Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music to get solo career-spanning box set in October

Bryan Ferry has announced 'Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023.' The 81-track collection is the first career-spanning release to fully explore the Roxy Music co-founder's work as a solo artist, spanning a period of over 50 years of music and 16 solo albums. The collection is due for release on Oct. 25 via BMG.

‘She Belongs To Me,’ a re-imagining of the 1965 Bob Dylan tune, can be heard HERE. It is part of a new five-track EP titled 'Retrospective: She Belongs To Me' - the first of three digital EP releases that will accompany Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 over the coming months. Listen to the EP HERE.

This collection brings together, for the first time, Ferry’s recorded output with Island Records, Polydor, Virgin, E.G. Records and BMG, and features two brand new recordings. 

The box set will be released in multiple formats including a 5CD deluxe box set featuring 81 songs, accompanied by a 100-page hardback book containing extensive new liner notes, rare and unseen photographs and imagery. A 2LP gatefold edition presents The Best Of Bryan Ferry, containing 20 songs pressed to black vinyl with variants including a green/blue vinyl pressing and a clear vinyl pressing. A 1CD version will also feature the same 20 songs and a booklet containing liner notes and photographs. An 81-track edition of the album will be released digitally, including a brand-new song titled ‘Star.’ Bryan Ferry’s first new music release in over a decade.

The 5CD deluxe box set is curated across five stages, with each disc devoted to a different aspect of Bryan Ferry’s career. ‘Disc One: The Best Of Bryan Ferry’ presents 20 essential tracks. ‘Disc Two: Compositions’ examines the 1977-2014 period. ‘Disc Three: Interpretations’ celebrates the remodeling side to Ferry’s artistry. ‘Disc Four: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra’ explores the conceptual project that Ferry began with 2012’s The Jazz Age album, reimagining music from across his own repertoire. He refined this concept across two further collections, 2018’s Bitter-Sweet and 2013’s The Great Gatsby: The Jazz Recordings - featuring reworkings of Roxy Music’s ‘Love Is The Drug’ and Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’ for the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 cinematic release, The Great Gatsby. ‘Disc Five: Rare and Unreleased’ gathers B-sides, extras, curiosities and outtakes. A remake of Roxy Music’s ‘Mother Of Pearl’ recorded in the early-1990s during the Horoscope / Mamouna sessions features backing vocals from the late Ronnie Spector. ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ has Elvis’s original bandmates Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, recorded for 2001’s Sun Records tribute album, Good Rockin’ Tonight. 

Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 5 CD Track Listing:

Disc One: The Best Of Bryan Ferry

1. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
2. These Foolish Things
3. The 'In' Crowd
4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
5. Casanova
6. Let's Stick Together
7. Sign of the Times
8. Slave To Love
9. Don't Stop The Dance
10. Windswept
11. Kiss and Tell
12. As Time Goes By
13. Your Painted Smile
14. I Put A Spell On You
15. Which Way To Turn
16. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
17. Make You Feel My Love
18. You Can Dance
19. Love Letters
20. Johnny and Mary

Disc Two: Compositions
1. Can't Let Go
2. Tokyo Joe
3. This Island Earth
4. Love Me Madly Again
5. Limbo
6. When She Walks In The Room
7. Boys and Girls
8. Zamba
9. Chain Reaction
10. Bête Noire
11. I Thought
12. The Only Face
13. Valentine
14. Loop De Li
15. Reason or Rhyme

Disc Three: Interpretations
1. The Price of Love
2. Shame Shame Shame
3. Hold On (I'm Coming)
4. Just One Look
5. Girl of My Best Friend
6. What Goes On
7. That's How Strong My Love Is
8. You Go To My Head
9. Where or When
10. The Way You Look Tonight
11. One Night
12. Simple Twist of Fate
13. Positively 4th Street
14. Song to the Siren
15. Fooled Around and Fell In Love

Disc Four: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra
1. Virginia Plain
2. Do The Strand
3. While My Heart Is Still Beating
4. This Island Earth
5. Bitter-Sweet
6. Dance Away
7. Zamba
8. Reason or Rhyme
9. Avalon
10. Back To Black
11. Limbo
12. Young and Beautiful
13. Love Is The Drug
14. Sign of the Times
15. Chance Meeting

Disc Five: Rare and Unreleased
1. Feel The Need
2. Mother of Pearl (Horoscope Version)
3. Don't Be Cruel
4. I Don't Want To Go On Without You
5. I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know
6. Crazy Love
7. Whatever Gets You Through The Night
8. Bob Dylan's Dream
9. He'll Have To Go
10. A Fool For Love
11. Lowlands Low
12. Is Your Love Strong Enough
13. Sonnet 18
14. She Belongs To Me
15. Oh Lonesome Me
16. Star (with Amelia Barratt)

Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 2LP / 1CD Tracklist:
1. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
2. These Foolish Things
3. The 'In' Crowd
4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
5. Casanova
6. Let's Stick Together
7. Sign of the Times
8. Slave To Love
9. Don't Stop The Dance
10. Windswept
11. Kiss and Tell
12. As Time Goes By
13. Your Painted Smile
14. I Put A Spell On You
15. Which Way To Turn
16. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
17. Make You Feel My Love
18. You Can Dance
19. Love Letters
20. Johnny and Mary

Retrospective: She Belongs To Me EP Track Listing
1. She Belongs To Me
2. Let’s Stick Together
3. Slave to Love
4. I Put A Spell On You
5. Make You Feel My Love

photo: High Rise PR

All-star tribute album to Jesse Malin coming in September

“As always in my songs, the themes are all there— transcendence, positivity and global unity through music,” says Jesse Malin. “This is what I love to do, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep doing it.” Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin is tribute and benefit album, out Sept. 20, with all proceeds to Jesse Malin’s Sweet Relief artist fund.

“This record is a dynamite and long-overdue awareness project, non-stop star time in vigorously personal twists on behalf of a great rock & roll songbook,” writes longtime supporter, David Fricke.

Long a contributor to other people’s causes, Malin is grateful to all the musicians who have rallied around him, including Bruce Springsteen, Billie Joe Armstrong, Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello, The Hold Steady, Tommy Stinson, Alison Mosshart with the late Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello, Counting Crows, Dinosaur Jr., The Wallflowers, Spoon, Susanna Hoffs, Frank Turner and Rancid, among others. The full track listing is below.

Watch the lyric video for the album’s second single “Black Haired Girl” by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, out now on all streaming services. The triple-vinyl set is available for pre-order now on Glassnote Records.

The original version was on Glitter in the Gutter, released in 2007 on Green Day’s label, Adeline Records. Jesse met Billie Joe in the ‘90s, when Malin’s band D-Generation opened for Social Distortion. Malin has opened for Green Day in the US and Europe. He and Armstrong formed the band Rodeo Queens—check out “Depression Times”—and Billie co-wrote the song “Strangers & Thieves” from Malin’s 2019 album, Sunset Kids.

“Jesse is a dear friend to me,” says Armstrong. “I love his songwriting. He is all heart…His passion is endless. We send each other YouTube videos (mostly old Ramones clips and New York Dolls). Every time I’m in New York he goes out of his way to make me, my friends and my family feel at home. He’s always down for a laugh or a shoulder to cry on. Jesse, we love you and we’d do anything for you.”

“When I heard Billie Joe was doing ‘Black Haired Girl’ I was so blown away, adds Malin. “Billie took it to another level, a lot of attitude, a lot of power, a lot of style, like everything that he does.”

Malin will return to the stage at the Beacon Theatre in New York City for the largest hometown shows of his career. December 1 is sold out and December 2 is on sale now at Ticketmaster with premium packages available through Sweet Relief. All proceeds from the shows will benefit Jesse’s Sweet Relief Artist Fund.

Malin will perform a full set with his band, followed by special guests on each show including Lucinda Williams, Jakob Dylan, Butch Walker, J Mascis, Adam and David Immergluck of Counting Crows, The Hold Steady, and Alejandro Escovedo, with more guests to be announced.

In May 2023, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Last December, Malin told Rolling Stone, “I have a lot of anxiety and insomnia. Your mind goes into some dark places. But I just have to keep a positive outlook and believe.” He is now undergoing a strict daily regimen with physical therapy and stem-cell treatments.

"I am getting some strength back in my legs, but it moves a lot slower than I would like. I don’t want to portray it like I'm ready to do the James Brown splits onstage. I definitely have a long way to go, but I'm blessed and so grateful for the amazing fans and friends that I have.”

Fricke adds, “Jesse Malin knows about scars – from his youth, observation and more. They all carry tales, and he's not done telling them. Silver Patron Saints is the gang back at the bar, coming to the stage to toast the composer and his story so far.”

WATCH: “Black Haired Girl” by Billie Joe Armstrong
LISTEN: “Black Haired Girl” By Billie Joe Armstrong
LISTEN: “Prisoners of Paradise” by Bleachers

Pre-order Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin here.

Track Listing:

1. Prisoners of Paradise (feat. Bleachers)
2. Oh Sheena (feat. Counting Crows)
3. She Don’t Love Me Now (feat. Bruce Springsteen)
4. Black Haired Girl (feat. Billie Joe Armstrong)
5. Brooklyn (feat. Dinosaur Jr.)
6. About You (feat. Frank Turner)
7. Turn Up the Mains (feat. Alison Mosshart, Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello, Steven Van Zandt, Mike Watt)
8. Room 13 (feat. Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello)
9. Don’t Let Them Take You Down (Beautiful Day) (feat. The Wallflowers)
10. The Way We Used to Roll (feat. Spoon)
11. Shane (feat. Rocky O’Riordan)
12. In the Modern World (feat. Butch Walker)
13. High Lonesome (feat. Susanna Hoffs)
14. Greener Pastures (feat. Graham Parker)
15, Meet Me At The End of the World (feat. Alejandro Escovedo)
16. Death Star (feat. The Hold Steady)
17. Riding on the Subway (feat. Tommy Stinson and Ruby Stinson)
18. St. Mark's Sunset (feat. The Walker Roaders)
19. Dead On (feat. Ian Hunter)
20. Almost Grown (feat. Danny Clinch and Christopher Thorn with Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country)
21. Shining Down (feat. Aaron Lee Tasjan)
22. When You’re Young (feat. Low Cut Connie)
23.. All The Way From Moscow (feat. Willie Nile)
24. No Way Out (feat. Rancid)
25. You Know It’s Dark When Atheists Start to Pray (feat. Gogol Bordello)
26. God Is Dead (feat. Agnostic Front)
27. Frankie (feat. Murphy’s Law)

U2 news: ZOO TV EP

Interscope Records announces the release of ZOO TV – Live In Dublin 1993 EP, out August 30. Pre-order it here.

The EP features five tracks from one of U2's two open-air performances at the RDS Arena, Dublin in August 1993, the hometown stop on the European ‘Zooropa’ leg of their worldwide ZOO TV Tour. While sought-after bootlegged copies of the RDS show audio have been in circulation for years, this marks the first official release. 

Hitting the road in support of their acclaimed 1991 album ‘Achtung Baby’, ZOO TV took U2 around the world between February 1992 and December 1993, playing to 5.3 million fans over 157 shows and 5 legs, a period which also saw the band record and release their eighth studio album ‘Zooropa’. In another first, a worldwide live radio broadcast of the August 28, RDS, Dublin show allowed an estimated 700 million fans around the globe to tune in. 

ZOO TV – Live In Dublin 1993 EP will be available in the following formats:
CD, Vinyl (12’’) and Digital Release (including Spatial Audio/Atmos).

Track listing:

Zoo Station
Mysterious Ways
Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Love Is Blindness

Miranda Lambert reveals details of 'Postcards from Texas' album out in September

Arriving Sept. 13 via Republic Records, Miranda Lambert's 'Postcards from Texas' is available to pre-order HERE. Following previous new tracks “Wranglers” and “Dammit Randy” is the latest taste of the album, “Alimony.”

“We were out in my barn; I was showing Shane and Natalie the horses, and I asked if he had any other titles,” Lambert remembers of the day she, Shane McAnally and Natalie Hemby hit a creative streak. “He said he had one, and I was like, ‘What is it? Because your last one was ‘Looking Back on Luckenbach,’ which I didn’t think you could top. He said, ‘Well, ‘If you’re gonna leave me in San Antone, remember the Alamo-neeeee…’’ Natalie and I were like, ‘Alright, Shane! Stop showing off.’

“We went back to the house and got the guitars,” Lambert continues, “and I specifically was like, ‘I want a shuffle, man.’ I love to shuffle so much, and this record needed a shuffle! I knew I wanted one in my set, because I haven't done one in a while – and everybody loves a shuffle.”

Beyond warning about the consequences of the buckle-polishing that dissolves marriages, “Alimony” draws on Lambert’s childhood. Laughing, she offers, “My parents were private investigators in Dallas, Texas who worked a ton of divorce cases in highfalutin parts of town, so this wasn’t hard to write. I’d heard about it my whole life.

“And once we had the line – If you’re gonna leave me in San Antone, remember the alimony – we were off! We used every Texas metaphor we could come up with on purpose; we wanted to take something kind of shitty and put some humor back in it. I mean, the guy gets out pretty easy if all he does is move back in with his mom.”

Grammy-winning songwriter Jon Randall co-produced the album. 

Track List/Songwriters:

1. Armadillo (Aaron Raitiere, Jon Decious, Park Twomey)

2. Dammit Randy (Miranda Lambert, Brendan McLoughlin, Jon Randall)
3. Looking Back on Luckenbach (Miranda Lambert, Shane McAnally, Natalie Hemby)
4, Santa Fe feat. Parker McCollum (Miranda Lambert, Jesse Frasure, Jessie Jo Dillon, Dean Dillon)
5. January Heart (Brent Cobb, Neil Medley)
6. Wranglers (Audra Mae, Evan McKeever, Ryan Carpenter)
7. Run (Miranda Lambert)
8. Alimony (Miranda Lambert, Natalie Hemby, Shane McAnally)
9. I Hate Love Songs (Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall)
10. No Man’s Land (Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick)
11. Bitch On The Sauce (Miranda Lambert, Jaren Johnston)
12. Way Too Good At Breaking My Heart (Miranda Lambert, Jon Randall, Jesse Frasure, Jenee Fleenor)
13. Wildfire (Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram, Jon Randall)
14. Living On The Run (David Allen Coe, Jimmy L. Howard)

New EP to mark 40th Anniversary of George Michael's 'Careless Whisper'

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the release of George Michael's massive worldwide hit single ‘Careless Whisper,’ the ‘Careless Whisper EP’ will be released on October 18. Available on both digital and physical formats, the EP includes a previously unreleased live version performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City during George’s concert on the July 23, 2008.

The recording marked his reunion with a New York audience after a 17-year hiatus. It was part of his 25Live tour, a worldwide success that sold out arenas and stadiums of over 1.3 million fans across the globe. 

The EP will also include newly mastered versions of the original single, the extended mix and instrumental.

PRE-ORDER THE ‘CARELESS WHISPER’ EP HERE
Available on 12” ruby marble vinyl

Topping the charts in 25 countries back in 1984, today ‘Careless Whisper’ is certified 7 x Platinum in The United States and has sold over 1.5 million copies in the UK alone. It has also been certified Platinum and Diamond in a further 20 countries.

It was written with Wham! band mate Andrew Ridgeley when George Michael was 17 years old and resulted in him becoming the youngest recipient of an Ivor Novello Award at 21 years old. The single also made him the first artist ever to top the charts as both a soloist and as a member of a group/duo in the same calendar year.

Today, the video on TikTok currently surpasses 700 million views, while on YouTube the video averages close to half a million views every day. It is also a member of YouTube’s and Spotify’s exclusive Billions Club.

For more information on George Michael visit www.georgemichael.com

‘CARELESS WHISPER’ EP Track-list:

Careless Whisper​

Careless Whisper​ Extended mix
Careless Whisper​ Live At Madison Square Garden, July 2008
Careless Whisper​ Instrumental

PRE-ORDER HERE
Available on 12” ruby marble vinyl

Pixies' new album to arrive in October

Since I interviewed the band's guitarist for the last album (see elsewhere on this blog), I'm anxious to hear the new stuff...

Pixies announce their brand-new studio album, The Night the Zombies Came, due for release on October 25 via BMG. You can pre-order the album HERE.

Thirty-five years since their debut album Doolittle landed in the U.K. Top Ten and was certified Platinum in America, and 20 years since their celebrated reformation at Coachella, Pixies are continually a creative entity. 

The Night the Zombies Came is Pixies’ tenth album if you count their classic 1987 4AD EP Come On Pilgrim and the first new music since 2022’s acclaimed Doggerel LP.

Songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Black Francis explains, “Fragments that are related and juxtaposed with other fragments in other songs. And in a collection of songs in a so-called LP, you end up making a kind of movie.”

‘Chicken’ finds Francis personifying poultry, dealing with decapitation and feeling like an actor in Zombie movies. Listen HERE.

The Night the Zombies Came will also include ‘You’re So Impatient,’ the brand-new single with AA-side ‘Que Sera, Sera.’ For the new album recording sessions, the band returned to work with producer Tom Dalgety, who drummer David Lovering refers to as “a fifth Pixie” after producing 2016’s Head Carrier, 2019’s Beneath the Eyrie and 2022’s Doggerel.

Early on in the recording process at Guilford Sound studio in Vermont, the band noticed the new songs were dividing into two camps: what they came to call the “Dust Bowl Songs” - country-tinged, ballad-esque numbers such as ‘Primrose’ and ‘Mercy Me,’ and on the other side, the album’s furious punk numbers such as ‘You’re So Impatient’ and ‘Oyster Beds.’ Only ‘Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)’ keeps its feet in both camps — a track that Black Francis allegedly likened to being chased by a swarm of bees.

The Night the Zombies Came sessions also saw Pixies welcoming new bass player Emma Richardson (Band Of Skulls) to the lineup, the first British band member to join the Pixies. There’s also an expanded role for guitarist Joey Santiago. After contributing his first-ever Pixies lyrics on Doggerel, for the new record, Santiago wrote the words to ‘Hypnotised’ by completing a complex lyrical riddle of sorts, known as a sestina.

The news of The Night the Zombies Came arrives amidst a packed touring schedule set to take in circa 70 live shows worldwide through 2024 - with even more dates to be announced for 2025. The band just wrapped a tour across North America with Modest Mouse and Cat Power and is playing through Europe before returning to the U.K. in August for a run of already sold-out headline shows at Glasgow Academy and Halifax’s Piece Hall. Major festival performances at London’s All Points East, Victorious, and headline shows at Galway Airport, Belfast’s Custom House Square, and Dublin’s RDS Simmonscourt are all scheduled.

Track listing:

1.Primrose

2.You're So Impatient
3.Jane (The Night the Zombies Came)
4.Chicken
5.Hypnotised
6.Johnny Good Man
7.Motoroller
8.I Hear You Mary
9.Oyster Beds
10.Mercy Me
11.Ernest Evans
12.Kings of the Prairie
13.The Vegas Suite

Genesis news

This summer, 13 Genesis studio albums released between 1971 and 1997 will be reissued on LP worldwide via Rhino Records. Pressed on 180g vinyl, the albums—featuring Nick Davis mixed and remastered versions—will be available in three waves.

They begin on August 23 with Foxtrot, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (2LP), Duke, Abacab, and Genesis. On September 6, Nursery Cryme, Selling England By The Pound, Wind & Wuthering, We Can’t Dance (2LP), and Calling All Stations (2LP) will be released. The series concludes on September 27 with A Trick Of The Tail, ...And Then There Were Three…, and Invisible Touch.

Pre-order HERE.

Genesis’ catalog includes 15 studio albums, six live LPs, and dozens of charting singles. In addition to its 2010 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the band has received an Ivor Novello Award, a GRAMMY®, an American Music Award, and the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award at Britain’s Progressive Music Awards.

Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks did a brief run of final U.S. reunion dates that incredibly didn't include the West Coast in November 2021.