Reissue Theory: Aerosmith, “Box of Fire II: The Geffen Years”

Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on notable albums and the reissues they may someday see. As Aerosmith come ever closer to finishing another new album, we imagine a box set that celebrates their first great, entirely unexpected comeback.

If all goes according to plan, by next spring you could be hearing the first new, original Aerosmith album in more than a decade. Frontman Steven Tyler anticipates a March release date on the new disc, to be produced by Jack Douglas, the man at the helm for the great early LPs by the Bad Boys of Boston.

But it’s worth remembering that the upcoming album won’t nearly be the band’s first comeback. Far from it, of course: Aerosmith have done an astounding job of hitting the ropes and coming back swinging like mad. A band with so many career phases certainly has the catalogue to match, but it’s honestly arguable that the band’s hooks-and-hits-laden years on Geffen Records in the late ’80s and early ’90s are due for as thorough an assessment as, say, Columbia gave the group with 1994’s Box of Fire, a 14-disc box that presented the first CD remasters of the band’s output from 1973 to 1982, with handful of bonuses.

After the jump, walk this way for a trip down memory lane as we reflect on Aerosmith’s astounding climb back up to the top, and how that climb could be celebrated in mega-box set form.

Shattered, Again: Rolling Stones Unveil Complete “Some Girls” Track Listing For Box Set, Deluxe Edition (UPDATED)

Well, the wait is over.  Universal Music has revealed the complete details for the November 21 reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1978 Some Girls across multiple formats.  Following in the footsteps of last year’s Exile on Main Street set, Some Girls will offer a number of previously-unreleased songs, recently completed by the Stones, as Jagger told German network ZDF last month: that “I’ve just been in the studio finishing some outtakes from 1978 … They’re going to be released [on] a rerelease of Some Girls.  So these are going to be some 10 extra tracks from that time [that] were never released. Some of them had no vocals, so I had to do the vocals again. I did the same thing on Exile on Main Street.” 

Actually, the number of songs is 12.  And the good news is that all 12 songs will be available not only in the expected Super Deluxe Box Set, but in a “standard” Deluxe Edition, as well as and digitally.  A vinyl LP will replicate only the original 1978 Some Girls line-up.  As of October 20, we’ve got some new details in bold:

• CD “Deluxe Edition” includes remastered original album and 12 bonus songs;
• CD “Super Deluxe Edition includes both discs, above, plus an exclusive DVD, 7-inch single of the remastered “Beast of Burden” b/w “When the Whip Comes Down” with its original banned artwork; a 100-page hardback book including notes by Anthony DeCurtis; a 5-postcard set, a photo print by Helmut Newton; and a tour poster;
• Digital with remastered original album and 12 bonus songs; and
• Vinyl remaster of the original album only.

In a refreshing move that echoes the treatment of Exile, the Stones have commendably assured that the core audio material is available in both the Deluxe and Super Deluxe forms.  In other words, the only audio content you’re missing with the 2-CD edition is a single replica of “Beast of Burden” b/w “When the Whip Comes Down.”  As for the DVD, Universal is keeping details on it close to the vest, with most major retailers still listing its contents as TBA.  Ticketek Music is reporting that the disc will be an approximately 30-minute compilation of “live material and promo videos.” 

No doubt collectors and casual fans alike will be anxious to revisit Some Girls.  The chart-topping album remains the band’s biggest-selling album in the United States, and was the Rolling Stones’ first to feature Ronnie Wood as a full member of the band line-up.  It’s a more accessible album than Exile, and includes the classics “Beast of Burden” and “Miss You” as well as fan favorite “Shattered” and even a raw, greasy Motown cover of The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me).”  The album’s success proved that neither disco nor punk could stop the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world!  When the Stones’ answer to disco, “Miss You,” was released as a single, it topped the Billboard chart.  “Beast of Burden” placed in the Top 10.  “Shattered” ranked a respectable No. 31.  (How odd to mention the deliciously down-and-dirty “Shattered” and “respectable” in the same sentence, no?)

Hit the jump for more, including the complete track listings!

Seger Takes Old (and New) Records Off the Shelf on New Hits Set

As if getting some of Bob Seger’s albums back on CD wasn’t exciting enough this year, a new double-disc compilation puts some of his greatest hits (and a few rarities) back on shelves, where they belong.

Ultimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets, boasts 26 tracks of Bob Seger on his own, with The Silver Bullet Band and – most exciting of all – with The Bob Seger System. The original mono single version of “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” will feature on this set alongside classics like “Old Time Rock and Roll,” “Night Moves,” “Like a Rock,” “Still the Same” and “Shakedown.”

Additional rarities and new tracks include Seger and The Silver Bullet Band’s take on “Little Drummer Boy” from 1987’s A Very Special Christmas, a new cover of Little Richard’s “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” (subtitled “Going Back to Birmingham”) and an unreleased version of Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train,” recorded in 1989 but shelved to avoid competition with Rod Stewart’s hit version.

The 66-year-old rocker is still going strong, wrapping up a successful tour later this year and writing material for a new album in 2012. Until then, Ultimate Hits is out November 21, and the track list is after the jump.

Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Mary Martin Feature in Latest Masterworks Line-Up

Some of The Great White Way’s brightest stars will be on the receiving end of the latest reissue bonanza from Sony’s Masterworks Broadway label.  Leading the pack is the 1985 Original Cast Recording of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in Concert.  Lee Remick, Barbara Cook, Mandy Patinkin and George Hearn star in the 1985 recording of Sondheim’s 1971 musical currently enjoying a critically-acclaimed, hit revival on Broadway.  Follies in Concert will arrive at general retail on CD in a new eco-friendly digipak format, while the long out-of-print soundtrack to Jerry Herman’s 1996 television film Mrs. Santa Claus will make its digital debut.  Sondheim and Herman favorite leading lady Angela Lansbury starred as Mrs. Santa Claus and can be heard on disc singing an all-new score by the classic songsmith behind Hello, Dolly! and of course, Lansbury’s triumph Mame.  These two releases are joined by two more vintage recordings making their debuts as CD-Rs and digital downloads: the 1951 Studio Cast of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s Babes in Arms starring Mary Martin and Jack Cassidy, and the 1953 Studio Casts of Blackbirds of 1928 and Shuffle Along.  All releases will be accompanied by new album pages and photos on MasterworksBroadway.com.

Babes in Arms made its Broadway debut in 1937 in the days before original cast recordings became commonplace. The Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical may be best-known for a dramatically altered 1939 MGM film adaptation starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.  Producer Goddard Lieberson and musical director Lehman Engel enlisted one of Broadway’s reigning stars, Mary Martin (who had recently scored a success in a later Rodgers musical, South Pacific) to star in their recording of the show, one in a line of successful studio recreations of vintage musicals.  The Columbia Records album, also starring Jack Cassidy and Mardi Baynee, spotlights the incredible standards that originated in the musical: “Where or When,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” “I Wish I Were in Love Again,” “Johnny One-Note,” and of course, “My Funny Valentine.”  Even today, it’s hard to believe that such a group of standards premiered in one musical! The October 24 release, the first authorized since the LP era using the original mono master, will be available as a digital download and as disc-on-demand, with the original cover art, via both Arkivmusic.com and Amazon.com. 

When Stephen Sondheim’s Follies arrived at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre in 1971, the musical wasn’t universally recognized as the masterwork it’s now so righftully hailed to be.  The unfortunate decision to entrust the cast album to Capitol Records resulted in a heavily truncated single-LP recording which didn’t give Stephen Sondheim’s rich, haunting and varied score its due.  Yet it remained the only commercial recording of the score for years.  (The New York Times’ Clive Barnes famously dismissed the score including now-standards like “Losing My Mind” and “Could I Leave You?” as “the kind of musical that should have its original cast recording out on 78s.”)  When Follies in Concert was staged at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall on September 6  and 7, 1985 and recorded by RCA Records and producer Thomas Z. Shepard, the show’s majesty and significance came into view.  Those who attended still speak of those evenings today, more than twenty-five years later.  Follies in Concert presents Sondheim’s score in full, as electrifyingly performed by Lee Remick, Barbara Cook, Mandy Patinkin and George Hearn, plus Carol Burnett (“I’m Still Here”), Elaine Stritch (“Broadway Baby”), Liliane Montevecchi (“Ah, Paris!”), Phyllis Newman (“Who’s That Woman”), and the legendary team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (“Rain on the Roof”).   As on the original CD release, this straight reissue of the 2-CD set also includes Stephen Sondheim’s orchestral score to the 1974 Alain Resnais film Stavisky.  Follies in Concert arrives on October 24.

Hit the jump for more on Shuffle Along/Blackbirds of 1928 and just in time for the holidays, Mrs. Santa Claus!

Short Takes: Beatles May Finally “Let It Be” on DVD, Big Country Goes Back to “The Crossing”

• Could a release of Let It Be, The Beatles’ harrowing 1970 documentary/epitaph, finally be happening? Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg says so. In an interview with WNYC-FM, Lindsay-Hogg discussed the film, saying, “we have been been working on it pretty much every year for the last couple of years. And the plan is, at the moment, to have it come out, I think, in 2013.” A premiere release of the DVD, featuring outtakes and additional footage highlighting the making of the film, would follow a planned DVD release of the Magical Mystery Tour film in 2012. (Thanks to Scott Allen of 3 Minute Record for passing this one along!)
• We’re not quite near 2012 and any reissue plans just yet, but there’s at least one big one on the horizon for ’80s rock fans. Scottish rockers Big Country, recently reunited with Mike Peters of The Alarm filling in for the late Stuart Adamson on vocals (original member Bruce Watson’s son Jamie is also a new member), have announced a U.K. tour in winter 2012 where they will play their killer debut The Crossing in its entirety – and, according to the band’s press release, that album – with the uplifting Top 40 hit “In a Big Country” – will be reissued by Universal Music in a variety of formats. (The album has been expanded twice before in 1996 and 2002, featuring various B-sides on the first release and the Wonderland EP on the second.) (Eternal gratitude to Slicing Up Eyeballs for making this dream stay with us.)