BREAKING NEWS! Why Pink Floyd? Prepare for Discovery, Immersion and Experience!

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Alan for passing along the track listings for these sets! You can read them after the jump.

ORIGINAL POST: Why Pink Floyd? Why not? Whatever the answer, though, Why Pink Floyd is the name of the major new catalogue intiative for the legendary band, and while matters have sometimes been contentious between band members, they appear to be in perfect harmony for the launch of this campaign! The expansive collection is a three-tiered celebration of the work of Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright: Discovery, Experience and Immersion. These three lines are intended to offer sonically superior versions of these albums at every price point for every level of collector. The overall campaign encompasses CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, vinyl, an array of digital formats, viral marketing and iPhone apps. (The official site of the project also indicates that SACDs may be included!)

The Discovery discs are remasters of the original studio albums with no additional audio content.  These are designed as introductions to the band’s core catalogue, and each of the 14 titles in the series adds a new booklet with complete lyrics. Every title has been digitally remastered by James Guthrie (co-producer of The Wall) and the renowned designer Storm Thorgerson is responsible for new artwork. These albums will also be available in a box set.

Experience editions expand classic Floyd albums in digipak format with second discs of unreleased archival material and expanded booklets. Three albums will be presented in this format: The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975) and The Wall (1979). Finally, those same three albums will be available in Immersion editions which appear to live up to that label! The Immersion editions are packaged in 29 cm square boxes with remastered, previously unreleased and audio-visual material, plus additional content or “swag” such as reproduced memorabilia, brand new graphics, art prints, collectors’ items, lavish booklets and more. More titles in these two deluxe formats may be announced in the future.

Vinyl remasters are in the offing, and the titles will be offered digitally. A single-disc greatest hits anthology, A Foot in the Door, rounds out the entire collection and is designed as the perfect introduction for the Pink Floyd newbie. It will offer 16 tracks chosen by the band, remastered by Guthrie and designed by Thorgerson.

Why Pink Floyd launches on September 26 with the release of all 14 Discovery titles. On the same day, The Dark Side of the Moon will drop in the 6-disc Immersion format and the 2-disc Experience format. Fast forward to November 7, when Wish You Were Here will see release in the same formats as well as the new compilation A Foot in the Door: The Best of Pink Floyd. The series concludes on February 7, 2012, when The Wall gets the Experience, Immersion, vinyl and digital treatments itself.  Hit the jump to continue your Pink Floyd trip!

Superman and Green Lantern Still Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Him: Donovan Preps Expanded “Sunshine Superman”

It wasn’t easy for Donovan (real name: Donovan Philips Leitch) to shake the early accusation that he was merely a Scottish-born clone of Bob Dylan.  Surely songs like 1965’s “Catch the Wind” did nothing to dispel the myth.  Donovan himself acknowledged the debt in 2001, confessing “I sounded like him for five minutes” while pointing out the musical heroes referenced by both artists.  But any Dylan comparisons were passé by the time Donovan released Sunshine Superman, one of the first truly psychedelic pop records and certainly the first to reach No. 1 on the American charts.

EMI has announced plans for an expanded 2-CD version of Donovan’s classic 1966 Sunshine Superman album due on June 6. It’s timed with a Royal Albert Hall gig where the troubadour will perform the album in its entirety conducted by his original orchestrator, John Cameron.  Sunshine Superman teamed Donovan with producer Mickie Most, also well-known for his productions for Lulu, Herman’s Hermits and The Animals.  Together with arranger Cameron, Donovan brought Eastern instrumentation to the mainstream in a unique blend of jazz, rock, pop and folk.  The acoustic guitars, sitars, tablas, harpsichords and organs gave the album a sound unlike any other heard on Top 40 radio at that time.  But it all wasn’t sunshine behind the scenes.  Hit the jump for the story of Sunshine Superman plus the full track listing and discographical information for EMI’s upcoming reissue!

The Box is Out There: “X-Files” Compilation Due Today from La-La Land

UPDATE: This set’s now ready to ship. Order here and hit the jump for the track list.

ORIGINAL POST: Just a quick reminder that today, after months and months of anticipation from the soundtrack community, La-La Land Records will release the first-ever box set of music from the popular sci-fi series The X-Files.

From 1993 to 2002, composer Mark Snow was the go-to composer for the hit FOX series starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as two FBI agents following a myriad of paranormal cases. The repartee between Duchovny’s Fox Mulder, a firm believer in life on other planets, and Anderson’s sceptic Dana Scully, made for great television chemistry, and the stories developed for the show by producer/creator Chris Carter were sweeping, witty and unusual – often all in the same episode.

Snow was a vital part of the creative process from the first episode, with an eerie, whistling theme that became one of the most widely-recognized songs of all time and a No. 2 single in England. He composed music for all seasons of the show and two theatrical features, as well as several of Carter’s other television productions, including Harsh Realm and the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen (both of which have received score releases from La-La Land).

The four-disc set, featuring music from 40 episodes across the seasons assembled with the help of Snow, will be available to order later today, 3,000 units strong with the first 400 boxes autographed by the composer. Order links and track lists will be up as they go live, but the press release is after the jump for your reading pleasure.

INXS Catalogue Expansion Due in U.K. – America Needs This Tonight

There are some acts that don’t get their due even at the points one would imagine they’d have earned it. The painful loss of Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS, didn’t give the Australian pop-rockers the posthumous respect they deserved; the remaining members did that whole reality show thing and Rhino reissued a few of the band’s albums in the U.S., and that was it.

This year, however, with a new album full of guest vocalists, it’s a pretty fair-sized year for INXS. And Universal Music Group, which controls the band’s catalogue outside of America, has some ambitious plans in the works to bring the band’s catalogue back to audiences. British magazine Music Week reports that Universal is gaining the rights to all ten of the band’s studio LPs with Hutchence as lead singer – the first time all of them are under one label, Mercury Records, internationally – with intentions to reissue the albums both physically and digitally as well as provide some content from the vaults.

Among the plans discussed by Universal Strategic Marketing vice president Andrew Daw:

• Physical and digital reissues on May 30 (no Amazon listings have sprouted yet)
• A new best-of compilation in the fall of 2011, as well as a televised documentary with previously unseen footage
• A 25th anniversary, multi-format deluxe edition of Kick to be released in 2012 (of course Universal’s done a deluxe edition in the U.K. before)
• The first career-spanning box set for the band, slated for a fourth quarter 2012 release
• “Other bits and pieces,” with possible vintage live material

The question, of course remains: will U.S. fans be on the receiving end of any catalogue gold from INXS? One can only hope that Rhino will come to the same conclusion that Universal is in the U.K. – that INXS is a great, high-selling band that, for whatever reason, haven’t had a lot of catalogue respect in recent years – and rectify that in some way. Otherwise…well, at least we’ll have imports.

Release Round-Up: Week of May 10

Aerosmith, Tough Love: Best of the Ballads (Geffen/UMe)

Geffen augments the craziness of American Idol host/Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler (who has a solo single out today) by putting out a compilation of the band’s Geffen-era ballads hits (“Love in an Elevator” isn’t a ballad in any configuration). Apparently it’s only available at Target, so if you visit a local indie store you should be fine. (Official site)

Booker T. & The MG’s, McLemore Avenue / The Staple Singers, Be Altitude: Respect Yourself / Johnnie Taylor, Taylored in Silk (Stax/Concord)

The first three entries in the new “Stax Remasters” series, each augmented with rare or unreleased bonus tracks. (Official Stax site: Booker, Staples, Taylor)

Prince, Dirty Mind / Controversy / 1999 (Vinyl) (Warner Bros.)

New vinyl issues of Prince’s albums from 1980 to 1982. CD remasters? Keep hopin’. (Rhino: Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999)

 

The Cars, Door to Door (Friday Music)

A new CD remaster of the band’s 1987 album, which would have been their last had today not also have been the day that their new album, Move Like This, is released. (Friday Music)

Frankie Miller, Frankie Miller…That’s Who! The Complete Chrysalis Recordings 1973-1980 (EMI)

The Glaswegan rocker’s first seven albums across four discs, with some bonuses added in, including the unreleased original mix of 1974’s High Life. (Amazon)

Various Artists, Playlist: The Very Best Of (Legacy)

Another load of Playlist titles from The Psychedelic Furs, Muddy Waters, Matthew Sweet, Teena Marie, Dave Brubeck, Dionne Warwick and more. A full breakdown of each set is here and here. (Amazon)