The reissue game remains strong through 2016. Labels are finding the goods and presenting it to us in creative ways and amazing packaging. This list could easily be 50 records long but we’re going to reign it in to just a few. These titles are all available in our online store and in the shop.
Check out our favorite new releases of 2016 here.
Our Favorite Reissues of 2016:
–Big Star Complete Third
Includes every demo, rough mix, outtake, alt take and final master from the Third sessions known to exist. Released as a 3-CD box set or 3 separate volumes on vinyl. The first volume on vinyl drops on Black Friday.
“The small but rabid cult of Big Star, composed initially of rock critics and hometown Memphis hipsters, coalesced around 1972’s #1 Record, which supercharged the legacy of The Beatles and The Byrds, and 1974’s Radio City, which brought additional attitude and poignancy to the recipe. The shimmering brilliance of Big Star’s sound and songs on those two LPs, along with its underdog allure, would have been sufficient to perpetuate the band’s legend. But there was a third album, and that strange beast of a record made all the difference for subsequent generations of fans—many of whom formed bands of their own—who turned each other on to this music as if it were a secret religion or a trippy new drug.” —Excerpt from Bud Scoppa’s Complete Third liner notes.
–Lee Moses Time and Place
Lee Moses was a huge talent and if he’d had the big hit album he richly deserved, Time And Place would’ve been it. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Moses cut his teeth in the clubs of Atlanta, the ‘Motown of the South’, where he frequently performed alongside his contemporary Gladys Knight (who reportedly wanted him for the Pips, but couldn’t pin him down).
It was, however, in New York in the ‘60s that Moses made his greatest bid to find the solo fame he desired. Moses began working there as a session player, even playing frequently with a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix, but his close relationship with producer and Atlanta native Johnny Brantley eventually saw him getting his own break via a series of 45s in 1967 – most notably with covers of Joe Simon’s “My Adorable One”, The Four Tops’ “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and The Beatles’ “Day Tripper”.
It was 1971 before Moses’ dream of being at stage front was realized, when he released his Brantley-produced LP Time And Place for Maple Records. Recorded with a band including members of The Ohio Players and Moses’ own backing group The Deciples, it was, nonetheless, Moses himself whose star quality shone through, via his scratchy guitar riffs, his throat-ripping vocals and the stirring mood that permeates the LP’s heady mix of funk, soul and R&B.
The LP did no business, and Moses’ dream quickly crumbled. Though details on his life are scarce, it’s believed he fled New York disenchanted with the music industry, feeling he’d been double-crossed by Brantley both in credit and remuneration for the countless records he’d played on. Back in Atlanta, Moses returned to playing the clubs, married twice, and fell into depression and drug dependency. He died in 1997 at the age of 56.
Time And Place soon became a much-sought-after item for collectors, and its cult has continued to grow over the years. Here, we re-present it on deluxe vinyl, with brand new liner notes from Sarah Sweeney including interviews with Moses’ sister and his closest collaborator, the singer and guitarist Hermon Hitson. Through them, Moses becomes a little – but just a little – less of an enigma.
–Jim Dickinson Dixie Fried
“Jim Dickinson’s got a resumé that makes him sound an awful lot like the protagonist of LCD Soundsystem’s “Losing My Edge”. He was there, in 1969, when the Rolling Stones were recording “Wild Horses”. He was there, in 1974, taping the drugged disintegration of Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers. And he was there, stringing out Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space. From 1969 to 1999, he was there, with Pet Clark, the Flamin’ Groovies, Sam and Dave, Mudhoney, Primal Scream, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan. He recorded and played with them all.
But Dickinson was there long before those more popular artists, going by his full Christian name and digging in the Memphis humus for some “self-buried dope by motorcycle moonlight,” with his band, the Dixie Flyers (the house band for many late sixties Atlantic artists, second only to the Muscle Shoals crew). Thirty years later, his dope is again unearthed, and the vintage is quite potent, if not a bit ragged.” -Pitchfork
–David Bowie’s early catalog plus Who Can I Be Now? box set
We lost Bowie this year, but he left us one of the best albums of the year, and of his career–BLACKSTAR. This year also saw the vinyl reissues of important Bowie classics like Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Man Who Sold the World, Pinups, changesone, Space Oddity, and more. We also got the whopping 13 LP box set, Who Can I Be Now?, which contains Bowie’s output from 1974-1976. We opened one, and it’s great. It also includes the unreleased album, The Gouster plus some excellent live albums. We’re just glad that we can always have Bowie’s records in stock.
(BOWIE’S CATALOG CAN BE PURCHASED IN THE SHOP)
–Prince Sign o the Times
This was a selection in our Record of the Month Club.
Fearless, eclectic, and defiantly messy, Prince’s Sign ‘O’ the Times falls into the tradition of tremendous, chaotic double albums like The Beatles, Exile on Main St., and London Calling — albums that are fantastic because of their overreach, their great sprawl. Prince shows nearly all of his cards here, from bare-bones electro-funk and smooth soul to pseudo-psychedelic pop and crunching hard rock, touching on gospel, blues, and folk along the way. This was the first album Prince recorded without the Revolution since 1982’s 1999 (the band does appear on the in-concert rave-up, “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night”), and he sounds liberated, diving into territory merely suggested on Around the World in a Day and Parade. While the music overflows with generous spirit, these are among the most cryptic, insular songs he’s ever written. Many songs are left over from the aborted triple album Crystal Ball and the abandoned Camille project, a Prince alter ego personified by scarily sped-up tapes on “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” the most disarming and bleak psycho-sexual song Prince ever wrote, as well as the equally chilling “Strange Relationship.” These fraying relationships echo in the social chaos Prince writes about throughout the album. Apocalyptic imagery of drugs, bombs, empty sex, abandoned babies and mothers, and AIDS pop up again and again, yet he balances the despair with hope, whether it’s God, love, or just having a good time. In its own roundabout way, Sign ‘O’ the Times is the sound of the late ’80s — it’s the sound of the good times collapsing and how all that doubt and fear can be ignored if you just dance those problems away.
(ALL OF PRINCE’S RECORDS ARE AVAILABLE IN THE SHOP)
–Bob Dylan Live 1966: Complete Live Recordings
EVERY SHOW FROM 1966 on 36 CDs…yes, 36 CDs. One of these shows from Royal Albert Hall is also being pressed to vinyl (it’s the December selection for our Record of the Month Club).
Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings–a highly-collectible 36CD box set containing every known recording from the artist’s groundbreaking 1966 concert tours of the US, UK, Europe and Australia–is available as of Friday, November 11 by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment. The 1966 Live Recordingscommemorates, in stunning sonic vérité, the 50th anniversary of the electrifying live performances that would forever change the sound and direction of rock and pop music around the world.
“While doing the archival research for The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12, last year’s box set of Dylan’s mid-60s studio sessions, we were continually struck by how great his 1966 live recordings really are,” said Adam Block, President, Legacy Recordings. “The intensity of Bob’s live performances and his fantastic delivery of these songs in concert add another insightful component in understanding and appreciating the musical revolution Bob Dylan ignited some 50 years ago.”
Meticulously researched, curated and restored for this extraordinary collection, Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings is drawn from three main audio sources: soundboards, CBS Records mobile recordings and audience tapes. With the exception of the Manchester concert (May 17, 1966) released as Bob Dylan Live 1966 – The Bootleg Series Vol. 4(Columbia/Legacy) in 1998, a pair of songs appearing on the 1985 Biograph compilation and a smattering of others, the overwhelming majority of tracks and performances on Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings are previously unreleased in any format–official or bootlegged–and are being made available now for the very first time.
All the songs on The 1966 Live Recordings were written by Bob Dylan (vocal, guitar, piano, harmonica) with the sole exception of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” a traditional song arranged by Bob Dylan for concert performance. Dylan is accompanied on these recordings by Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass, backing vocals), Richard Manuel (piano), Garth Hudson (organ) and Mickey Jones (drums). (Sandy Konikoff plays drums on the White Plains and Pittsburgh shows only.)
Liner notes for Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings have been provided by Clinton Heylin, a consultant on the project and author of JUDAS!: From Forest Hills to the Free Trade Hall: A Historical View of Dylan’s Big Boo, the definitive written account of Dylan’s historic and pivotal 1965-66 world tours.
–Weezer’s early catalog on affordable vinyl
ALL BACK ON VINYL AND ONLY $19.99 EACH!
Weezer have announced vinyl reissues of their first six albums on vinyl. The new reissues include 1994’s The Blue Album, 1996’s Pinkerton, 2001’s The Green Album, 2002’s Maladroit, 2005’s Make Believe, and 2008’s The Red Album.
–This is FAME soul compilation
A definitive look at the recordings made for the famous studio’s in-house label. 24-track, two-disc vinyl set.
A beautiful collection of work from one of the greatest soul labels ever – a tiny Alabama imprint that helped bring the Muscle Shoals sound to the masses – thanks to the work of producer Rick Hall, and his crack band of session players! The music here set a whole new standard for soul in the south – and really helped bridge older 50s modes and the new wave of more expressive, more sophisticated singers – served up here in a special vinyl-only package that mixes big Fame classics with some real gems that never got their due back in the day – and even come cuts that appear here on vinyl for the first time ever! Titles include “She Ain’t Gonna Do Right” by Clarence Carter, “Fortune Teller” by The Del-Rays, “That Kind Of Lovin” by Otis Clay, “Back In Your Arms” by George Jackson, “Feed The Flame” by Billy Young, “Almost Persuaded” by June Conquest, “A Piece of My Heart” by Art Freeman, “I Worship The Ground You Walk On” by Jimmy Hughes, “Blind Can’t See” by Richard Earl & The Corvettes, “Come On Home” by Hrman Moore, “I’m Gonna Forget About You” by Arthur Conley, “Long Ago” by Ben & Spence, “Take Me Just As I Am” by Dan Penn, and “Don’t Make Me Hate Loving You”
–Jessie Mae Hemphill s/t LP from Mississippi Records
Compilation of great recordings by Jesse Mae Hemphill. Mississippi Hill Country blues at their finest. Jessie Mae rocks out on the electric guitar with minimal percussion. By far some of the best blues recorded in the 80’s. Jessie Mae is the granddaughter of the great Sid Hemphill and the torch bearer of one of the most beautiful traditions in the world of music. Co-release with Moi J’Connais. (This LP was previously released by them with a silk screened cover).
(BUY JESSIE MAE HEMPHILL HERE)
–Terry Allen Juarez and Lubbock (on everything) from Paradise of Bachelors
Legendary Texan artist Terry Allen occupies a unique position straddling the frontiers of country music and visual art; he has worked with everyone from Guy Clark to David Byrne to Lucinda Williams, and his artwork resides in museums worldwide. Widely celebrated as a masterpiece—arguably the greatest concept album of all time—his spare, haunting 1975 debut LP 
Juarez is a violent, fractured tale of the chthonic American Southwest and borderlands. Produced in collaboration with the artist and meticulously remastered from the original analog tapes, this is the definitive edition of the art-country classic: the first reissue on vinyl; the first to feature the originally intended artwork (including the art prints that accompanied the first edition); and the first to contextualize the album within Allen’s fifty-year art practice.
“A vortex of sex and violence.” – David Byrne
“Throw Lynch’s violent masterworks Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart in a blender with Burroughs’s Naked Lunch and Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky, and you’re getting warm.” – Houston Press
“I love Terry. He’s a funny son of a bitch.” – Guy Clark
“People tell me it’s country music, and I ask, ‘which country?'” – Terry Allen
(BUY TERRY ALLEN’S RECORDS HERE)
–Silver Apples debut album
Formed in 1967 as a psychedelic electronic duo featuring Dan Taylor on drums and Simeon on a homemade synthesizer consisting of 12 oscillators (and an assortment of sound filters, telegraph keys, radio parts, lab gear and a variety of second hand electronic junk), Silver Apples quickly gained a reputation as New York’s leading underground musical expression.
Their pulsating rhythmic beats with the use of electronics laid the groundwork for what would become“Krautrock” Silver Apples was released in 1968 and still remains an innovative and revolutionary album. Their highly influential sound has influenced countless bands from Stereolab, Beastie Boys, Blur and more.
”Silver Apples… a beautiful and mysterious artifact.” – New York Times
(BUY THIS ALBUM IN THE SHOP)
–Twin Peaks soundtrack
The soundtrack to David Lynch’s groundbreaking, cult-classic tv show TWIN PEAKS was finally reissued on vinyl this year. The packaging was insane. We even had a cherry pie and damn fine coffee party to celebrate.
“I’m glad that after 25 years, Death Waltz Recording Company has re-released the original soundtrack for Twin Peaks for a new audience to enjoy. This is my defining work as a composer and I’m happy it will get a fresh listen” – Angelo Badalamenti 2016
(THIS TITLE IS SOLD OUT)
–Beck Odelay and Sea Change
These titles are slated for release on December 2nd.
Vinyl wasn’t exactly hopping for most of Beck‘s golden period. So LP versions of albums like Sea Change and Odelay can cost a pretty penny. Luckily for all of us who connected to the slacker-folk star because we were also losers, it looks like a cheaper alternative is on the way. Beck’s entire discography from Mellow Gold on to Modern Guilt is getting the re-issue treatment courtesy of Universal Music Group.
–Grifters Crappin’ You Negative
Gloriously reissued by Fat Possum Records, this Memphis classic is back in print!
“The mid-’90s Memphis band Grifters wrote songs that sounded like smart conversations you wished you could contribute to, inside jokes you wanted to be let it on. This was their most bracing statement.” -Pitchfork
Among the best albums to come out of the ’90s lo-fi D.I.Y. scene, Crappin’ You Negative ebbs and flows on oceans of spliced and diced vocal melodies and noisy guitar effects. The band’s songs are confessional and psychedelic in equal measure, though the clicks of a four-track recorder still cue changes from verse to chorus to bridge. But songs like “Maps of the Sun,” “Holmes,” “Bronze Cast,” and “Skin Man Palace” are dense with riffs that make sense in a familiar, classic rock sort of way, even if the latter opens with the robust confession, “I am the mambo king!” The album’s downer ballads, “Felt-Tipped Over” and “Junkie Blood,” are ready-made for radio play on a much darker, stranger planet. Many of these songs first appeared as singles on tiny independent labels; perhaps that’s why it’s surprising how well this album holds together. It’s as if the band translated its recording technique to sequencing, too. The resulting album is a stellar example of a band at its creative peak.
(BUY CRAPPIN’ YOU NEGATIVE HERE)
–R.E.M. Out of Time, Eponymous, Dead Letter Office
Anyone that’s been in the store knows we’re huge R.E.M. fans so it’s great to see Eponymous and Dead Letter Office back in print. Any R.E.M. fan needs these records and now you can snag ’em at a nice price. November also sees the 25th anniversary of Out of Time. The record is being remastered and reissued in a single LP format and a deluxe, triple LP set that includes demos and extensive liner notes.
–Dust to Digital gave us the wonderful Music of Morocco box set and the new Washington Phillips set
If you know Dust to Digital then you already know these two box sets are worth the money and even more importantly, worth the listen. The label’s releases are limited and they ALWAYS end up on our year-end favorites list. This year is no exception. Both the Music of Morocco and Washington Phillips sets are meticulously researched, beautifully packaged, and worthy of high praise. Read a review of the Washington Phillips set here, and read a review of the Music of Morocco set here.
(ALL DUST-TO-DIGITAL TITLES ARE AVAILABLE IN THE SHOP)
–Jay Reatard Blood Visions 10th Anniversary
This was a Record Store Day release from Fat Possum Records. This version is SOLD OUT!
Jay Reatard was the kingpin of Memphis garage rock, and his best and most powerful full-length work—the record that made him a standalone rock star—was his first solo album, Blood Visions.
(PURCHASE THE REGULAR VERSION OF BLOOD VISIONS IN THE SHOP)
–The Replacements The SIRE Years box set
The Replacements The Sire Years is a Numbered Limited Edition 4LP Box Set.
Bookend to The ‘Mats Twin/Tone Years Box Set featuring Tim (1985), Pleased To Meet Me (1987), Don’t Tell A Soul (1989) & All Shook Down (1990)
Along with Prince and Hüsker Dü, The Replacements put Minneapolis on the rock map in the 1980s. Among America’s greatest alternative acts of the last two decades, the ‘Mats rose from chaotic noise-makers to polished craftsmen, leaving at least three unqualified masterpieces in their wake. In a perfect world, Let It Be, Tim, and Pleased To Meet Me would have all gone platinum – but then again, endearing imperfection was always a hallmark of this band’s music.
The Replacements formed in the wake of the punk explosion of the late-70s. Their anarchic stage shows had earned them considerable notoriety in local clubs. Indie label Twin/Tone took note and signed the quartet for their first four releases, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash (1981), Stink EP (1982), Hootenanny (1983) and Let It Be(1984) which earned The Replacements a place on the roster at Sire Records. It was there that the ‘Mats released their final four albums – Tim (1985), Pleased to Meet Me (1987), Don’t Tell A Soul (1989) and All Shook Down(1990) – collected here in the new limited edition 4LP box set The Sire Years.
Tim was the last album to feature the band’s legendary original lineup. A departure from the raw, punk-rock aesthetic that dominated their Twin/Tone releases, Tim showcases Westerberg’s gift for songcraft with the uptempo rock anthems “Bastards Of Young” and “Left Of The Dial,” the poignant ballad “Here Comes A Regular,” and the clever lyricism of “Little Mascara.” Follow-up Pleased To Meet Me was recorded in Memphis, TN with producer Jim Dickinson whose association with Big Star attracted the band. Memorable tracks include “Alex Chilton,” “The Ledge,” “I Don’t Know,” “Red Red Wine” and “Can’t Hardly Wait.”
For Don’t Tell A Soul, the screaming, yelling and falling to pieces drunken brothers added sleepy melancholy, violins, and waves of layered guitar, something that sounded like a “real” recording and a bit if not a lot of personal vulnerability to the mix. Songs like “Achin’ to Be,” the haunted “Rock ‘n’ Roll Ghost,” the sweetly self-mythologizing “Talent Show,” and “I’ll Be You,” are among the best of their era. Produced with Scott Litt, All Shook Down started out as a Westerberg solo album, but was eventually released as the Replacements seventh and final album. That also explains the album’s many guest artists which include John Cale, Benmont Tench, Terry Reid and Johnette Napolitano.
–Wayfaring Stranger: Cosmic American Country from Numero Group
As progenitor and contemptuous poster boy for the music that came to be Cosmic American, Gram Parsons found himself mired in a recording career spent mostly in scouting the perimeters of chart success. “He hated country-rock,” Parsons collaborator Emmylou Harris would later reflect. “He thought that bands like the Eagles were pretty much missing the point.”
Parsons had been orbiting the idea of Cosmic American Music for some time. In ‘68, he’d parted ways with the Byrds and was looking to take air with a new project. “It’s basically a Southern soul group playing country and gospel-oriented music with a steel guitar” he told Melody Maker, on the subject of The Flying Burrito Brothers. So it was that when A&M’s Burrito Brothers debut The Gilded Palace of Sin made it to shelves in February of 1969, early adherents to the Cosmic American gospel were already echoing its message from areas flanking Gram Parsons’ Southern California hills and canyons. There was F.J. McMahon in coastal Santa Barbara, Mistress Mary further inland in Hacienda Heights, and Plain Jane of Albuquerque, New Mexico, each responding by committing their own private readings to tape before for day one of the 1970s. Parsons himself might’ve disdained them, had he even been aware of such minor ripples, shimmering at the edges of his desert oasis. But these were true believers all the same, given over fully to his roots music concept, each filling vinyl grooves with non-rock instrumentation like fiddle, banjo, and pedal steel guitar, the last undoubtedly Cosmic American Music’s most distinguishing stringed signifier.
Only too predictably, big labels did the grunt work of confining and defining the movement, as ABC, United Artists, RCA, and more played catch-up with Asylum’s raptor rock juggernaut, via backwoods crossover also-rans with names like Gladstone, American Flyer, and Silverado. Twang reigned, the shitkickers kicked shit, and the vaguely western-sounding guitar records piled up. Country-rock became “the dominant American rock style of the 1970s,” as Peter Doggett’s comprehensive Are You Ready for the Country put it much later. Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music picks up and dusts off golden ingots from the dollar-bin detritus of that domination, to reconstruct events as seen from the genre’s real Wild West—America’s one-off private press label substructure.
I [have] some sort of ‘rep’ for starting what has turned out to be pretty much of a ‘country-rock’ plastic dry-fuck.” — Gram Parsons, 1972
(BUY COSMIC AMERICAN COUNTRY HERE)
