Morales Preps the (Dance) Sound of Young America on “Club Motown”

Calling all ’80s Motown fans! Universal’s U.K. arm has issued a double disc set of 20 classic club mixes from the label, curated by noted remixer John Morales.

Motown of course crafted the sound of young America throughout the ’60s and created some deeply affecting funk and soul in the ’70s, but the ’80s was still a prolific time, thanks to popular R&B/dance acts including Rick James and DeBarge as well as established acts like The Temptations and Commodores frontman Lionel Richie. Morales and partner Sergio Munzibal, the “M+M” mixing team, turned many of those tracks into club hits, and Club Motown features some familiar hits as well as some mixes that were only ever released in Europe, for the likes of Michael Lovesmith or Bobby Nunn.

In addition to the classic vintage dance sides on Club Motown, Morales has completed work on six new “throwback” club mixes of tracks by Teena Marie, Diana Ross, Thelma Houston and more! A double 12″ single set, John Morales Presents Motown Divas, features some of these new mixes plus instrumentals in a vintage-style sleeve.

After the jump, you can check out the track lists for both sets and place your orders!

Release Round-Up: Week of September 20

Miles Davis Quintet, Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1 (Columbia/Legacy)

A three-CD/one-DVD collection of live stints from Belgium, Germany, France and Sweden, and the inaugural title in a new series of archival material for Miles. And Joe’s got the review this week! (Official site)

DeBarge, Time Will Reveal: The Complete Motown Albums (Hip-o Select/Motown)

All four of DeBarge’s classic ’80s R&B LPs on two discs, with a further bonus disc of remixes and rarities. (Hip-o Select)

Twisted Sister, Live at the Marquee Club (Rhino Handmade)

Go under the blade with this down-and-dirty live set from the band’s early days on Atlantic. The unique TS-logo-shaped sleeve is worth the price of purchase if you’re a hardcore fan. (Rhino)

The Grateful Dead, Europe ’72 Vol. 2 (Rhino)

For those of you who are fine with just a small sample of the mega-box from the whole tour. (Official site)

Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam Twenty (Epic)

Live tracks and studio rarities make up the soundtrack for the new documentary (which your humble catalogue correspondent is absolutely anxious to see). (Official site)

The Jesus and Mary Chain, Psychocandy / Darklands: Deluxe Editions (Edsel)

The revered Scottish alt-rock outfit, celebrated in definitive two-CD/one-DVD reissues with bonus audiovisual content. (The next four of the band’s albums will be reissued in the next two weeks.) (Official site)

Madness, A Guided Tour of Madness (Salvo)

After a heap of great expanded Madness reissues, Salvo releases a career-spanning box set with a brand-new track and the DVD debut of the band’s Madstock 1992 performance. (Official site)

Various Artists, Divine Hair/Mass in F, By Jupiter: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording, Paris ’90: Original Broadway Cast Recording, Noël Coward in Las Vegas, Noël Coward in New York (Masterworks Broadway)

The latest crop of Arkiv/Masterworks downloads and reissues features a special find in particular: Divine Hair/Mass in F, a sacred piece featuring songs from the Broadway musical! (Masterworks)

Hip-O Select Brings DeBarge LPs Back in a Special Way

Before “Who’s Johnny,” before the heartbreaking string of legal troubles and before last year’s subtle comeback album Second Chance, El DeBarge was the silver-tongued frontman of one of Motown’s last great pop acts: DeBarge. The family unit – Eldra, Mark, Bunny, Randy and James – struck gold on the charts with self-penned jams like “Time Will Reveal” and “I Like It,” plus gems from crack pop tunesmiths like David Foster (“Who’s Holding Donna Now?”) and Diane Warren (the smash “Rhythm of the Night”).

Now, for the first time on one set, Hip-o Select has collected all four DeBarge LPs – plus a disc of danceable mixes and vault cuts – in a three-disc package. Time Will Reveal: The Complete Motown Albums features all of the group’s records – The Debarges, All This Love, In a Special Way and Rhythm of the Night – along with five vintage 12″ remixes and five more unreleased alternate and instrumental takes. There’s even some treasures within the album programs themselves: signature jam “Time Will Reveal” is presented in full for the first time anywhere, extended to its full stop rather than faded.

El may still be wrestling with his demons – he checked into rehab earlier this year – but this set is sure to remind fans just what a talented performer he really is. Order Time Will Reveal here and get the lowdown on the track list after the jump.

“Icon” Series Gets More Iconic

Universal is prepping another batch of Icon compilations for the first week of 2011. Now, we’ve been hard on this series before, but there’s actually a lot to like about these new sets.

While previous Icon sets have been bashed by The Second Disc for either shamelessly repackaging previous compilations or offering fewer CD-based rarities than, say, Legacy’s Playlist series (more on that tomorrow), this new batch of Icon sets collate artists who haven’t had much in the way of compilations yet (Vanessa Carlton), expand on previous sets (the hefty double-disc set for Sheryl Crow) and highlight lesser-known artists (country comedian Jerry Clower, a host of funk notables on Tabu Records, including Cherelle, Alexander O’Neal and The S.O.S. Band).

Those Tabu sets will offer some nice morsels for collectors, too: all of them offer up some hard-to-find remixes previously only found on vinyl singles. Now this is what we’re talking about! Hats off to the UMe staff and everyone who made sets like these possible (including Donald Cleveland, producer of titles for the Funkytown Grooves label, who worked on these three Tabu sets with producer Harry Weinger).

Each disc will be in stores on January 4, though it looks like Amazon will be offering up some of these for download before the year is out. (See their pages for details.) The track lists are, as always, below.