and often-trailblazing work over the decades. Read more here! The
On April 18, Crown Archetype will release Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff, the long-awaited memoir by Michael Nesmith. The book chronicles Papa Nez's life from his childhood days in Dallas, Texas through his success with The Monkees, groundbreaking work in music video and virtual reality, and beyond. Four days before the book's release, however, Rhino Records will issue a companion CD tracing Nesmith's musical evolution. The April 14 release of Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical
When news came through that Brooklyn label Manufactured Recordings was reissuing Tomorrow's Coming, the sole full-length LP by cult power-pop group The Modulators, we at Second Disc HQ knew we couldn't just do an ordinary news post. It's not just the music--although the music, a sugary-sweet blend of Raspberries-esque dream pop and Marshall Crenshaw-ian jangle-crunch, is thoroughly worth your time. Ultimately, our interest is piqued by the original label that released Tomorrow's Coming:
Attention all daydream believers! The diehard Monkeephiles at 7a Records have an upcoming release that's sure to cheer up sleepy Jean. Oh what can it mean? On February 24, the 7a team will unveil the label's latest limited-edition vinyl single, and its first from the late, great Davy Jones. Daydream Believer/I Wanna Be Free captures Jones' performances of the two all-time Monkees classics recorded on his 1981 tour of Japan. This 7-inch single, strictly limited to 500 copies pressed on
From all of us here at Second Disc HQ to all of you, we hope you're enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving in the company of 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 - the day for consumers to start off the holiday shopping season on a mad, frenetic note. But 2016 is just in the latest year in which numerous retailers in the U.S. have made headlines by blackening Thursday, or
That chill in the air and the buzz in your favorite record store can only mean one thing: Record Store Day Black Friday is nearly upon us! On November 25, indie record retailers and labels great and small will partner together to issue dozens of exclusive packages you can't get anywhere else (except maybe eBay, after the fact, though we're not happy about that.) The vinyl boom refuses to end, but owing to the lesser size of the event in general, there don't seem to be as many titles as usual.
Last July, the 7a Records label debuted with a limited edition vinyl release of Micky Dolenz's The MGM Singles Collection. Since that auspicious release, the all-things-Monkees label founded by Iain Lee and Glenn Gretlund has enriched Micky, Peter, Michael and Davy's discography with numerous other releases on both vinyl and compact disc. On October 7, the label will be going full circle with the first-time CD release of The MGM Singles Collection in a lavishly expanded edition featuring the
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! The Beach Boys, Becoming The Beach Boys: The Complete Hite and Dorinda Morgan Sessions (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) This 2-CD set, a tie-in with Jim Murphy's recent book Becoming The Beach Boys 1961-1963, chronicles the earliest years of America's Band. Featuring 62 tracks (over 40 previously unreleased), Omnivore's CD is released in conjunction with The Beach Boys' Brother Records, and features all of the extant
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Anthology (BMG) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) The new 3-CD/DD release of Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Anthology rounds out this first wave of titles from BMG including reissues of Emerson Lake & Palmer, Tarkus and Pictures at an Exhibition. Produced by Greg Lake, this career-spanning set has 39 tracks from the years 1970 to 1998, the choice of material approved by all three band members.
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of The Monkees, yes - but it also marks the same milestone for The Monkees. Whether on the original NBC broadcasts, twenty years later on MTV or since then on home video, fans have fallen in love with The Monkees. The television sitcom launched Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith as household names (and faces!) and inspired some of the finest pop music to arrive from any group in the 1960s. Rhino first released The Monkees as
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »