Release Round-Up: Week of May 8

 

Barenaked Ladies, Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before! (Rhino)

A single-disc compilation of mostly unreleased odds and ends from the BNL catalogue.

Bill Withers, Just as I Am: 40th Anniversary Edition (Big Break)

A remaster of Withers’ breakthrough 1971 album, featuring the immortal “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Grandma’s Hands.”

Phil Collins, …But Seriously (Audio Fidelity)

Collins’ 1989 solo album, featuring hits “Another Day in Paradise” and “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven,” has been mastered for a 24K gold disc.

Various Artists, Da Doo Ron Ron: More from the Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry Songbook (Ace)

The legendary songwriting team penned classic cuts for Phil Spector’s stable of hitmakers – some of which are on this disc – but they also wrote tracks for Jay & The Americans, The Monkees, Sonny & Cher, Lesley Gore and other neat hidden gems on this compilation.

Mariah Carey, The Essential Mariah Carey (Columbia/Legacy)

Although we’d reported this was a straight reissue of Mariah’s double-disc Greatest Hits (2001), it’s actually ever so slightly different, boasting vintage remixes of “Emotions,” “Anytime You Need a Friend” and “The Roof (Back in Time).” Plan accordingly!

Julie Andrews & Carol Burnett, The CBS Television Specials: Live at Carnegie Hall/Live at Lincoln Center / Liza Minelli, Legends of Broadway: Live at the Winter Garden (Masterworks)

From Masterworks, a handful of Broadway legends’ classic concerts brought back to CD.

My Bloody Valentine, Isn’t Anything / Loveless / EPs 1988-1991 (Sony U.K.)

Can it be? Remastered editions of the MBV discography, including the first-ever CD compilation of the band’s B-sides and EPs, are available after years and years of development and release date shifts.

Short Takes: Musicians Talking About Their Reissues

It’s rare when musicians do any amount of press on reissues, usually because they’ve got bigger things to worry about or are deceased. So the notion that some of the people behind three major catalogue campaigns have all had something notable to say in the past few days is certainly worth the attention of any catalogue fan:

• Johnny Marr gave an extensive interview with The Onion‘s AV Club about his memories of The Smiths as filtered through the assemblage and release of Rhino’s The Smiths Complete box. While he expressed regret that “monitor mixes and instrumental versions and slightly different versions of songs” weren’t included on the box (owing to “some kind of legal issue there that I never want to talk about”), he said working on the box bought back a lot of memories – all of them good. “I can only speak for myself, and say that I don’t have any negative thoughts about the times back then or the times now, or the people in it,” he said.
• A rare interview with Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine for Pitchfork sheds some light on one of the strangest catalogue stories of the last few years. It turns out the saga of the MBV remasters was even lengthier than Slicing Up Eyeballs’ vigil, stretching for more than a decade. The problems, Shields says, stemmed with not only negotiating a deal with Sony U.K. to his liking (in which he maintains control of the master recordings), but the tapes themselves went missing. And Shields thinks Sony might have hidden them on purpose. “Only after I started threatening to get Scotland Yard involved did they magically, suddenly reappear,” he said. “The true story is as yet to be determined, but we’ll fight that one out in the near future.” But fear not – relations are seemingly good enough for Shields to promise vinyl remasters “probably in a few months.”)
• Doing press for the release of Martin Scorsese’s Living in the Material World, a new documentary on George Harrison (and companion outtakes disc, released today), the former Beatle’s widow Olivia promises more material will emerge from the vaults someday. “There is some music that possibly will come out, some more early tapes, demos, nice things, nice performances of George,” she said, also suggesting a “nice idea” of allowing other notable musicians the opportunity to finish some of his unused song sketches.

The Wait is Over: My Bloody Valentine Reissue Classic Albums, Compile EPs

A great news day at Second Disc HQ gets even greater with the announcement that Sony Music’s U.K. arm is prepping reissues of My Bloody Valentine’s classic Isn’t Anything and Loveless albums, bringing a three-year journey to an end in May.

As our friends at Slicing Up Eyeballs can tell you, retailers first reported remasters of the iconic shoegaze albums, released in 1988 and 1991, back in 2009. They’ve been rescheduled and delayed no less than nine times since then, leaving fans to wonder if they would ever see the light of day.

On May 7, the wondering is over. Not only will both albums be reissued, but there’s some bonus material to go around. Loveless – almost universally hailed as the greatest album of the shoegaze genre and named as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stone – features a bonus disc with an alternate mastering of the album overseen by MBV’s Kevin Shields but never released.

The same day, Sony’s also releasing EPs 1988-1991, a double-disc set that collates the Irish band’s four EPs released on Creation Records, a bonus instrumental 7″ included with limited edition copies of Isn’t Anything, two rare B-sides and three previously unreleased tracks.

So far, only the EP compilation has an Amazon U.K. link, but we’ll update more as it comes. For now, let us rejoice that these sets are finally being released with track lists, after the jump.

Short Takes: The Kinks are Koming Stateside, B.A.D. Reissues Planned, MBV Insanity, More Live Dead

• Those upcoming deluxe reissues of the first three Kinks LPs in the U.K. this April are coming to American record stores too! They’ve been set for April 12, one week after the British release date. (Thanks to MusicTAP for the tip!)
• Buried at the bottom of a press release touting the forthcoming Big Audio Dynamite reunion tour – no doubt spurred on in part by last year’s pretty great deluxe reissue of their first album – there’s a mention that Legacy is working with B.A.D. on more Legacy Editions of their catalogue. No word on what’s being planned specifically, but this was enough to get your catalogue correspondent to listen to “The Globe” a few times this morning.
• Slicing Up Eyeballs’ love-hate affair with remasters of the My Bloody Valentine catalogue continues, as remastered editions of Isn’t Anything and Loveless are delayed yet again. Even I didn’t have it that bad with the Duran Duran catalogue.
• It’s been awfully quiet from Rhino lately, but the label is putting out a soundtrack with some stuff that might be of interest to Deadheads. The Music Never Stopped, an upcoming father-son drama starring J.K. Simmons, will feature tracks by The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Steppenwolf and Crosby, Stills & Nash – and three of those Dead tracks are previously unreleased live cuts. The collection is out now digitally and will arrive in physical form on March 29. Hit the jump to check out the track list.

“Isn’t Anything” Sacred? Another MBV Release Date Change

It’s unsurprising and a bit morbidly hilarious to report, as Slicing Up Eyeballs did the other day, that reissues of My Bloody Valentine’s shoegaze masterpieces Isn’t Anything and Loveless have been delayed once again. The straight remastered discs are slated for release on March 14, pushed back from a prior date in January, itself part of a long line of releases that stretch back to June of 2008.

These things better sound flawless. Veteran collectors: what other reissue/remaster/box set delays can you remember as long as or longer than this wait? Sound off below.