NewsOut This Week / on 13 January 2017
St Etienne / Foxbase Alpha (vinyl box)
St Etienne‘s 1991 debut is reissued across two 45RPM vinyl records and comes packaged with a bonus LP of associated recordings from the era. Includes a bonus seven-inch, a book and photos and comes in a lift-off lid box. 
Pat Benatar / 5 Classic Albums
Budget five-CD package features the albums In The Heat Of The Night, Crimes Of Passion, Get Nervous, Tropico, and Wide Awake In Dreamland
Rick Wakdman / Piano Portraits
Rick Wakeman re-interprets 15 tracks on piano including Life On Mars, Eleanor Rigby, I’m Not In Love, Stairway to Heaven and Space Oddity.
- • UK Order: Piano Portraits (CD)
- • USA Order: Piano Portraits (CD)
- • GERMANY Order: Piano Portraits (CD)
The Flaming Lips / Oczy Mlody (new album)
The Flaming Lips return with a new album, their first since 2013’s The Terror. Oczy Mlody is produced by their long-time producer Dave Fridmann.
Hans Zimmer / The Classics
Hans Zimmer‘s classic soundtrack work (Interstellar, Inception, Gladiator, The Dark Knight Rises etc.) is reimagined and arranged for “the world’s greatest classical musicians”.
- • UK Order: Hans Zimmer – The Classics (CD)
- • USA Order: Hans Zimmer – The Classics (CD)
- • GERMANY Order: Hans Zimmer – The Classics (CD)
Various Artists: / Twelve Inch Eighties: Hold Me Now
Crimson Productions release a pair of triple-CD 12-inch compilations this week – Hold Me Now and When The Going Gets Tough. The former includes long and remixed versions of tracks by Spandau Ballet, Paul Young, Nick Heyward, Thompson Twins and more.
- • UK Order: Twelve Inch Eighties: Hold Me Now
- • USA Order: Twelve Inch Eighties: Hold Me Now
- • GERMANY Order: Twelve Inch Eighties: Hold Me Now
SDE helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.
The xx “I See You” is also being released this week in multiple formats. I’ve opted for the Vinyl Deluxe Box Set.
I usually do not buy those budget/throw-5-albums-in-a-box things, unless they are chronological, the discs are remastered, and those albums are not worth expanding/nothing to expanded them with…and because of these reasons, I won’t be buying that Pat box, even tho it’s pretty cheap and she’s great. The Flaming Lips release is on Warners in the US, and I wonder if that comment was on the US Warners version?? They put out these types of releases for the band regularly. My comments on the Saint Etienne is on the page of that release. Won’t be buying the Wakeman, as good as the guy is, cuz that type of record would be a 1-listen deal. I don’t buy film score people except for maybe Ennio Morricone. As for the “Twelve Inch Eighties” releases, they look cool, and there were some released already…question…how many are in the series?? They are not numbered. The only releases of those sort I have…I rarely buy compilations like this unless it’s a series…are the Blank & Jones “So80s” ones (and now so90s and the artist ones too)…I have the first 8 (need volumes 9 & 10 and might buy that box holder)…are these as good or worth owning as well??
The new Twelve inch eighties are the 7th and 8th releases in the series. The previous releases were People hold on, Rhythm is gonna get you, Let’s groove, You spin me round, Can you feel it and Digging your scene. They’re a mixed bag really. There are a lot of tracks that have been released over and over with a few less readily available tracks thrown in. In the UK they retail at £5.99 (a quarter of the cost of the so 80s series) and HMV usually have them on at 2 for £10 on the day of release so at that price you can’t go wrong for a 3 disc set.
Those Twelve Inch Eighties compilations are getting very tedious now it’s the same mixes that have been featured on numerous compilations over the last few years years. When are they going to get it through their thick skulls that there was no 12 inch mix of Broken Wings as well.
Somewhat tempted by the Pat Benetar myself, but not as much as I’d be by a properly thought out reissue campaign with some added value in terms of remastering / b-sides and rarities / accompanying booklets with insightful notes and pictures etc etc. I won’t lower the tone by suggesting that Pat is any more (or less) worthy of this treatment than other artists, but surely she is a significant female role model in US rock…
I long for the day when they do a proper reissue set of hers…Sigh…someday
Any idea, Paul, if the mix of “We Live For Love” is the original, more new-wave version, or the one that Neil Gerardo dubbed differently for all LP re-pressings, all CD editions and compilations?
Can’t believe I wrote “Gerardo.” Meant Giraldo, obvee. Question still stands. :)
Very few of these “Classic Albums” series have extras.
Can I also add that online sellers are showing a 5 Claasic Albums release from Traffic due for release on Friday? Retails at around £11.
The five Pat Benatar albums featured are all excellent. Wide Awake in Dreamland is underrated.
What a horrible cover for the Pat Benatar release. I ordered it because of the affordable price, but honestly.
What is the point of any Pat Benatar collection without her biggest and best hit “Love Is A Battlefield”? I will stick to the 2CD compilation “All Fired Up”.
Err, because it doesn’t appear on any of the albums that feature in the box set!
It was never a track from any of her studio albums, it was one of two new studio tracks included on her Live From Earth release.
Worth noting that the Flaming Lips does come in a pricey deluxe colored 2xLP + bonus 7″ version (that doesn’t appear available everywhere).