Features 20 Jan 2025

SDE Reissue Preview 2025

SDE takes a look at the year ahead

By Paul Sinclair

Welcome to a slightly belated SDE Reissue Preview for the year ahead, the 11th consecutive annual preview published on this site. As usual, we will start with the first few months of this year where we have confirmed releases and then move on to what we know/think/presume/hope will be reissued later in the year! Of course they’ll be plenty of things not covered, so please as well as offering your thoughts on reissues mentioned below, do chip in with forthcoming products you know about that SDE hasn’t mentioned! You can do this via the comments section.

Nick Heyward / North of a Miracle 3CD deluxe edition with signed print

January 2025

February 2025

March 2025

April 2025 and Beyond

Paul McCartney

In last year’s reissue preview we hoped that in 2024 we’d finally see an Archive Collection reissue of Wings’ 1978 album London Town, but sadly that wasn’t to be. Paul McCartney, by his own standards, had a fairly quiet year. The relatively low key 50th anniversary reissue of Band on the Run (announced last December) was issued in February and the One Hand Clapping vinyl and CD editions came out in June, with the documentary enjoying a short theatrical run in September. Aside from those Japanese mini-LP CDs, that was it.

However, for those thinking, “it’s time to face up to the fact that the Archive Collection series is dead” (last reissue was Flaming Pie, in 2020) something happened in December that definitely looks positive. In the programme for Paul’s ‘Got Back’ gigs the Archive Collection got a surprise mention. In fact, there was a big four-page feature with the accompanying message: “Keep an eye out for news of the next release(s) on Paul McCartney.com!”.

A new Paul McCartney album in 2025 could scramble any Back to the Egg plans
SDE

Now, if they were not planning on doing any more reissues, there would be zero point in mentioning the campaign in such a high profile fashion, and what with that ‘s’ added to “next release” this really does make me think that London Town and Back to the Egg will happen in 2025, although rumours are that Paul is planning to release a new album this year, which could scramble any Back to the Egg plans and re-route plans away from London Town. If we are thinking about actually anniversaries, there are two big ones: the 50th of Venus and Mars, which means a half-speed mastered vinyl is all but a certainty (and hopefully an Atmos Mix to go with it) and a 20th anniversary of Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, arguably McCartney’s last great album.

John Lennon

2024 was a busy one for John Lennon fans, mainly due to the massive reissue campaign around the excellent Mind Games reissue (one of our box sets of 2024). There is only one ‘proper’ studio album left from the 1970s era and that’s the ‘Lost Weekend’-era Walls and Bridges (1974) – which includes ‘#9 Dream’ and ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’ – although we know that the hybrid outing that was Some Time In New York City has been curated as a box set but mothballed, for the time being at least. The covers album Rock ‘n’ Roll does actually celebrate its 50th anniversary next month, but I’d be surprised if that was reissued this year. We’ll have to wait and see what happens but they could conceivably take a year off from the big album box sets and do something else. The sad fact is that Lennon only had around a decade on this earth as a solo artist and chose not to release anything in during his four ‘house husband’ years of 1976-1979. Therefore, whatever Yoko and Sean choose to release in the next few years by definition they cannot be anniversary releases.

The Beatles

It’s been over two years now since we’ve had a Beatles studio album reissued as a super deluxe edition (Revolver in 2022) so after the ‘Now and Then’ shenanigans of 2023 and the US Albums-celebrating vinyl box of last year, we should be back on track in 2025.

A reissue of the Rubber Soul is what is likely to happen, especially since the album celebrates its 60th birthday in August and the album was due to be next anyway, if we are moving backwards in reverse order from Revolver.

It’s worth remembering that almost half the record (‘Drive My Car’, ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’, ‘Nowhere Man’, ‘Michelle’, ‘In My Life’ and ‘If I Needed Someone’) has already been remixed in stereo (and Dolby Atmos) as recently as 2023, for the reissue of the ‘Red’ and the ‘Blue’ compilation albums, so in a sense that was a spoiler and one suspects much work has already been done. Of course, we’ll still have outtakes to look forward to and we’ll have to wait and see if Apple decide to include a blu-ray with the CD box set with a Dolby Atmos Mix of the full album. I can’t Wait on The Word of this album’s reissue!

*So Red The Rose* – by Duran offshoot Arcadia – was issued in 1985

Other artists and albums

There has been no expanded classic Duran Duran album for ages; 14 years to be precise, with the reissue of Big Thing, in 2010. Amazing, really. Despite talk of 40th anniversary anthologies and the promise of a Medazzaland box set, there’s been no news, although the group have obviously kept busy with live shows and last year’s reissue of Danse Macabre. This year is the 40th anniversary of Duran-adjacent projects, namely Arcadia’s So Red The Rose and The Power Station’s self-titled debut, so there’s a chance of activity around those. It’s true that So Red The Rose got a fine reissue back in 2010, but if ever an album was crying out for a Dolby Atmos Mix, So Red The Rose is it! Should Warners be thinking alone those lines, since the record was produced by Alex Sadkin, they should give David Kosten a call, given his fine work on the Thompson Twins’ Into The Gap? Wishful thinking? Probably, but we’ll have to wait and see.

BMG issued a Hunting High and Low box vinyl box early last year, but that aside it has been a quiet 12 months for a-ha fans, who are still waiting for vinyl reissues of Stay On These Roads, East of the Sun West of the Moon and Memorial Beach a decade after their CD deluxe editions. Talking of CD deluxe editions, 2005’s Analogue should, in theory, be next since that is the album after 2002’s Lifelines which, together with Minor Earth Major Sky (from 2000), was last expanded as a 2CD deluxe edition. To give you an idea of how slowly things are moving, those reissues were now over five years ago and as mentioned above, the three albums before them were reissued 10 years ago! With ‘Take On Me’ likely to be earning a fortune for Warners, without them having to do anything much (it clicked over two billion views on YouTube alone, last September) perhaps it is not too surprising that messing around creating new CD deluxe editions, which take a lot of time and energy – and will be bought buy only a few thousand people – is not top of anyone’s agenda. Sad, but true. They will happen eventually, but one suspects it will be to keep band/management onside, rather than anything else.

a-ha fans are still waiting for vinyl reissues of Stay On These Roads, East of the Sun West of the Moon and Memorial Beach a decade after their CD deluxe editions
SDE

With ‘Waterloo’ mixed in Dolby Atmos last year, to mark the 50th anniversary, it’s likely that ABBA’s back catalogue is being prepared in immersive audio. Whether that results in any physical product remains to be seen. Of course, Universal and Polar could just start all over again with 50th anniversary editions of all the studio albums, but assuming Benny and Bjorn have no intention of changing their minds and opening the vaults, there would seem little point, since they’ve milked it as much as they can for the 30th and then 40th anniversary editions (aforementioned Atmos not withstanding).

A box set of *Welcome to the Pleasuredome* is in the works

It has been over 19 months since Frankie Goes To Hollywood reunited for that Eurovision-celebrating performance and guitarist Brian ‘Nasher’ Nash uttered the immortal words “The future is unwritten but don’t hold your breath”, like some kind of glass-half-empty Sarah Connor from Terminator. Assuming the band aren’t coming to a stage near you any time soon (and Holly’s Pleasuredome-celebrating 2025 solo tour would suggest not) are we going to get an album reissue? We know that Steven Wilson has remixed the band’s debut Welcome to the Pleasuredome, because, he’s mentioned it on a number of occasions and even played the title track – in Atmos – at a hi-fi event in Germany. SDE can tell you that a box set is definitely in the works and should see the light of day during 2025, which is a year late in terms of the 40th anniversary, but whose counting?

*Hounds of Love* is 40 years old in 2025

Pre-2018, Kate Bush was known as never releasing anything, save for new studio albums (three in the last 30 years). Not interested. Since then, there’s been no stopping her, even if she always finds a way to creatively avoid giving fans what they actually want. The CD and vinyl box sets issued just over six years ago were decent (CD packaging aside), the occasional RSD picture discs welcome, but now she’s ported most of her old output to The state51 Conspiracy there’s no stopping her. The trouble is, the scope is so limited. We’ve had the indie coloured vinyl editions and now she’s effectively re-skinning old albums with new artwork in what have become known as ‘illustrated editions’. So far we’ve had a ‘Baskerville Edition’ of Hounds of Love, an ‘Escapologist Edition’ of The Dreaming and most recently a ‘Polar Edition’ of 50 Words For Snow. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Diehard fans have waited an age for Kate to show any interest in her back catalogue, but now she finally has, she’s apparently tackling it like a sixth form art project and not focusing on the music. I’m talking demos, outtakes, alternates, immersive audio etc. I can’t see that changing this year, or probably at all. I’ll guess that we may get The Sensual World and/or Aerial as an illustrated editions this year, but with Kate recently proclaiming that she’s ready to get back to work and start a new record, it could all go quiet again, for a very long time. A multitasker, she ain’t. A shame because Hounds of Love is 40 years old, this year.

Kate Bush is tackling her back catalogue like a sixth form art project
SDE

The problem with David Bowie for those responsible for his reissues, is that he was just too damn prolific back in the 1970s. They can’t keep up! Last year we had the Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! box, focused on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, which was released in 1972. That box was two years late, in terms of the 40th anniversary. The same anniversaries for Aladdin Sane (1973), Pinups (1973) and Diamond Dogs (1974) have been and gone, but Parlophone’s strategy is to just put out the overpriced, no-one-really-wants-them, vinyl reissues when there’s not a box set ready, which is exactly what they’re doing in March with 1975’s Young Americans. In terms of boxes/deluxe sets, there’s probably not enough material to justify an Aladdin Sane one, or Pinups, which means the Diamond Dogs era could be next, although word on the street is that the ‘Eras’ boxes, which started exactly a decade ago in 2015, could be completed this year with a final set that would cover 2002-2016. At 14 years, the longest time period span of them all – taking in Bowie’s last four studio albums: Heathen, Reality, The Next Day and Blackstar.

Last year was a quiet year for Lloyd Cole – no new albums and no reissues – so hopefully this year we’ll get the reissue of his 2003 album Music in a Foreign Language. It was put together a while back, has been remastered and will include a 10-track bonus album of Lloyd’s rough mixes before other musicians were brought in.

Madonna’s multi-year catalog series remains a shambolic disappointment
SDE

Another year, another missed opportunity to reissue a Madonna album. She has been in the UK working on a new studio album with Stuart Price (who produced most of 2005’s Confessions on the Dancefloor), which is bad news for those of us thinking that an album reissue in 2025 surely must happen, since Madge’s focus and attention will be on the new record. The “multi-year catalog series”, so proudly announced three years ago, remains a shambolic disappointment. Warners getting In Bed With Madonna has not really worked out.

Prince’s Purple Rain Atmos Mix should finally emerge on blu-ray in the first half of 2025. The blu-ray was confirmed last summer, but didn’t appear, as promised, in 2024 (it’s been up on streaming for ages). The album after Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, is 40 years old this year, but I don’t think that is going to happen and in fact any major activity seems unlikely.

There will be a second Swing Out Sister box set to follow on from 2022’s Blue Mood, Breakout & Beyond and Roger Waters will revisit his ‘Redux’ version of The Dark Side of the Moon with a box set edition that will include a Dolby Atmos Mix and a live performance of the reworked album. His old band Pink Floyd are likely to revisit 1975’s Wish You Were Here for what would be a 50th anniversary edition and Queen will concentrate on celebrating ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which also turns 50 this year.

The only Wham! release in 1985 was I’m Your Man, so Sony may do something around that towards the end of this year (it was issued in November) and lest we forget George Michael’s Patience is the only remaining studio album of his to feature original songs not to be reissued, so that has got to be on the cards at some point. I’d love to see a reissue of the Wham! in China / Foreign Skies documentary (I was extremely frustrated to be out of the country last year when the BFI in London showed Lindsay Anderson’s original cut, called If You Were There) but it doesn’t seem very likely, even if George’s Estate did (surprisingly) give permission for it to be show as part of the BFI’s ‘O Dreamland! Lindsay Anderson’s Dark British Cinema’ series.

Are you dreaming of a *The* *Dream of the Blue Turtles* reissue?

Paul Young’s The Secret of Association is 40 in 2025 so something may be afoot on that front and so too is Dire Straits‘ Brothers in Arms. Now that Sting has shown a willingness to ‘do’ archive reissues by approving his demos and outtakes for last year’s Synchronicity reissue (box set of the year for SDE) does that mean we’ll see a Dream of the Blue Turtles box set? Probably not, but if I was a Blue Turtle my dream would be a box that combined the 1985 studio album with B-sides, remixes, outtakes and a Bring On The Night-era concert in full, with a restored film. Or something like that.

Oasis will surely put a new (What’s The Story) Morning Glory reissue to mark both the 30th anniversary and to coincide with the reunion gigs and it has been 17 years since Simply Red last reissued their 1985 debut album Picture Book so might Mick Hucknall be tempted to revisit?

Everyone would love to see Grace Jones‘ Slave to the Rhythm expanded and reissued – how good would it sound in Atmos? – but that does seem extremely unlikely. Another 1985 album that Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson were involved with is Propaganda’s A Secret Wish.

A reissue of Tangerine Dream’s Phaedra is rumoured to be in the schedules and Rod Stewart’s Atlantic Crossing is 50 in 2025 although a reissue would seem unlikely given that Rhino’s 2009 reissue campaign only lasted two albums (Atlantic Crossing and A Night on the Town).

The Who’s 1978 album Who Are You has been remixed in Atmos by Steven Wilson, so one assumes that a box is in the works, although presumes it will be on a smaller scale than the Who’s Next offering and a reissue of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album is now overdue although a new album will be priority for 2025.

Who Are You has been mixed in Dolby Atmos by Steven Wilson
SDE

The Mike Oldfield reissue campaign is expected to continue with Hergest Ridge and there were many great albums issued 30 years ago in 1995 that could potentially be reissued including Pulp’s A Different Class, Radiohead’s The Bends, The Verve’s A Northern Soul.

Expect some kind of acknowledgement of Tears For Fears best-selling 1985 album Songs From The Big Chair, even if the 2014 4CD+2DVD super deluxe box set is about as close to the definitive statement on that album as you are going to get! I also think it’s highly likely that we’ll see a box set of Tina Turner’s 1984 album Private Dancer this year, that is consistent with the Break Every Rule and Foreign Affair boxes that have been released. That will be welcome, since the 2015 2CD was only so-so.

Do you know of any reissues confirmed for 2025? Leave a comment and let us know!?

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