Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs.
ARTIST : Roxy Music
RELEASE: The Complete Studio Recordings: 1972-1982
BACKSTORY: This new 10CD box set, out this week in the U.K., includes all eight studio albums (Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, Stranded, Country Life, Siren, Manifesto, Flesh And Blood and Avalon), plus two bonus discs featuring non-album singles, B-sides and alternative mixes.
BUY: Amazon.co.uk (Box set)
ARTIST : Redd Kross
RELEASE: Researching the Blues
BACKSTORY: The ’80s cult act founded by brothers Jeff and Steven McDonald that scored some minor college-radio hits as ’90s major-label alt-rockers this week release their first new album in 15 years via indie imprint Merge Records. The album was preceded by the title track “Researching the Blues” (see full tracklist here).
BUY: Amazon.com (CD, vinyl, digital)
ARTIST : The Specials
RELEASE: More… Or Less: The Specials Live
BACKSTORY: The reunited 2 Tone ska giants this week release, in the U.K., a 26-track live album in both 2CD and 2LP formats, collecting “the best of the best tracks” from U.K. and European dates on the band’s 2011 reunion tour. Songs include “A Message To You Rudy,” “Nite Klub” and more (see full tracklist here).
BUY: Amazon.co.uk (CD, vinyl)
ARTIST : Frankie Goes to Hollywood
RELEASE: Sexmix: Archive Tapes and Studio Adventures, Volume 1
BACKSTORY: ZTT Records this week releases, in the U.K., a new 2CD compilation that, as its name implies, pulls together “hundreds of miles of reels of tape, remixes, editions, edits and experiments” generated during the group’s “imperial reign” from 1983 to 1987. The set features 28 tracks (see full tracklist here).
BUY: Amazon.co.uk (CD)
ARTIST : Bad Brains
RELEASE: Live at CBGB 1982
BACKSTORY: Not to be confused with the 2006 CD release of the same name, this vinyl-only release, out this week, features selections from the DVD bearing that same name. While culled from the same series of live shows, the CD and this new LP (on swirled color vinyl) have entirely different tracklists.
BUY: Amazon.com (Vinyl)
ARTIST : Jesus Jones
RELEASE: The Collection: A Selection of Band Favorites and Rarities
BACKSTORY: The alt-dance band that first emerged in the late ’80s this week releases, in the U.K., a new CD best-of and rarities set personally chosen by the band, with “one disc featuring band favourites, rare b-sides and hard-to-find foreign pressings, and one disc featuring 18 demos and rarities.”
BUY: Amazon.co.uk (CD)
