Let’s Pretend: Edsel Unveils Deluxe Multi-Disc Reissues For Pretenders’ Catalogue

Edsel isn’t just playing pretend.  On February 16, 2015, the Demon Music Group label will reissue all eight albums from The Pretenders as originally released by the Warner Bros. family of labels between 1979 and 1999 as deluxe editions.  (Or: that’s to say 8/10, or 4/5, of the entire Pretenders discography!  Only two albums have arrived since 1999, in 2002 and 2008.)  Every one of the eight titles is housed in a digipak, with six of the titles as 2-CD/1-DVD sets and two as 1-CD/1-DVD sets.

These “everything but the kitchen sink” reissues will bring together B-sides, live tracks, soundtrack one-off recordings (for films including The Living Daylights, Fever Pitch, G.I. Jane, Indecent Proposal and Boys on the Side), demos, promotional videos and BBC-TV appearances (most of which have never been commercially released) for the English-American band founded in 1978 by Chrissie Hynde, James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers.  The DVDs feature 30 rare BBC performances, 21 promo videos and the complete 18-track Isle of View concert. The material first issued on Rhino’s expanded reissues of the group’s first four albums has been included, as have rare tracks from the Pirate Radio box set.  The Pretenders made their first splash in February 1979 with their debut single, a cover of Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” produced by Nick Lowe. By the time their Chris Thomas-helmed debut LP arrived in January 1980, the band’s third single “Brass in Pocket” was on its way to No. 1 in the United Kingdom.  The album would reach that plateau as well.  (It reached the Top 15 of the U.S. Pop chart, and the album made the Top 10.)

After the jump, we have more details including the complete track listings for all eight multi-disc sets and pre-order links!

Merry Christmas, Baby! “A Very Special Christmas” Reissued with New DVD at Target Stores

If you can get over the shock of a good amount of holiday CDs available on the shelves at Target, you’ll find a surprise new exclusive: a reissue of the classic 1987 compilation A Very Special Christmas with a brand new DVD about the long-running holiday benefit series.

Produced by acclaimed engineer-turned-label impresario Jimmy Iovine, A Very Special Christmas featured the brightest stars in pop music, from Springsteen to Madonna, recording new versions of classic carols (plus one modern classic, Run-D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis”). Nearly all of its 15 tracks have become staples of holiday radio, and the original album has moved more than 4 million units in the United States. The best part? Proceeds from the sale of the album went to The Special Olympics, Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s worldwide organization allowing intellectually-disabled children and adults to compete in sporting events. (Over $100 million has been raised by the album series, now spanning across nine titles.)

With a new subtitle, The Story and The Music, appended to its iconic Keith Haring-designed album sleeve, this new version of A Very Special Christmas features a new 60-minute DVD of highlights from the series’ quarter century-plus history. It comes alongside the most common pressing of the original AVSC album – which substituted a live cover of “Back Door Santa” by Bon Jovi for the same band’s studio recording of a new ballad, “I Wish Every Day Could Be Like Christmas.” (You’ll hear more from us soon on the package, from mastering to bonus content, in a forthcoming review – albeit one closer to the holiday season!)

Head to your local Target to buy this new set now, or order it through the store’s website. Full product specs are after the jump!

Reissue Theory: “James Bond 007: The Ultimate Collection”

Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we focus on classic music and the reissues they may someday see. With 50 years of on-screen action and a new film in theaters, the name is Bond…James Bond, and the music is plentiful!

What else is left to say about Ian Fleming’s blunt, British secret agent James Bond? Our 007, licensed to kill, is an international icon of print and, since Sean Connery suavely stepped into Bond’s tuxedo in 1962’s Dr. No, the big screen. Today, the 23rd Bond film, Skyfall – the third to star Daniel Craig as a rougher-hewn 007 and, by nearly all accounts, one of the greatest films in the series – opens in American theaters, guaranteeing the legacy that film producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli created a half-century ago remains as shaken (not stirred) as ever.

Bond soundtrack fans have had much to enjoy in that time period. From Monty Norman and His Orchestra’s brassy, immortal main theme (punctuated by session guitarist Vic Flick’s staccato electric guitar licks), to lush scores by John Barry, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, David Arnold and Thomas Newman, to name a few, to the 23 title themes of varying quality but with boundless cultural currency, music is as vital a part of the Bond experience as martinis, girls, cars and guns. And fans have been lucky: in the 1990s, Rykodisc acquired the rights to much of the Bond soundtrack catalogue (in most cases, controlled by Capitol/EMI). In the 2000s, Capitol itself expanded and/or remastered many of those albums anew. And compilations, from 1992’s rarity-packed double-disc The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Collection to this year’s Bond…James Bond: 50 Years, 50 Tracks, have been plentiful as well.

But short of another, even more comprehensive pass at expanding the soundtrack albums to completion (one that seems increasingly like a pipe dream, thanks to the climate of the industry and the varying physical and financial statuses of the scores themselves), one could certainly find worth in a multi-disc box set that would provide the definitive dossier on Bond music. With that in mind, Second Disc HQ’s latest mission file is just that – and you can expect us to talk after the jump!

Taylor, King, Vaughan, Joel, More Due from MoFi in 2011

Start saving your pennies now. In an eye-opening move, audiophile specialty label Mobile Fidelity has announced a massive slate of releases across the CD, SACD and LP formats scheduled for 2011.  Longtime collectors of audiophile masterings may get a thrill at seeing the “Original Master Recording” banner above the works of classic artists ranging from Tony Bennett and Ray Charles to Carole King and James Taylor.

While this writer has some quibbles (why no CDs or SACDs for Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Costello’s releases?) and some questions (will the reissue of Billy Joel’s Turnstiles include the unaltered “New York State of Mind,” for one thing?) the lineup offers something for everyone. Among the most exciting releases are SACDs for Carole King, James Taylor and Joel, all of whom had titles released when Sony was releasing titles regularly in the format. The MoFi campaigns for artists such as The Band, The Pretenders and Ray Charles also continue, and the legendary Stevie Ray Vaughan is the recipient of no fewer than five reissues. Joel, the recipient of a major reissue campaign from Legacy in 2011, interestingly sees his audiophile catalogue make a jump from Audio Fidelity to Mobile Fidelity with Piano Man and Turnstiles, joining The Pretenders and The Band among the artists in this batch with audiophile discs from both specialist labels.

All titles are mastered from the original tapes, and the SACD versions present the original stereo mixes only. Hit the jump for the full list of titles with track listings, and thanks to our friends at MusicTAP for the heads-up on this exciting roll-out. All titles can be pre-ordered here.

Mining Audiophile Treasures: Coming Soon from Audio Fidelity and MFSL

Some of rock’s finest will be receiving the deluxe treatment from audiophile specialist labels Audio Fidelity and Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) in the coming months: The Beach Boys, The Band, Gram Parsons, Deep Purple, Foreigner, The Pretenders and Billy Joel.

The earliest release in this bunch is also one of the most exciting. The Beach Boys’ Today! was released in 1965 and is generally remembered as one of the first albums on which Brian Wilson displayed the sensitive studio wizardry that would reach its fullest expression on the following year’s Pet Sounds. Today! offers such lush, reflective tracks as “Please Let Me Wonder,” “She Knows Me Too Well” and “Kiss Me Baby,” along with the hit cover “Do You Wanna Dance,” the perennial “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” and the original album version of “Help Me, Ronda” before she gained an “h” and a spiffy new arrangement for the single. Mobile Fidelity will release Today! as a hybrid SACD, presumably in glorious mono. This is only the second Beach Boys release in a high resolution format, after Capitol’s DVD-Audio of Pet Sounds (Capitol 72434-77937-9-0) with advanced resolution stereo, mono and surround tracks.

The Band’s 1970 Stage Fright was the group’s third album, and noticeably darker in tone than its predecessors. It was engineered by the up-and-coming Todd Rundgren, and Rundgren was then dispatched to mix the LP in New York. A separate mix was commissioned from renowned producer Glyn Johns in London, and the final LP featured the work of both gentlemen. Mobile Fidelity continues its series of SACD reissues by The Band with this hybrid disc. Another artist with great strains of Americana in his music is the late Gram Parsons, whose 1971 GP likewise receives the hybrid SACD treatment from Mobile Fidelity. This hauntingly beautiful disc captures Parsons with indispensable harmony vocals from Emmylou Harris and a crack band including James Burton, Ronnie Tutt and Glen D. Hardin.

The same year Parsons was breaking ground in country-rock, Deep Purple was recording rock of a very different stripe. Audio Fidelity has released a number of CDs by the band already (including In Rock, Machine Head, Who Do We Think We Are and Live on the BBC) and will soon deliver a 24k gold CD of the American LP version of the heavy rock pioneers’ Fireball. (The American LP as released on Warner Bros. Records doesn’t include “Demon’s Eye.”) Steve Hoffman handles the mastering honors and it’s due on September 7. Click on the jump to catch up with plans for Foreigner, the Pretenders and Billy Joel, along with track lists for all releases and discographical information!