Breaking Benjamin Add Deluxe Compilation in Their Diary

In our coverage of Queen reissues, we’ve bemoaned the lack of catalogue coverage at the band’s U.S. label, Hollywood Records. Granted, the Disney-owned label doesn’t need much catalogue attention when there are Disney Channel soundtracks and tween-friendly records to promote.

But there is one rather interesting band on the label roster that isn’t the label’s typical fare: Breaking Benjamin, a hard-rock quartet from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Their alt-metal sound – hard-driving and insistent but never violent and rarely profane – has earned them a fair bit of crossover status in their decade-long career. Their last two albums, Phobia (2006) and Dear Agony (2009), peaked at No. 2 and No. 4, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100, and they’ve place nine tracks in the Top 10 of the magazine’s Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Now, with the band currently on hiatus (owing to frontman Benjamin Burnley’s longterm illness), Hollywood is releasing the band’s first greatest hits compilation – and they’re going full throttle with it. Shallow Bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin, will feature 15 tracks on its standard edition, including a new remix of fan favorite “Blow Me Away” featuring guest vocals from Sydnee Duran of Valora, a track from the band’s self-released debut EP in 2001 and an unreleased live acoustic take on “Had Enough.” The deluxe edition, however, features an entire bonus disc of rare and unreleased material, including import-only tracks, unreleased remixes, covers of Depeche Mode (“Enjoy the Silence”) and Queen (“Who Wants to Live Forever”) and more.

If you’re a longtime fan of Breaking Benjamin or are just getting started, it looks like there’s going to be something in it for you either way. Both packages are out on August 16; pre-order links and track lists can be found after the jump.

Reissue Theory: Bruce Hornsby and The Range, “The Way It Is”

Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we look back at notable albums and the reissues they could someday see. Exactly 25 years ago today, a classic pop album was released, with a sound that was totally different from what was the norm at that time. Now, we look back at the debut of Bruce Hornsby, and why a deluxe version would be a good idea.

There were plenty of great songs to top the Billboard charts in 1986, but only one had any sort of conscious reflection behind it. Only one dared to look past your giving love a bad name, your extra time and your kiss, your rocking Amadeus, your sledgehammers and your invisible touch. That one was “The Way It Is,” the first single by Bruce Hornsby and The Range, which topped the Hot 100 for one week in December 1986.

“The Way It Is,” regardless of its heavy lyrical content (a look at America’s advancements – or possibly, lack thereof – since the advent of civil rights), was already sonically different than much of the radio fare of the year. Its main ingredient wasn’t a cutting-edge synth or howling guitar, but a bright, shiny piano melody, backed by a crystal-clear rhythm track and only garnished tastefully with keyboards instead of awash in them. It was the beginning of something a little bit different in pop music – and that beginning in fact started 25 years ago today, with the release of Hornsby and The Range’s first LP, The Way It Is, on RCA Records.

We at Second Disc HQ have a few good friends who are perhaps even better-versed in Hornsby lore – but it felt right to reflect upon the album and its impact, some 25 years later, not to mention the viable bonus material that could make for a decent reissue someday. Some things won’t ever change – but after the jump, you’ll find out how they could, in the form of an idea for a deluxe edition of the album.

A Salvo of Madness Coming in September

Many of the box sets announced this year have been pretty nuts, in some way, shape or form. But none have been quite as nutty as this one: a career-spanning box by those nutty boys in Madness.

The long-running British ska band, whose large handful of U.K. hits like “Our House” and “One Step Beyond” have filled dance floors the world over, has had an exceptionally busy few years with their catalogue, offering nearly all their discography, from their early hits on Stiff Records to their late-’90s comeback Wonderful on the Virgin label, as generously expanded multi-disc editions through U.K. label Salvo Music.

Salvo’s work culminates with A Guided Tour of Madness, a four-disc package featuring three discs of hits and notable album cuts and B-sides (including one new-to-CD track, “Le Grand Pantalon”) along with a video recording of the group’s Madstock reunion performance in 1992 (which has only seen release on an out-of-print videocassette).

A Guided Tour of Madness is in U.K. shops on September 19. You can order this box at Amazon U.K. and read the track list after the jump.

En Garde! Hugo Friedhofer’s “Casanova” Rediscovered

Composer Hugo Friedhofer picked up the 1947 Academy Award for his score to the William Wyler-directed The Best Years of Our Lives.  All told, Friedhofer would rack up nine nominations for the coveted gold statuette.  But despite this success, he didn’t work strictly within the major studio confines.  The 1948 Eagle-Lion film Adventures of Casanova is a B-movie take on the legendary ladies’ man, but it boasts an A-movie score by Friedhofer.  Following Intrada’s release of the composer’s score to 1950’s Two Flags West and its own impressive, quickly sold-out expansion of One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Kritzerland is unveiling the world premiere of Friedhofer’s soundtrack to Adventures of Casanova.

For the swashbuckling epic, Friedhofer drew on the widescreen canvas he’d acquired orchestrating for the legendary likes of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, no stranger to the genre thanks to his 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn.  In place of Flynn, Casanova offers Arturo de Cordova in the title role; he’s aided by Turhan Bey, John Sutton, Noreen Nash and Lucille Bremer.  The producer of the limited edtion release, Bruce Kimmel, notes that the music of Casanova is “very much in the Korngold mold, but unmistakably Friedhofer…in the classic adventure tradition, with sweeping themes for fighting and romancing, intrigue, and villains and heroes.”

Adventures of Casanova has never been released on DVD, and its soundtrack has never before appeared in commercially available form.  The Kritzerland release has been derived from Friedhofer’s own collection of acetates, which have been remastered by James Nelson.  The tracks are presented in film sequence.  The 1,000-copy limited edition is available now for $19.98 plus shipping at Kritzerland’s own site.  The album will ship by the second week of September, but pre-orders usually arrive an average of four weeks early.  Hit the jump for the complete press release, track listing and pre-order link!