“Star Trek” Surprise Beams Out of Nowhere

Fans of the soundtracks to Star Trek have had a great few years. Some of our favorite film score reissue labels, including Film Score Monthly, Intrada, La-La Land and Varese Sarabande, have expanded no less than six Trek film soundtracks in the past two years, including The Wrath of Khan (1982), The Search for Spock (1984), The Voyage Home (1986), The Final Frontier (1989), The Undiscovered Country (1991) and the 2009 reboot film, not to mention two box sets of music from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

But this announcement certainly came out of warp drive with no warning: Jerry Goldsmith’s score to the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact is getting expanded and remastered by the label that started Trek catalogue titles on CD, GNP Crescendo Records.

In First Contact, the first Trek film to exclusively spotlight the cast of The Next Generation (1994’s Generations had the crew of the Enterprise-D crossing over with William Shatner’s James T. Kirk from the original series), Captain Jean-Luc Picard and crew travel to the mid-21st century, the day before Zephram Cochrane first attained warp speed with a spacecraft, coming into peaceful contact with the Vulcans – the first recorded human-alien contact in the Trek canon. The fearsome entity known as The Borg (which famously assimilated Picard in a stunning two-part episode of TNG) has traveled back to the same date following a failed attack on Earth in Picard’s present, and the crew have only a day to prevent The Borg from altering history for the worse.

Renowned composer Jerry Goldsmith returned to the Trek universe for his third film score, after Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and The Final Frontier. (His stunning theme to TMP was the theme for The Next Generation, and after Alexander Courage’s original theme, is arguably the best-known piece of Trek music.) Goldsmith utilized both Courage’s theme and themes from both of his prior scores, in addition to new themes for humanity’s hopeful moment of history and the menacing villain opposing them. Goldsmith completed the score in just three weeks with the help of son Joel.

A 13-track soundtrack was released alongside the film by GNP Crescendo in 1996. Eleven of those tracks were score pieces, while the other two were pop songs featured prominently in the film (Roy Orbison’s “Ooby Dooby” and “Magic Carpet Ride” by Steppenwolf). This new edition, limited to 10,000 copies, features the complete score along with three unreleased alternate cues.

Boldly go forth and order after the jump!

Essentially Repackaged: Legacy Reissues Double-Disc Compilations Under New Names

There’s something familiar about many of Legacy’s new entries in their ongoing The Essential series hitting stores in April and May.

Of the four double-disc compilations – one for prog-rock masters Blue Öyster Cult, one apiece for country stars Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn and one for pop chanteuse Mariah Carey – three have already been reissued under different names. The country ones are repackages of each performer’s latest hits set (Jackson’s 2010 contract-closing 34 Number One Hits and Brooks & Dunn’s 2009 #1s…and Then Some, released ahead of the duo’s farewell tour), while Mariah’s set came out in 2001 as Greatest Hits, once the singer left Columbia for a brief, disastrous run with Virgin. (That set has already been reissued as The Essential Mariah Carey in Europe as of last year.)

And while the new set, The Essential Blue Öyster Cult, provides new fans with a healthy look at their lengthy career beyond just the cowbell-heavy antics of “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” (not to mention expanding heavily upon the 2003 single-disc set of the same name), none of the material here is new. The compilation slightly resembles a less-rarity-packed version of 1995’s Workshop of the Telescopes (one track of which, the cover of “Born to Be Wild,” appears here).

All of these sets are out April 17 except the Mariah Carey set, available May 8. Hit the jump for full details on all of them.

Rolling Stones Flash Back To 1975 With New Archive Release “LA Friday”

Since inaugurating the digital-only Stones Archive in late 2011 with the release of 1973’s The Brussels Affair, The Rolling Stones have made good on their promise to rescue never-before-available concerts and make them available to the public in higher quality than previous bootleg editions.  The new LA Friday follows the late January release of Hampton Coliseum:  Live 1981, which preserved a show from Hampton, Virginia.  LA Friday was recorded on July 13, 1975 at the venue known as The Forum.  Inglewood, California’s Forum opened its doors in 1967 and despite many changes of ownership (including a ten-year period under the Faithful Central Bible Church) is still a popular concert venue today.

The LA Friday title was first applied to the recording by bootleggers, but the title is actually incorrect; the recording was made on Sunday, July 13, 1975 at the last of five shows at The Forum.  The concert was part of the Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas, and celebrated the newest addition to the Stones: Ronnie Wood.  The tour festivities had begun with the Rolling Stones’ typical flash when the band played on a flatbed truck driving down New York City’s Fifth Avenue, with Wood in tow.  Joining Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood and Bill Wyman were Ian “Stu” Stewart and Billy Preston on keyboards, Ollie E. Brown on percussion and Trevor Lawrence on saxophone.

Hit the jump for more details on the gig, including the full track listing and a link on how to order this concert!

Satchmo’s Final Recordings to Be Released by Smithsonian

More than 40 years after his passing, one of the final recordings of jazz legend Louis Armstrong is coming to CD from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Satchmo at the National Press Club: Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours presents Armstrong’s five-song set given before members of the National Press Club at a black-tie gala honoring the inauguration of club president Vernon Louviere, who, like Armstrong, was a native of Louisiana. The biggest surprise to the audience was Pops’ bringing his trusty horn out of semi-retirement, having spent the previous year in poor health and focusing far more on singing in concert.

After the set (“When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,”  “Hello, Dolly,” “Rockin’ Chair,” “Boy from New Orleans” and “Mack the Knife”) on January 29, 1971, Armstrong performed for the public only twice more – once on The Dick Cavett Show in February, and for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson the month after. In July, he died of a heart attack, a month before his 70th birthday.

This premiere wide release of the show – pressed onto a 300-unit limited edition vinyl disc some years ago – will be available April 24 on CD and digital download from Smithsonian Folkways as well as all major digital retailers. The release will be commemorated at the National Press Club on April 27 featuring a news conference and panel discussion with as-yet-unannounced panelists.

EMI Releases Second Budget Box by UFO

UFO are getting their second budget box set from EMI in the U.K., covering the band’s work in the ’80s on Chrysalis Records.

A follow-up to last year’s budget set from the label, The Chrysalis Years Volume 2 follows the hard-rocking band through several periods of transition. In 1978, virtuosic guitarist Michael Schenker, formerly of Scorpions, left the band, to be replaced by Paul “Tonka” Chapman, the band’s guitarist from 1974 to 1975. (This was far from the only lineup change through the decade; bassist Pete Way left in 1982, and was replaced by a myriad of other players over the years. The band would split in 1983, but reunited with (again) a slightly altered lineup, releasing an album and EP between 1986 and 1988. (Afterward, they disbanded yet again, until a new lineup in 1992 gave way to the classic lineup playing through the rest of the decade.)

Despite the changes in personnel, UFO had some career highs in this period. 1980’s No Place to Run saw the band work with legendary producer George Martin, while 1982’s Mechanix was the band’s most successful LP, peaking at No. 8 in England.

The Chrysalis Years Volume 2 collects, across five discs, the band’s five albums from the era (No Place to Run, The Wild, The Willing and The Innocent (1981), Mechanix, Making Contact (1983) and Misdemeanor (1986)), plus single edits and B-sides, remixes from the U.S. pressing of Misdemeanor, a mostly-unreleased live concert recorded by the BBC at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on the No Place to Run tour and the live material released on 1983’s Headstone compilation. (Unfortunately, the live and studio bonus tracks included on recent reissues of No Place, The Wild… and Mechanix do not carry over.)

The set was released April 2 in the U.K. and can be bought after the jump.

First Name Basis: Ozzy, Willie, Janis, Iggy Among Legacy’s Offerings For Record Store Day

Here at Second Disc HQ, we’re eagerly anticipating April 21, or Record Store Day, the industry-wide celebration of all things vinyl (and a few CDs, too!).  Record Store Day, now in its fifth year, gives shoppers the chance to interact with big crowds of fellow music enthusiasts in the brick-and-mortar retail environment cherished by so many of us.  Legacy Recordings has announced its impressive line-up of limited edition releases that will line the shelves of your favorite independent music store on that Saturday, including titles from the 2012 Record Store Day Ambassador, Iggy Pop, and the 2011 Ambassador, Ozzy Osbourne!  Joining those two rock heroes on the Legacy slate are familiar faces such as Paul Simon, Willie Nelson and Lou Reed, and gone-but-not-forgotten legends like Miles Davis and Janis Joplin!

Hit the jump for the full list of Legacy’s diverse offerings, and don’t forget to visit our full (and ongoing) round-up of the reissue-related Record Store Day limited editions for 2012!