Rounder Records Adding Box Set to the Holiday Rush

Add another box set to the pile for this holiday season: The Rounder Records Story, an 87-track, four-disc chronicle of the Massachusetts-based indie folk label, celebrating its 40th year. The set includes tracks by notables names like Willie Nelson, NRBQ, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Rush, George Thorogood and The Destroyers, Bela Fleck and more.

Pre-order it here and check the track list out after the jump.

Short Takes: Dylan Bonuses to Come with Bootlegs, Bernstein Box on the Way

A pair of notes from some Sony properties today: one focuses on a bonus with Bob Dylan’s newest Bootleg Series release, the other is a big box coming from Sony devoted to one of America’s greatest composers.

Apparently, those who purchase The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos 1962-1964 from Amazon will get a bonus disc recorded at Brandeis University’s First Annual Folk Festival in 1963. The reel-to-reel tape source had been in the collection of Rolling Stone co-founder Ralph Gleason. Read the article at Rolling Stone for more info, including a recent live set that almost became the ninth entry in The Bootleg Series and some other discussed Dylan catalogue titles.

In other Sony news, it looks like Sony may be releasing yet another oversized box set for the holidays: a set chronicling all of Leonard Bernstein’s symphonies recorded with The New York Philharmonic. There’s an Amazon listing for it, but this blog post mentions that it’ll be a 60-disc affair. Not sure where that number came from just yet, but hopefully more details will surface soon on this set, reported for an October 12 release.

Hit the jump to read the track list for the Dylan bonus disc.

Reissue Theory: Beck, “Mellow Gold”

It’s not common that The Second Disc gets political, but this past weekend inadvertently made for a hilarious segue into catalogue discussion: conservative firebrand Sarah Palin took to Twitter on Monday defending television host Glenn Beck’s really weird “Restoring Honor” rally held last weekend. In particular, she criticized the mainstream media “sheeple” (a terrible portmanteau if ever there was one) for downplaying the significance of the rally. Her tweet, in full:

Silly media reports“maybe thousands”@Beck’s “irrelevant” event;insinuating MSM sheeple mustn’t believe their own eyes&ears re: event’s truth

Here’s the trick, though: instead of linking to Glenn Beck’s Twitter page above, she linked to alternative rocker Beck’s Twitter feed. Beck didn’t have a rally last weekend – he was probably working on his hilarious series of “Record Club” entries in which he and famous friends cover such albums as INXS’ Kick and (currently) Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis – but the accidental shout-out made us want to rally around him.

The multifaceted artist – one of the most notable names from the mid-’80s New York anti-folk scene (even though his mainstream success wouldn’t come until the mid-’90s) -has been no stranger to reissues before. Geffen, Beck’s longtime label reissued indie release One Foot in the Grave (1994) with a bonus disc last year (an interesting stipulation on Beck’s early contract was the ability to record independent works out of contract without penalty, allowing a considerably wider berth of artistic freedom), and the year before that saw a deluxe edition of 1996’s Odelay. But one disc of his that hasn’t yet been touched is Mellow Gold, Beck’s first LP for Geffen, which spawned a surprise Top 10 hit in the satiric Gen-X classic “Loser.”

We hope that Beck didn’t get too confused by Palin’s somewhat misinformed musings, and hope this Reissue Theory look at Mellow Gold is something for the fine folks at Universal to consider putting out there someday. Check it out after the jump.

Don’t Dream the Compiling is Over

EMI has announced an October 26 release date for the cheekily-titled The Very Very Best of Crowded House, the latest compilation from the Australian pop masters.

The 19-track compilation (14 of which appeared on the last EMI comp, Recurring Dream: The Very Best of Crowded House (1996)) features tracks from all of the band’s albums save this year’s Intriguer. Additionally, there will be an expanded digital-only version with a rare live cut, a cover of “Throw Your Arms Around Me” by fellow Aussie rockers Hunters & Collectors which was released as a B-side.

Read the press release here and check the track lists for both versions after the jump.