Metal, Rated “XXX”: Roadrunner Marks Three-Decade-Plus Mark with Four-Disc Box Set

One of the top labels in straight-up rock and heavy metal, Roadrunner Records, will celebrate their more than 30 years in the business with a new box set, XXX: Three Decades of Roadrunner Records, in October.

From its inception in 1980, Roadrunner was often toward the forefront of metal, from traditional heavy and thrash metal in the 1980s and early 1990s to the fast-paced tracks and nu metal stylings of the late ’90s. Along the way, they’ve opened up their roster to all kinds of hard rock, serving as a solid home base for veterans and upstarts alike. Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Type O Negative, Dream Theater, Megadeth, Slipknot, Nickelback, Korn, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Dresden Dolls and Heaven & Hell (the late ’00s project by Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice – essentially, the Dio-led version of Black Sabbath) have all called Roadrunner home at one time or another.

And of these and more will be featured on this themed, 54-track box set, divided into four discs: Foundations, featuring early heavy metal cuts from the label’s early days; Horns Up, a summary of Roadrunner’s output in the late 1990s and early 2000s; And Metal for All, featuring recent metal releases (including the 2004 label supergroup Roadrunner United) and Rock for the Ages, featuring everything that rocked in between. XXX: Three Decades of Roadrunner Records will also feature liner notes from Decibel writer Chris Dick, including interviews and quotes with label founder Cees Wessels as well as King Diamond, Max Cavalera of Sepultura and Soulfly, Matt Heafy of Trivium and more.

XXX: Three Decades of Roadrunner Records will be available October 1. Hit the jump for the usual full track list and (so far, just an Amazon U.K.) pre-order links!

Megadeth Plan “Extinction”-Level Event

Following last year’s heavy-duty 25th anniversary box set edition of Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?, EMI is slated to release another expanded anniversary edition from thrash-metal gods Megadeth, celebrating 20 years of their Countdown to Extinction album.

Countdown, the politically charged, hard-driving fifth album from the band, was released at one of the commercial zeniths of heavy metal, with Mustaine’s former band Metallica’s self-titled “Black Album” and Pantera’s A Vulgar Display of Power also earning high critical and commercial marks in 1991 and 1992. Countdown went double platinum – to this date, it’s the band’s highest-selling LP – and spun off Megadeth’s first chart hits. “Foreclosure of a Dream,” “Sweating Bullets” and “Symphony of Destruction” all peaked in the middle ranges of Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Top 40, and the latter track even hit No. 71 on the Hot 100; to this day, it’s the only Megadeth track to have done so.

In traditional EMI deluxe fashion, the deluxe Countdown features the album, remastered and contained in a lidded box with collectible art cards. The package also features a bonus live show recorded at San Francisco’s Cow Palace in December 1992. Parts of this show have surfaced on various CD singles and compilations, as well as the Warchest box set and 2008 compilation Anthology: Set the World Afire, but this is the premiere release of the entire show, newly remixed from the original tapes.

The set is due out on November 6 and will be commemorated with a special tour that same month into December. Hit the jump for the track list and the pre-order link, currently an import-only title.

Weekend Wround-Up: Queen Sets in September, Trent is Angry and Notable Links

• Queen have confirmed their last batch of expanded studio albums – The Works, A Kind of Magic, The Miracle, Innuendo and Made in Heaven – to be released in the U.K. on September 5 from Island/UMC. Another Deep Cuts compilation will be released as well, as seen above; neither that set nor the bonus material have gotten confirmed track lists. Note that all 15 remastered studio albums will be out before the second batch of reissues hit American shelves.
• It usually pains me to agree with Nine Inch Nails honcho Trent Reznor – the musician who rallied so hard against the superficiality of the Grammys had no problem picking up an Oscar for the score to The Social Network last year – but his latest cause is a particularly worthy one. The musician took to Twitter to urge fans not to buy a recent reissue of Pretty Hate Machine that Universal put out. The set was not sourced from the remastered tapes which were released through UMe last year, nor did the bonus track on said remaster appear. Look, maybe I’m just naive, but what does a label stand to gain from reissuing a catalogue album so soon after re-releasing it in the first place?
• Another one from the “strange tales of the industry” department: the reissue of Megadeth’s Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? sold 1,800 copies in its first week. Not sure whether that’s worthy of mention, nor if that’s even a good number for a major-label catalogue title. I’ve seen some reports damning that number, but indie reissue labels sometimes limit titles to around that quantity, and you don’t see them struggling publicly. The music business doesn’t always make sense, is what I’m trying to say.
• Let’s end on a happy note, shall we? A nice article about High Moon Records and their upcoming reissues of Love’s Black Beauty and Gene Clarke’s Two Sides to Every Story. Hooray!

Release Round-Up: Week of July 12

R.E.M., Lifes Rich Pageant: 25th Anniversary Edition (EMI)

The latest R.E.M. deluxe edition set features the original LP remastered alongside a bonus disc of demos, all of which are currently available for your streaming pleasure here. (Official site)

Megadeth, Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? 25th Anniversary Edition (EMI)

The metal heroes’ breakthrough LP, remastered and featuring a live bonus disc…and for the adventurous super-fan, a deluxe box set adds two additional alternate mixes of the album along with the album and live show on hi-res audio and vinyl. (That’s five discs and three vinyl LPs!) (Official site)

Tony Bennett, The Best of the Improv Recordings (Concord)

A single-disc distillation of the 2004 Concord box set that collected all of the songs Bennett released on his own label in the mid-’70s. (Official site, Concord page)

Lesley Gore, Magic Colors: The Lost Album with Bonus Tracks 1967-1969 (Ace)

Far beyond “It’s My Party,” this lost Mercury album (with extras) brings to light a lesser-seen, soulful side of Lesley Gore. (Ace)

 

“Peace” Still Sells: Megadeth Album to Receive Deluxe Box Treatment

Dave Mustaine was determined not to become a footnote in heavy metal history. The guitarist had spent a mostly uneventful two years in the employ of a Los Angeles band named Metallica, who fired him shortly before recording their debut album, Kill ‘Em All, in 1983. (Mustaine did pen four tracks on the record, including favorites “The Four Horsemen” and “Jump in the Fire.”)

Undeterred, Mustaine formed his own band, Megadeth, in 1985. Their debut, Killing is My Business…and Business is Good!, was released through Combat Records and led to a moderately successful tour. But it was their sophomore release, Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?, released the next year, that took them into the metal stratosphere. Acquired and released by Capitol just as metal was entering the mainstream (dovetailing with the beginning of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball), Peace Sells remains a cornerstone of the thrash metal genre.

Now, 25 years later, EMI/Capitol is celebrating the success of the album in a brand-new 25th anniversary edition and deluxe box set. The standard, double-disc deluxe edition features the original album plus a previously unreleased live concert from the band’s 1987 world tour, as well as new liner notes from Mustaine and former Metallica band mate Lars Ulrich. For hardcore fans and collectors, there’s going to be a deluxe box set that includes all the material from the two-disc set, two discs’ worth of alternate mixes of the album by Mustaine (as released on a remastered CD in 2004) and original mixer Randy Burns (whose mixes were replaced by Capitol before the album was released – some of those tracks were included on the remastered CD as well), a DVD of the original album and concert in high-resolution audio, and the album and concert across three vinyl records.

The sets is available on July 12. Read the press release here and hit the jump for the track list.