Release Round-Up: Week of February 28

Pink Floyd, The Wall: Experience and Immersion Editions (Capitol/EMI)

The latest Pink Floyd box, featuring live tracks and demos from the vault will make you lose your marbles! (Editor’s note: I am so sorry for typing that.)

The Ventures, The Ventures Play Telstar and The Lonely Bull / “Surfing” / (The) Ventures in Space / The Fabulous Ventures / Walk, Don’t Run Vol. 2 (Sundazed)

Five classic Ventures albums, remastered in stereo on CD and vinyl.

Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, Live at the US Festival 1983 (Shout! Factory)

The first two CD sets in Shout! Factory’s new series of live sets from the infamous California festival.

Shelby Lynne, Just a Little Lovin’ (Analogue)

Country singer Lynne’s 2008 tribute album to Dusty Springfield gets an SACD and audiophile vinyl reissue.

News Round-Up: Dead on Vinyl, Closer to Elvis, Deluxe Duran Rearranged and More

• The Grateful Dead is releasing a five-LP box set containing reissues of the band’s first five studio albums for Warner Bros. records. Collectors will want to take note that this box will include the original mixes of Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa, which have not been released since the original LPs came out. The set is due on September 21; pre-orders placed now get a bonus reproductions of a 7″ single and a vintage promo poster.
• While we await tomorrow’s pre-order date for a crazy-enormous Elvis box set; Legacy has announced another Elvis catalogue project: Viva Elvis, the soundtrack to the forthcoming Cirque du Soleil event. Due out in November, the album promises to be a project very similar to The Beatles’ Love, with literally tens of thousands of Elvis samples abounding in new musical contexts.
• Based on EMI’s news release through the official Duran Duran Web site, the finalized track listings for September’s reissues of Notorious and Big Thing actually look a bit different from what was previously reported. The remixes are arranged before the live material on the Notorious bonus disc (and one previously-available-on-CD remix will be featured as a digital bonus track) while the Big Thing reissue will present the original album with the band-approved B-side remix of “Drug” in place of the original album version, which will be added to the second disc. They’re still due out September 28 in America.
• Neil Young informed his fanbase (or warned, depending on how much money you have) that Archives, Vol. 2 is in the works. Four unreleased albums look to be dug up in the process, including Chrome Dreams, Homegrown, Oceanside-Countryside and a vintage live recording.
• Finally, anyone wondering how much unreleased material was slated for Warner’s Tim Burton & Danny Elfman 25th Anniversary Music Box can at least help determine the answer: producer Richard Kraft is taking requests on the Film Score Monthly message board.

After the jump, enjoy the track listings for the Dead box and the upcoming Duran sets.

“Batman,” “Krull” to Be Expanded by La-La Land

La-La Land Records has announced its next batch of catalogue soundtrack reissues – and they’re two big names to fans of ’80s action/fantasy films. Danny Elfman’s iconic score to the 1989 film version of Batman and James Horner’s music from Krull (1983) are getting lavish expanded releases for the month of July.

Batman, part of La-La Land’s Expanded Archival Collection series, will feature, for the first time ever, the full score as originally performed in the film and sourced from the original film elements (Eric Tomlinson’s 35mm four-track mixes, 1/4″ stereo mixes and a stereo 35mm music-only track. The alternately mixed and recorded original soundtrack will be featured in remastered form on the second disc of the set, with never-before-heard bonus tracks. It will be limited to 5,000 copies and will likely be a sell-out.

Krull, one of James Horner’s early landmarks, will be presented as a two-disc set that greatly expands upon the original LP presentation (and limited CD expansion from two decades ago) while featuring bonus tracks from the original LP set. It will be limited to 3,000 copies.

These sets, along with a new score (John Debney’s highly-recommended soundtrack to Predators), will be available to order on July 27, but lucky fans attending this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (to be held July 22-25) will have a chance to buy them directly from La-La Land’s booth (and, perhaps, get Batman signed by Elfman, who will be attending this year’s Con).

View the full track lists and cover art after the jump.

Friday Feature: Prince on Film

The Second Disc reader Robert Altman was predicting the future when he suggested a week devoted to Prince a few days ago. Prince – one of the most polarizing and intriguing figures to ever saunter onto the pop music scene – deserves reams (or gigabytes, in this case) written about his music and its impact, and The Second Disc promises to deliver in that regard. From this Friday to next Friday – going right through Prince’s 52nd birthday on Monday – TSD will present a few features on Prince’s music, impact and relative lack of catalogue presence.

Today, it makes sense to start with a Friday Feature, devoted to the three films Prince starred in and the soundtracks they spawned. Hit the jump to start lookin’ for the purple banana ’til they put U in the truck.

Put Him Back In, Coach

It’s been known for awhile that John Fogerty’s 1985 album Centerfield was slated for a reissue by the folks at Geffen and UMe. Now, the bonus tracks are known.

According to both the press release and this story from Billboard, Fogerty – who, in a perfect stroke of timing and publicity, is being honored in July by the Baseball Hall of Fame for the album’s iconic title track – will include two B-sides released during the Eye of the Zombie era, “My Toot Toot” and “I Confess,” in addition to the original nine-track album. (Sorry guys, it doesn’t look like “Zanz Kant Danz,” Fogerty’s famous slight against Saul Zaentz – formerly of Fantasy Records and a legal foil for Fogerty during his CCR days – is making the cut.)

View the full track list for the reissue – available June 29 – after the jump.

Review: Two by Mancini

Henry Mancini would have gone down in film history had he only composed the instantly recognizable “Pink Panther Theme,” or supplied the melody to Johnny Mercer’s wistful lyric “Moon River.”  But those accomplishments are mere tips of the iceberg for the man who scored over 80 films and recorded over 90 albums, garnering 20 Grammys and 4 Oscars along the way.  Hardly a year goes by without a CD reissue of one of his classic scores, and 2010 is no exception, with 2 very different works given new life in recent months: The Hawaiians (1970) and Married to It (1991). 

Due to a persistent pop sensibility that rewarded him richly with hit albums and singles, Mancini insisted on re-recording most of his scores for LP presentation.  These LPs were often wonderful and still stand the test of time.  But Mancini usually rearranged his already-melodic cues into more easily accessible short tracks.  Both Intrada’s The Hawaiians (Intrada Special Collection 124) and Kritzerland’s Married to It (KR 20015-0) offer the first presentations of the original, complete film recordings, and as a bonus, The Hawaiians also includes the re-recorded United Artists score LP on a second disc.  (Married to It receives its first-ever album here, as no soundtrack LP was issued at the time of the film’s release.)  Details follow after the jump!