Holding the Music in Your Hands ®
It’s been 20 years since the Frank Sinatra Duets album which saw him collaborate with artists as diverse as Barbara Streisand, Tony Bennett, Bono and Gloria Estefan.
To commemorate this, Capitol/Universal Music have created a Super Deluxe Edition box set that features both the Duets album and its follow-up Duets II (which was originally released a year later in 1994).
Continue reading “Frank Sinatra / “Duets” 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition”
Time, Rod Stewart‘s first ‘proper’ studio album for nearly two decades was issued back in May 2013 and was available as a standard 12-track version and a deluxe edition which came with three bonus songs.
Well, much like David Bowie‘s The Next Day Extra, there is now another deluxe edition, just in time for Christmas…
Continue reading “Rod Stewart / “Time” 2CD deluxe set”
Edsel Records are reissuing the four Elektra albums released by US alternative band They Might Be Giants, in December this year.
The band consists of John Flansburgh (guitar) and John Linnell (accordian and saxophone) and their first two albums – They Might Be Giants and Lincoln – are alternative classics from the mid/late eighties, featuring memorable tracks such as Don’t Let’s Start, (She Was A) Hotel Detective, Youth Culture Killed My Dog, Ana Ng, They’ll Need A Crane and The World’s Address.
Continue reading “They Might Be Giants / Elektra album 2CD reissues, including “Flood””
Fire Records are to issue Little Sand Box, and eight-disc box set featuring the solo work of Giant Sand frontman Howe Gelb, in December.
The collection will feature all of the Tucson based musician’s six commercially released solo albums, including the acclaimed Sno Angel Like You from 2006. Each album will come with bonus tracks and two further discs complete the set; a selection of piano pieces entitled Some Piano and the Sno Angel Winging It live CD. Liner notes from Gelb himself are included within the booklet.
Continue reading “Howe Gelb / Little Sand Box”
Paramount Records were an American record label that ran for 15 years from around 1917 onwards. The company were a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company who (amongst other things) originally made wooden phonograph cabinets.
The firm released blues and jazz records by artists such as Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Charley Patton, and Blind Lemon Jefferson specialising in so-called “race records” – that is music from African-American artists.
Continue reading “The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume One / lavish box”
Peter Gabriel today releases (digitally) an outtake from his 1986 classic album So.
The track Courage first saw the light of day last year when it was featured on twelve-inch vinyl as part of the So 25th Anniversary box.
Peter Gabriel has worked on it some more since then, and it now features new overdubs by himself and long-term guitarist David Rhodes. It has been newly mixed by Tchad Blake. This ‘Radio Edit’ version forms a ‘digital bundle’ with ‘The Hexidecimal Mix’ courtesy of remixer and producer Steve Osbourne.
Continue reading “Peter Gabriel releases “Courage”: a newly remixed “So” outtake”
Fifty years after the first release from The Animals comes The Mickie Most Years And More – a new five CD box set.
The box offers, for the first time on CD, the group’s first four American albums The Animals, The Animals on Tour, Animal Tracks and Animalization in their original mono versions. The fifth CD features the band’s first ever release – the I Just Wanna Make Love To You EP.
Continue reading “The Animals / “The Mickie Most Years and More” / five CD box set”
The mammoth Dylan collection arrives today. 35 studio albums, six live albums and a special 2CD compilation of non-album tracks called Side Tracks. It’s available on a USB stick at higher resolution too. 
The Next Day Extra from David Bowie comprises his acclaimed 2013 album, with a bonus CD featuring four new tracks, remixes and bonus songs from previous deluxe editions. A DVD offers all the videos.
This video shows an unboxing of the Super Deluxe Edition of The Best Of Keane.
This edition contains two CDs, a DVD and a 100-page hardcover ‘photo scrapbook’. The first disc is a 20-track hits collection while the second CD contains 17 B-sides. The DVD features an August 2013 acoustic gig, where the setlist was chosen by Keane fans.
The Best Of Keane is released on 11 November 2013
Super Deluxe Edition (2CD+DVD+Book)
Live From KCRW is a ten-track collection of live sessions from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds recorded at the Santa Monica radio station in April 2013.
Continue reading “Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds / Live From KCRW / radio sessions”
It seems that the appeal of a simple 12-track greatest hits album has long since waned. Record labels these days are offering more for less. Rhino’s format of choice in the lead up to Christmas 2013, is the 4CD set, compacted into a ‘fatbox’ CD package with a slipcase. They are releasing the Simply Red Songbook collection in exactly this format and here they do the same for The Eagles.
Continue reading “The Eagles / Selected Works 1972-1999 / four-CD box set”
In Germany, Universal Music have just released Queen‘s Platinum Collection three-CD greatest hits set in the kind of limited edition packaging normally reserved for home cinema releases on DVD and blu-ray.
Continue reading “Queen / “The Platinum Collection” special steelbook edition”
Eagle Rock released Bryan Ferry Live In Lyon last month – an audio/visual celebration of a 2011 concert from his Olympia tour.
The deluxe edition blu-ray and CD comes packaged as a rather beautiful book. The 200mm x 145mm hardback volume comes complete with textured cover and inset glossy photo of Mr Ferry, with the two discs residing within the inner front and rear covers. The 76 pages are elegantly designed, and devote generous space to the musicians, backing singers – and even the dancers – who joined Ferry on the stage in Lyon, with personal profiles on each. The rest of the book take us through Ferry’s 14 solo albums, from These Foolish Things in 1973 to The Jazz Age from last year. Photography is crisp and clear, and the words (largely by Hal Norman) provide a good retrospective overview of the last 30 years of solo output.
Continue reading “Bryan Ferry / “Live In Lyon” deluxe edition blu-ray + CD review”
Françoise Hardy the iconic figure in French fashion, music and style has her 1973 album Message Personnel reissued by Rhino France in November.
Hardy was 30 years old and pregnant with her first child at the time of the album’s release and had already enjoyed over a decade in the limelight thanks to the success of songs such as 1962’s Tous les garçons et les filles – a track which would be covered by many artists over the years, including the Eurythmics (it featured on the 12″ version of their 1985 single It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back)).
Continue reading “Francoise Hardy / “Message Personnel”-collectors edition box set”
Rhino will release Song Book 1985-2010 in November, a four-disc set that celebrates 25 years of Simply Red. Each of the first three CDs represents a decade: the 80’s 90’s and 00’s, with the fourth disc being re-recordings of some previous hits, oddities and rarities.
Continue reading “Simply Red / Songbook 1985-2010”
Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) will issue John Mellencamp 1978-2012, a 19 disc box set in December 2013.
This is effectively the entire studio catalogue, and includes all the American singer-songwriter’s albums recorded as John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp and John Mellencamp for various record labels.
Continue reading “John Mellencamp: 1978-2012 box”
We’re liking this round packaging for the forthcoming Fleetwood Mac Boston release. All the details and track listings can be found at this post, but in short it’s a 3CD set capturing all three nights in February 1970 when the then blues band played the Boston Tea Party venue.
Boston is out on 11 November 2013.
Eighties era boy band Bros have their 1988 debut album Push reissued by Cherry Pop on Monday 4 November.
Here we bring you exclusive photos of the new generous 3CD set, which comes packaged in an eight-panel card wallet. A massive 25 bonus tracks (largely remixes) are added to the original 10 track album, including four seven-inch single edits.
Continue reading “FIRST PICTURES: Bros / “Push” 3CD”
Demon Music will issue a 12LP Jesus and Mary Chain Vinyl Box Set on 16 December 2013.
The box will contain all of their original studio albums – Psychocandy (1985), Darklands (1987), Automatic (1989), Honey’s Dead (1992) Stoned & Dethroned (1994) and Munki (1998) – pressed on 180g heavyweight vinyl.
Additionally, this vinyl box – issued in celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the formation of the band – comes with a Live In Concert 2LP set that features eight tracks from a 1992 Sheffield Arena gig and 12 more from a concert at the Trinity Centre in Bristol in 1995. Another double LP, The BBC Sessions, collects 32 tracks recorded across the decades for BBC radio.
Continue reading “Get an exclusive discount on Jesus and Mary Chain vinyl box via SDE”
British singer songwriter Leo Sayer has worked with some fine musical talent during his career. In the 1970s in particular, his albums featured contributions from the likes of Steve Gadd, Ry Cooder, Jeff Porcaro, Lindsey Buckingham, Greg Phillinganes, Waddy Watchel, Ray Parker Jnr, Steve Cropper, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn and Steve Lukather and Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, to name but a few.
Continue reading “PICTURES / Leo Sayer: Just A Box”
