Release Round-Up: Week of November 7

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Wings, Wings [Various Formats] (MPL/Capitol/UMe) 2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada On November 4, Paul McCartney released Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, an oral history of the superstar’s other band. The hardcover tome, created in collaboration with film director Morgan Neville and editor Ted Widmer, tells Wings’ story through text, photographs, a timeline, a gigography,…

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The Weekend Stream: September 13, 2025

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. Phil Collins gets remixed, unexpected covers of The Cure and Bob Dylan and so much more – all part of this week’s round-up! Phil Collins, No Jacket Required (2025 Mix) (Craft/Rhino) (Apple / Amazon) A nice surprise for fans of Phil: not only have a few bonus tracks exclusive to the new vinyl box set of No Jacket Required made digital stores, but Steven Wilson’s stereo remix of the original album…

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Sunshine All The Time: Omnivore’s “Something There: Remembering Jeffrey Foskett” Is OUT NOW!

Jeffrey Foskett surely embodied the California Dream.  The San Jose native his dues gigging around the Golden State with such early bands as Reverie and The Pranks.  A knock on Brian Wilson’s door in 1976 led to a long friendship with the Beach Boy, while Wilson’s cousin Mike Love became a Foskett fan three years later upon hearing Reverie live in a Santa Barbara bar.  Love brought Foskett into the Beach Boys fold – first in The Endless Summer Beach Band, then in the Beach Boys themselves.  Gifted with an ethereal falsetto,…

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Release Round-Up: Week of July 11

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Jethro Tull, Still Living in the Past (Parlophone/Rhino) 5CD/1BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Still Living in the Past reinterpret Jethro Tull’s original odds-and-ends compilation from 1972 as a 5CD/1 Blu-ray set boasting some 35 unissued mixes and versions alongside just about every one of the 21 original tracks that appeared on the original double album. Alongside the original mixes of the non-album material that comprised Living in…

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Splash City: Omnivore Celebrates Jeffrey Foskett on “Something There” Featuring Brian Wilson, Mike Love, America, More

Jeffrey Foskett surely embodied the California Dream.  The San Jose native his dues gigging around the Golden State with such early bands as Reverie and The Pranks.  A knock on Brian Wilson’s door in 1976 led to a long friendship with the Beach Boy, while Wilson’s cousin Mike Love became a Foskett fan three years later upon hearing Reverie live in a Santa Barbara bar.  Love brought Foskett into the Beach Boys fold – first in The Endless Summer Beach Band, then in the Beach Boys themselves.  Gifted with an ethereal falsetto,…

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Release Round-Up: Week of June 28

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today!  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Two Tons o’ Fun, Get the Feeling: The Complete Fantasy/Honey Recordings (Real Gone Music/Second Disc Records) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Real Gone Music) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music celebrate Two Tons o’ Fun – a.k.a. Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes Armstead, a.k.a. The Weather Girls – with a complete 2-CD anthology that serves as a companion to last year’s Sylvester release, Disco Heat: The Fantasy Years 1977-1981.  Get the…

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Release Round-Up: Week of March 17

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! U2, Songs of Surrender (Interscope) 4CD (40 tracks): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 4LP (40 tracks): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Deluxe CD (20 tracks): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada CD (16 tracks): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 2LP (16 tracks): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada U2 is revisiting its discography on the new project Songs of Surrender.  The album takes its name from the speaking tour undertaken last year by frontman Bono, tied to his memoirs. While writing those, he – along with guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and…

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The Weekend Stream: April 9, 2022

Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing weekly review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there’s plenty of great new/old music to discover! And after a week away, you better believe we’re coming in hot! Billy Joel, 50 Years of the Piano Man (Columbia/Legacy) (Apple Music / Amazon) On the surface, this 50-track digital compilation-cum-playlist looks like a typical algorithmic survey of Joel’s five-decade career, with all the great radio hits rising to the top. But dig deeper and you’ll discover six tracks making their…

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Release Round-Up: Week of March 26

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Neil Young, Young Shakespeare (Reprise) [Various Formats] CD/DVD/LP box: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Greedy Hand CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Greedy Hand LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Greedy Hand DVD: Greedy Hand Digital: Neil Young Archives (Streaming) / XStream (Digital Download) / Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. Young Shakespeare documents the earliest known filmed live concert footage of Neil Young, in an array of formats.  The previously unreleased, solo acoustic show was filmed in Stratford, Connecticut in 1971, as Young was preparing his commercial breakthrough, Harvest, and just two months after the release of After the Gold Rush.  He treated the…

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Life Lessons: America’s Gerry Beckley Looks Back on New Solo Career Retrospective “Keeping the Light On”

For over fifty years, Gerry Beckley has performed, written, and recorded with the group he co-founded with Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek, America.  But with his 1995 album Van Go Gan, Beckley began a parallel solo career that also continues to this very day.  On the heels of his sublime 2019 release Five Mile Road, the singer-songwriter is looking back with a new solo retrospective.  Keeping the Light On: The Best of Gerry Beckley will arrive in 2-CD and 2-LP formats via the Blue Élan label on March 26 with the first…

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I Want You, I Need You: Retroactive Reissues Three from Chris Christian Including Star-Studded LP with Cross, Valli, Champlin, Beckley, Foster

Chris Christian rose to prominence as one-third of the pop trio Cotton, Lloyd and Christian alongside producer Michael Lloyd (The Osmonds, Barry Manilow) and Daryl Cotton (Zoot, Olivia Newton-John).  Before long, Christian’s songs were being recorded by the likes of Elvis Presley (“Love Song of the Year”), Dionne Warwick (“When the World Runs Out of Love”), and Carpenters (“(Want You) Back in My Life Again”).  Christian also produced and wrote songs for artists including B.J. Thomas, Marilyn McCoo, America’s Dan Peek, and the artist whom he discovered and signed when she was…

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Release Round-Up: Week of June 26

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Johnny Cash, The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991 (Mercury/UMe) 7CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada 7LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991 will be available on 7CD or 7LP, 180-gram vinyl formats. The box collects all six albums Johnny Cash recorded for Mercury Records during that era: Class Of ’55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming with Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins (1986), Johnny Cash Is Coming To Town (1987), Water From The Wells Of…

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Release Round-Up: Week of May 1

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Benefit for Moogy Klingman (Purple Pyramid) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Cleopatra Records’ Purple Pyramid imprint remembers Utopia’s late keyboardist with Benefit for Moogy Klingman. This 4-CD/2-DVD set (originally slated for May 15 but apparently shipping today) includes the band’s Highline Ballroom reunion set of January 29, 2011 (featuring Todd Rundgren, Moogy, Ralph Schuckett, John Siegler, Kevin Ellman, Jesse Gress, and Kasim Sulton) which helped defer the costs of Moogy’s cancer treatments, as well as the performance of November 18…

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America’s Gerry Beckley Returns with New Solo Album “Five Mile Road”

Gerry Beckley has earned the right to call the opening track of his new solo album “Life Lessons.” The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and America co-founder is understandably in a reflective mood on Five Mile Road, out now from Blue Elan Records.  The artist may be celebrating 50 years with America, but he still has plenty to say. For his first solo album since 2016’s Carousel, Beckley has reunited with many of the same collaborators. Jeff Larson not only co-produced with Beckley but contributes vocals. Singer Jeffrey Foskett, Nick Lane (euphonium, trombone), Larry Klimas…

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Release Round-Up: Week of September 20

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Judy Collins, The Elektra Albums: Volume Two (1970-1984) (Edsel) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Demon Music Group’s Edsel label is following up its July release of Judy Collins’ The Elektra Albums Volume One (1961-1968) with a second volume out today. The Elektra Albums Volume Two (1970-1984) finishes up the artist’s Elektra Records tenure, comprising these nine releases on CD in their original sequences: Whales and Nightingales (1970), Living (1971), True Stories and Other Dreams (1973), Judith (1975), Bread and Roses (1976), Hard Times…

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Jeff Larson Reissues “Watercolor Sky” For 20th Anniversary

Fans of singer-songwriter Jeff Larson have long known that he’s carved out his own niche in the realm of “California music,” whether as a solo artist or with collaborators including America’s Gerry Beckley and The Beach Boys’ Jeffrey Foskett.  Now, Larson is looking back with a 20th anniversary reissue of his proper debut album, Watercolor Sky, available on both vinyl and CD from Feral Cat Records and Vivid Sound Japan, respectively.  With summer in the rearview mirror, now is the perfect time for fans to look back to this sun-dappled gem, too….

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Jeff Larson Returns To “Heart of the Valley” On New Reissue

When singer-songwriter Jeff Larson premiered his album Heart of the Valley in 2009, the album was rightly lauded as an immaculately produced collection of laid-back, polished pop.  It conjured a time when rich emotions and real instruments ruled pop radio.  Today, it’s just as relevant, as proven by a newly-expanded reissue on Japan’s Vivid Sound label (VSCD 3944, 2016).  The artist indicates in his new liner notes that “the concept for Heart of the Valley was loosely based on the Nilsson Sings Newman album from 1970 – that is, one singer/songwriter approaching…

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The Second Disc’s Week In Review

For today’s special feature, we’re taking a look back at the big stories we shared with you over the past week at The Second Disc, just in case you missed ’em the first time around! Review: Fleetwood Mac, Mirage: Deluxe Edition Joe takes a look at Rhino’s 4-CD/1-LP/1-DVD Deluxe Edition of the Mac’s 1982 pop gem! This Could Be the Night: Shout! Factory to Release T.A.M.I. Show and The Big T.N.T. Show on Blu-ray Two classic concert films – featuring a galaxy of stars including The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, The…

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Review: Gerry Beckley, “Carousel”

Gerry Beckley celebrated his 64th birthday earlier this week, on Monday, September 12.  We’re marking the occasion with a look at his new studio album! One hardly expects the first verse of the first song on a new album from America’s resident romantic troubadour, Gerry Beckley, to include the lines “Everything’s turned to shit/No matter how I look at it/And I am running out of time…” But while Beckley is happily defying convention on “Tokyo” – the taut, rocking opening cut of his new album Carousel on Blue Elan Records (and also…

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