Metallica, the American heavy metal band’s fifth studio album, is commonly referred to as ‘The Black Album’ and was released in 1991. A 30th-anniversary reissue will be put out in September including a mammoth 26-disc super deluxe edition box set.
Get out the disco balls, disco is back! Foo Fighters have announced that they will be releasing a new album next month under the moniker the Dee Gees. They just covered the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” during a BBC Radio 2 session a few months ago. I really like this version, I am really ashamed to say that this could be Foo Fighter’s best song ever in a long time. Did grunge bring back disco? The disco-inspired album called ‘Hail Satin’ will be available on July 17. The album will include four Bee Gees covers.
This fall, Craft Recordings will celebrate Halloween with a collectible, pumpkin-shaped vinyl album featuring Vince Guaraldi’s evocative music from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Pressed on orange wax, the 45-RPM LP features 17 selections from the 1966 animated TV special, including the timeless “Linus and Lucy,” “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” and the ghoulish “Graveyard Theme.
Record Store Day is just a few days away. As an audiophile, I get excited each year when this day comes. There is music for everybody. This is the month my ears celebrate with joy. There is so much music and merch out there. The Dogfish Head poster is a thing of beauty. Ryan Besh channeled into the essence of Robert Williams and came out with a beaut this year. Well done, sir!
Cherry Red is to release Pop Don’t Stop: Greatest Hits, a new Kim Wilde box set that includes five CDs and two DVDs. Kim Wilde needs no introduction, having registered a staggering 30 hits on the UK charts since 1981, and selling over 30 million records globally. The Cherry Pop label is dedicated to interesting poptastic catalogue releases from records that originally came out in the 1980’s & 90’s.
The 70s belonged to Led Zeppelin. They were the biggest band in the world. They were bigger than the Beatles. With that fame the bootleg industry gave rise to unique and illegal recordings of the band. Photographer, Ross Halfin, started collecting these rare pressings of Led Zeppelin albums when he chanced seeing a unique Led Zeppelin album at the original Virgin Records shop in 1971, called “Live on Blueberry Hill.”
Saskadelphia (Universal Music Canada/UMe) is made up of six previously unreleased tracks written in 1990. Five recorded in that same year during the Road Apples sessions in New Orleans, and one live track, “Montreal (Live from The Molson Centre, Montreal, 7 Dec 2000),” written at the same time, but for which the original recording is yet to be found.
Ian Gillan, at 75 years old, has sung Smoke on the Water since 1972. Whether with Deep Purple, the Ian Gillan Band, and Black Sabbath. He has sung the encore song in the range of 2,500 times for 50 years. I guess Ozzy Osbourne would be in the same dilemma by singing Paranoid.
1975 was the peak year for Black Sabbath. Five years in and another four till Ozzy derailed. Sabotage was a strange album with some classic hits but at the same time, the band was going musically in different directions. They were starting to lose their identity. Personally, riff wise I love this album. My favorite song is Symptom of the Universe. It has so many guitar sounds that explore different experimental tunes.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned if your name is Jocelyn Susan Bundy. She is suing Nirvana LLC, Live Nation Merchandise LLC and its Merch Traffic LLC unit, along with Silva Artist Management LLC, saying NIRVANA had been using her grandfather C.W. Scott-Giles drawing since 1997 on shirts, mugs, vinyl records, and other merchandise sold at stores including Walmart, H&M and Hot Topic.
SERGIO MENDES & FRIENDS: A CELEBRATION, a joyfully tuneful salute to the pioneering Brazilian musical artist-producer, composer, keyboardist, vocalist – and Oscar-nominated songwriter will make its world premiere as part of special programming on PBS stations in June 2021.