Tomorrow, Record Store Day is once again upon us! It's that time of year where music lovers and vinyl flippers get together at their favorite physical music retailers and wait in line to snag some treasured albums - almost all of which are pressed on vinyl instead of CD (or, you know, sold on secondary marketplaces for above their retail value). This year, the list tops out at over 300 titles, so there's very nearly something for everybody. It wasn't easy to narrow our choices down to around
Universal Music Group's 2025 Record Store Day roster is heavy on British rockers: Elvis Costello, John Lennon, Elton John, Sting, Queen, Mark Knopfler, and The Verve among them! But there's also some highly-anticipated items from The Killers and Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and Passengers, a.k.a. U2 and Brian Eno, among the other highlights. Visit RecordStoreDay.com for the full list of participating retailers you can visit on Saturday, April 12, to join in the festivities. Elvis
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc's review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. The Christmas season means favorites (quite) old and (sort of) new, plus Wang Chung's first album and a rock and hip-hop packed slasher film soundtrack. Band Aid, Do They Know It's Christmas? EP (Band Aid Trading Limited/UMC) EP: iTunes / Amazon Single Version: iTunes / Amazon Extended Version: iTunes / Amazon Just over four decades
John Lennon's fourth solo album Mind Games will receive a deluxe box set this summer packed with new mixes of the album's contents as well as a dozen unreleased outtakes. Available July 12, the 6CD/2BD box will take a new, immersive look at Lennon's sessions at New York's Record Plant in the summer of 1973, a turbulent time that resulted in a somewhat divisive effort in his post-Beatles discography. Included in the set are many assemblies of the original 12-track album, produced by Lennon and
Ace Records has had quite a 2021, from collections spotlighting the songs of Lou Reed and Donovan through this past week's releases from Petula Clark, late producer Norman Whitfield, and the ladies of Motown. Today, we're taking a look at a pair of recent releases from the venerable label. Lincoln Wayne "Chips" Moman (1937-2016) may never have become a household name, but the music he helped create certainly did. A guitarist, producer, songwriter, and engineer, Moman pioneered the sound of
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band (Capitol/UMe) 6CD/2BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The 6-CD/2-BD John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: The Ultimate Collection contains everything recorded by John and Yoko during the sessions for John's 1970 Plastic Ono Band LP, totaling 159 tracks on CD and 131 on
The July 1969 single release of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" marked the first time that the name of the Plastic Ono Band appeared on a record label. Lennon and his new wife Yoko Ono - they'd married in March - resolved to use the flexible band handle for whichever group happened to be playing with them; the onstage document Live Peace in Toronto 1969 was credited to the band, as was the harrowing single "Cold Turkey." "Instant Karma!" modified the name slightly to "John Lennon and Yoko
Today sees the streaming release of the documentary film Zappa from director (and Bill in the Bill & Ted series of films) Alex Winter. Taking into account the many sides of the late, iconoclastic artist - from musician to activist, from boundary-breaking rock-and-roller to innovative composer - the movie has already received widespread acclaim. Fully authorized by the Zappa Family Trust, Winter's portrait of the artist incorporates rare archival footage alongside interviews with key family
On October 9, John Lennon would have turned 80 years old. To mark the occasion, Capitol and UMe will be releasing a new multi-format collection entitled Gimme Some Truth: The Ultimate Mixes after his still-relevant 1971 protest single of that name. But this set - out on John's birthday - won't resemble the 2010 box of nearly the same title (celebrating his 70th). Instead, the Deluxe Edition release features 36 all-new mixes from the original multi-tracks of solo Lennon classics, remixed in
As the COVID 19 outbreak continues to impact our lives, it's heartening to know that some things are returning to some semblance of "normal," or as close as we can get to it during this unpredictable impasse. As we previously reported, Record Store Day has been split into three standalone "RSD Drop" days, occurring on August 29, September 26, and October 24. That's not the only thing changing this time around. It's been reported by Georgia-based shop Comeback Vinyl that the organization is
Last year, John Lennon fans were treated to an extravagant box set celebrating one of he highlights of his career, the Imagine album. To promote it, the original 1972 film Imagine was released in theaters and paired with the documentary Gimme Some Truth for a DVD/Blu-ray release. Channel 4 in the U.K. and A&E in the U.S. screened a new film called John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky before it moved to Netflix. As Eagle Rock Entertainment's CEO/Chairman Terry Shand says: "With exclusive
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is one of those great time capsules of the rock and roll era. Filmed at the Intertel TV Studio in Wembley on December 11, 1968 and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the movie was part rock show and part sideshow. The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus featured the original lineup of The Rolling Stones - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman - who served as the main music draw and the night's hosts. They were joined by a
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up. Here's what's on the way today, March 22! Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings (Rhino/Atlantic Catalog Group) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings presents Aretha Franklin's iconic concerts at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles during January 1972 in full. Both the Thursday night and Friday night sets are accounted for, spread across four 180-gram LPs. For
It's been more than 50 years since The Rolling Stones and a host of friends converged at Intertel TV Studio in Wembley to film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, the concert film that featured the band alongside friends like The Who, Jethro Tull, The Dirty Mac (a supergroup featuring John Lennon, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell). The once-lost documentary has been newly restored and will be screened in select theaters throughout the United States in early
Yesterday, on the occasion of her 86th birthday, avant-garde artist and musician Yoko Ono announced a new edition of Wedding Album, the third of her collaborative experimental albums with John Lennon. It will be released by Secretly Canadian and Chimera Music on March 22, just over 50 years after the pair's marriage. The reissue is part of the ongoing Yoko Ono Reissue Series, which has so far brought Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968), Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions
You May Say I'm a Dreamer Much like the artist who created it, John Lennon's Imagine has always been an album of contradictions. While its dreamy, idealized title track has become an anthem for generations, the same LP veers from heartbreaking vulnerability ("Jealous Guy") and expressions of romance ("Oh My Love," "Oh Yoko!") to a withering, personal jab at a friend ("How Do You Sleep") to powerfully pointed social commentary ("Crippled Inside," "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna
John Lennon's second solo studio album, and arguably his most beloved, is returning from Apple and Capitol in a lavish new 4CD/2BD box set. On October 5, the Imagine: Ultimate Collection will hit stores, celebrating the classic 1971 album which introduced the world to "Imagine," "Jealous Guy," and "Gimme Some Truth" as well as the blistering "How Do You Sleep" and rollicking "Oh, Yoko!" In addition to the box set and digital options, a 2CD Deluxe Edition, 1CD remaster, and 2LP black vinyl
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Dusty Springfield, A Brand New Me: The Complete Philadelphia Sessions (Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Dusty Springfield's 1970 A Brand New Me LP (her follow-up Atlantic effort to the landmark Dusty in Memphis) found Dusty traveling to Sigma Sound in Philadelphia to work with Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell, architects of the orchestrated soul known as "The Philadelphia Sound." Springfield would have a #3 AC
Secretly Canadian, in partnership with Chimera Music, last year announced a back catalogue campaign covering the challenging musical works of Yoko Ono. The second batch of three expanded albums will be released next month, the label announced today. Three albums from the early '70s recorded for Apple Records--1971's Fly and 1973's Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling the Space--will be repressed on CD and LP for the first time in many years on July 14. Each release will feature bonus
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! It's another big week for box sets from classic rock's heaviest hitters, and much, much more... Bob Dylan, The 1966 Live Recordings (Columbia/Legacy) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) 36 discs of music from Bob Dylan's 1966 world tour - every recording of the tour known to exist - are brought together on this monumental new collection. Read our full review here! Bob Dylan, The Real Royal Albert Hall
Since shortly before The Second Disc began in 2010, we've seen a swath of major reissues, overhauls and catalog deliveries of the works of both The Beatles, together and separately, too. This fall, it's time to take a look at the catalogue of one of The Beatles' most intriguing associates: Yoko Ono. John Lennon's second wife is not "the woman who broke up The Beatles," as has been famously charged. But John's devotion to her as expressed in much of his solo music, as well as her own