Release Round-Up: Week of September 10

The Clash, Sound System / Hits Back / 5 Studio Album Box Set (Columbia/Sony Music/Legacy)

Coming from the U.K., a new double-disc Clash compilation, a simple box of the band’s classic albums in new mini-LP packaging (The Clash (U.K.), Give ‘Em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista! and Combat Rock) and a deluxe swag-filled set featuring those five albums, three discs of non-LP tracks and unreleased rarities and a DVD full of more rare treats.

Hits Back (2CD): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Hits Back (3LP): Amazon U.K.
5 Studio Album Box Set (CD): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
5 Studio Album Box Set (LP): Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.
Sound System: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Daryl Hall & John Oates, No Goodbyes (Wounded Bird)

When the famed soul-pop duo split from Atlantic for RCA, this compilation (featuring tracks from their three LPs for the label plus three unreleased recordings) was released to capitalize on their newfound fame. This reissue is actually its first time on CD. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The Boomtown Rats, Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits (Universal U.K.)

Bob Geldof’s reunited Irish punk band, set to tour this winter, returns with a new 16-track compilation with two brand-new tunes. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Geldof Goes “Back to Boomtown” with New Compilation

Before millions of children of the ’80s knew Bob Geldof as the Irishman behind a wave of international charitable rock, including Band Aid and Live Aid, he made a name for his home country as a hub for rock with the punky band, The Boomtown Rats. More than 25 years after their last performance, The Boomtown Rats are reforming for a new album and tour – and they’re starting things off with a new compilation in September.

Led by the irascible, verbose Geldof, The Boomtown Rats – which featured guitarists Garry Roberts and Gerry Cott, keyboardist Johnnie FIngers, bassist Pete Briquette and drummer Simon Crowe – became the first Irish band to top the U.K. charts with 1978’s “Rat Trap,” produced by Robert John “Mutt” Lange. The next year, follow up “I Don’t Like Mondays” – a heartwrenching New Wave tune about a school shooting, was a worldwide Top 5 hit (save for the U.S., where it scraped to No. 73 after a boycott of sorts due to the song’s content.) Cott left the band in 1981, after which the Rats continued as a quintet increasingly in the shadow of Geldof’s increasing public stature. After the band’s final performance in 1986, Geldof pursued a solo career with Briquette in tow and Fingers became a highly in-demand producer in Japan.

Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits features all of the band’s biggest hits, including “I Don’t Like Mondays,” “Like Clockwork,” “Rat Trap,” “Banana Republic” and more, as well as two new tracks by the current band lineup (Geldof, Roberts, Briquette and Crowe) bookending the disc. (The digital version will be slightly more comprehensive, including a song apiece from the band’s final two albums, 1982’s V Deep and In the Long Grass (1984).) The Boomtown Rats are on tour in England, Ireland and Scotland in October and November.

The new compilation is out September 9. Hit the jump for the full track list and order links!

Reissue Theory: Live Aid on CD

Twenty-six years ago today, on two different continents, the music world came together for a worthy cause: to raise awareness of famine in Ethiopia. Live Aid, a pair of concerts organized by Bob Geldof in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985 and broadcasted live on the BBC, ABC and MTV, was seen in person by some 172,000 people and on television by nearly 2 billion across the globe.

And, if you can believe it, none of it has ever been released on LP or CD.

Granted, it’s not entirely unsurprising. Geldof promised artists that the performances were very much a one-off, never to be seen past the initial broadcast. (That of course turned out to be untrue, with the release of a four-disc DVD set in 2004.) But you have to wonder, given not only the fiercely charitable nature of the organization as well as the capitalistic nature of the music industry, why a commemorative album was never put out to raise even more money for charities.

But if they did, this is how it might go down.