Release Round-Up: Week of September 11

Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Emerson, Lake & Palmer / Tarkus: Deluxe Editions (Razor & Tie)

Full review coming soon, but you should know that these are 2-CD/1-DVD sets featuring unreleased alternate takes and 5.1 surround mixes for these two classic prog-rock LPs.

Dio, Singles Box Set (UMC)

A U.K.-made collectible box replicating all of Dio’s Vertigo 12″ singles, plus the Intermission live EP and a DVD of music videos.

The English Beat, Live at The US Festival ’82 & ’83 (Shout! Factory)

Initially available as a pre-order bonus with Shout! Factory’s Complete Beat box, this CD/DVD set (featuring audio highlights from the group’s two US Festival sets and the complete shows on video) is the last piece of what’s been a great year for The Beat’s catalogue.

The Knack, Rock and Roll is Good for You: The Fieger/Averre Demos (Omnivore)

Sixteen demos spotlighting the songwriting partnership between Doug Fieger and Berton Averre (including an early version of “Good Girls Don’t”) are unleashed on disc.

Various Artists, Broadway in a Box: The Essential Broadway Musicals Collection (Masterworks Broadway)

Need a major musical fix? How about 25 of the best original cast albums ever, including My Fair Lady, South Pacific, West Side Story and A Chorus Line, in one box?

The Desert Song: Studio Cast Recording (RCA/Masterworks Broadway)

The premiere CD release of this 1959 studio revival of a classic operetta.

Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out (Hybrid SACD) (Analogue)

This immortal jazz album, newly reissued by Analogue Productions, includes a brand-new stereo SACD remaster, plus the long out-of-print original Sony multi-channel mix and standard CD stereo layer. Not bad at all!

Duran Duran, The Biggest and The Best! / Yazoo, The Collection (Music Club Deluxe)

A pair of U.K. budget compilations from Demon combine hits, B-sides and album cuts from these two great ’80s bands.

David Guetta, Nothing But the Beat 2.0 (AstralWerks)

The French DJ/producer’s guest-heavy 2011 pop album gets reorganized and expanded.

Music Club Deluxe Go Back to the ’80s with 2CD Sets from Yazoo, Duran Duran

Our coverage of Music Club Deluxe’s eclectic double-disc budget sets in England takes us to two such titles by favorite synth-oriented pop/rockers of the 1980s: Duran Duran and Yazoo.

Birmingham’s “Fab Five,” the MTV-conquering quintet-turned-trio of the decade, and the short-lived but much-loved duo of big-voiced Alison Moyet and synth whiz Vince Clarke, will each get their own entries on the Music Club Deluxe label, focusing on an unusual, non-chronological mix of hit singles, choice album cuts and semi-rare B-sides and remixes.

Duran’s The Biggest and the Best! covers all bases from 1981’s self-titled debut to 1988’s house-oriented Big Thing, getting every single in that time frame on the set (including the non-LP version of “My Own Way” released ahead of Rio (1982) and the non-LP mash-up “Burning the Ground,” commissioned to promote the band’s 1989 compilation Decade. While the label has not nailed down many of the sources, it’s a safe bet the tunes herein are the most familiar masters we all know and love, be they album versions like “Girls on Film” or “Planet Earth” or internationally-known mixes/edits as for “The Reflex,” “I Don’t Want Your Love” and others. While the non-chronological order might be headache-inducing for some, those who want to take a deeper look into Duran than current compilations (but not as deep as, say, singles boxes and expanded album reissues) might want to have a look at this one.

Then there’s Yazoo’s The Collection. It contains about everything that made them icons of the synthpop genre, including singles “Don’t Go,” “Only You” and “The Other Side of Love,” album cuts from the band’s two albums Upstairs at Eric’s and You and Me Both and, of course, those famed B-sides “State Farm” and “Situation,” the latter one of their most recognized tunes in the United States. Rarities include three vintage extended mixes, two tunes from a 1999 compilation (including a new mix of “Only You”) and four tracks from the 2008 Reconnected EP, commissioned to promote the great In Your Room box set and Moyet and Clarke’s subsequent reunion tour.

Both titles are out in the U.K. on September 10. Hit the jump for previews of each!

Duran Duran, The Biggest and the Best! (Music Club Deluxe MCDLX172 (U.K.), 2012)

Disc 1

1. Planet Earth
2. Girls on Film
3. My Own Way (Single Version)
4. Hungry Like the Wolf
5. Careless Memories
6. Hold Back the Rain
7. Sound of Thunder
8. Faith in This Colour
9. New Religion
10. New Moon on Monday
11. Union of the Snake
12. The Wild Boys
13. Meet El Presidente
14. Burning the Ground
15. Night Boat
16. Tel Aviv
17. The Chauffeur

Disc 2

1. Is There Something I Should Know?
2. The Reflex
3. A View to a Kill
4. Rio
5. Shadows on Your Side
6. Of Crime and Passion
7. Hold Me
8. Notorious
9. I Don’t Want Your Love
10. All She Wants Is
11. Big Thing
12. Skin Trade
13. Do You Believe in Shame?
14. A Matter of Feeling
15. Lake Shore Driving
16. The Seventh Stranger
17. Save a Prayer

Disc 1, Tracks 1-2, 5, 7 and 15-16 from Duran Duran (EMI EMC-3372, 1981)
Disc 1, Track 3 from non-LP single (EMI 5254), 1981
Disc 1, Tracks 4, 6, 9 and 17 and Disc 2, Tracks 4 and 17 from Rio (EMI EMC-3411, 1982)
Disc 1, Track 8 and Disc 2, Track 1 from non-LP single (EMI 5371), 1983
Disc 1, Tracks 10-11 and Disc 2, Tracks 2, 5-6 and 16 from Seven and the Ragged Tiger (EMI 1654541, 1983)
Disc 1, Track 12 from Arena (Parlophone DD 2), 1984
Disc 1, Track 13 and Disc 2, Tracks 7-8, 12 and 14 from Notorious (EMI DDN-331, 1986)
Disc 1, Track 14 from non-LP single (Parlophone DD 13), 1989
Disc 2, Track 3 from A View to a Kill: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Parlophone BOND 1, 1985)
Disc 2, Tracks 9-11, 13 and 15 from Big Thing (EMI DDB-33, 1988)

Yazoo, The Collection (Music Club Deluxe MCDLX173, 2012)

Disc 1

1. Only You
2. Situation
3. Don’t Go
4. Nobody’s Diary
5. The Other Side of Love
6. Bring Your Love Down (Didn’t I)
7. Happy People
8. Bad Connection
9. Good Times
10. Mr. Blue
11. Ode to Boy
12. Tuesday
13. Too Pieces
14. Goodbye ’70’s
15. Situation (U.S. 12″ Mix)
16. Only You (1999 Mix)

Disc 2

1. Situation (Hercules and Love Affair Remix)
2. The Other Side of Love (Remixed Extended Version)
3. Sweet Thing
4. Softly Over
5. Winter Kills
6. Anyone
7. Midnight
8. Nobody’s Diary (Extended)
9. State Farm
10. Unmarked
11. Walk Away from Love
12. Ode to Boy (Das Shadow Re-Work)
13. Don’t Go (Tee’s Freeze Mix)
14. Goodbye ’70’s (Black Light Odyssey Remix)
15. Winter Kills (Electronic Periodic’s Sub/Piano Mix)
16. Situation (U.S. 12″ Dub)

Disc 1, Tracks 1, 3, 6, 8 and 12-14 and Disc 2, Tracks 5 and 7 from Upstairs At Eric’s (Mute STUMM 7, 1982)
Disc 1, Track 2 was the B-side to “Only You” (Mute 7 MUTE 020, 1982)
Disc 1, Tracks 4, 7 and 9-11 and Disc 2, Tracks 3-4, 6 and 10-11 from You and Me Both (Mute STUMM 12, 1983)
Disc 1, Track 5 from non-LP single (Mute 7 YAZ 002, 1982)
Disc 1, Track 15 from non-LP single (Sire 7-29953 (U.S.), 1982)
Disc 1, Track 16 and Disc 2, Track 13 from Only Yazoo (Mute CDMUTEL6, 1999)
Disc 2, Tracks 1, 12 and 14-15 from Reconnected EP (Mute 12 YAZ 8, 2008)
Disc 2, Track 2 from 12″ single (Mute 12 YAZ 002, 1982)
Disc 2, Track 8 from 12″ single (Mute 12 YAZ 003, 1983)
Disc 2, Track 9 was the B-side to “Nobody’s Diary” (Mute 7 YAZ 003, 1983)
Disc 2, Track 17 from 12″ single (Sire 0-29950 (U.S.), 1982)