After spending time in Record Store Day’s spring shadow as its bastard son, RSD’s post-Thanksgiving Black Friday drop is finally as hotly anticipated—and filling—as dark meat turkey legs, NFL divisional showdowns, and an abundance of liquor that comes with the holiday (I mean the booze that flows during family dinner, but if you enjoy standing in line at your favorite vinyl shop drinking, I’m all for it).
In fact, even more so than the prestigious annual RSD in May/June, RSDBF has become a shopping mall for superstars (U2, Stevie Nicks, Billie Eilish), regularly participating artists (Bill Evans, Todd Rundgren), and rare previously unreleased goods and specially designed reissues, diving deeper than crate-crawlers through the best of adventurous vintage jazz, blues, country, hip-hop, and dance music.
While there are plenty of exclusive releases to highlight this year, here are 40 of our picks for the most interesting across various genres and time periods. Dig in.
Angelo Badalamenti, Music for Film and Television (VARESE SARABANDE)
Before we discuss the mesmerizing blue-moody atmospheres of its music (to say nothing of its translucent red vinyl album), is it me or is illustrator Brianna Ashby’s near-Rockwell-like cover of Angelo Badalamenti’s album the most Lynch-like aspect of this whole RSD drama, despite its sugarplums, straight razors, and wigs dancing around his head? Badalamenti’s soft, dark, windy symphonies for Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart acted as a counterpoint to the creeping violence within Lynch’s brand of post-kitsch cinema. The noir whoosh of Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks, however, have no oppositional, contrapuntal yin-yang vibe; here, composer and director are of one subtly evil-laced hive mind and mood as their meeting is exceptional, poetic, sullen, and symbiotic. For bonus points, non-Lynch film themes such as A Very Long Engagement’s suite and that of his regal The City of Lost Children are along for the RSD ride.
B.B. King, In France: Live at the Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival 1977 (DEEP DIGS/ELEMENTAL)
Can this really be Lucille’s first excursion into all-things RSD? This previously unissued, pristine live recording from the French Pulsations Fest is vintage clean-and-crunking ’70s-era blues from one of King’s friskiest, tightest-ever small groups. Along with B.B.’s slow-stewing blues filled with his patented throaty vocals and blissfully sorrowful guitar solos on take-your-time classics such as “The Thrill Is Gone,” King and Co. jump lively through fast, bottom-heavy swingers like “Caldonia,” rough, racy rockers such as “Sweet Sixteen,” and the ritualized, spiritualized “Home Faith.” On heavy-grade, 180 gram double-vinyl, and produced by jazz detective and Deep Digs label owner Zev Feldman, In France is a must-have among a bunch of must-haves. Plus, it would be great to have the blues better represented during RSD.
Big Brother & the Holding Company, Live at the Grande Ballroom Detroit; March 2, 1968 (LEGACY)
Everyone knows the legend of barnstorming vocalist Janis Joplin and how her sexy, freewheeling, gut-shot brand of white blues changed the game for women in rock forevermore after her time with Big Brother & the Holding Company. Joplin was a star from the start, but these Big Brothers were her universe allowing her to shine, then sunburst. Live gigs in particular were Joplin & Co.’s hearty bread and butter, with this Grande Ballroom showcase in Detroit at the peak of their power being of interest forever—it’s been excerpted on many a Joplin box set and compilation. 2024’s RSDBF, however, is the first time that the whole program has been released, so the funky, freaky flow of running from the coy, coaxing “Catch Me Daddy” through to the thunderous “Ball and Chain”—with immediate raging classics such as “Piece of My Heart” and “Coo Coo” in-between—is captured as God and Bill Graham planned it.
Bill Evans Trio, Live at Kongsberg 1970 (ELEMENTAL)
By 1970 and the time of these never-before-heard Norwegian concert recordings, pianist, composer, and fuzzy mathematical interpreter Bill Evans was all about essence and improvisation, about broken motives and deconstructed melodicism—both for himself and his Trio stalwarts, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Marty Morell. What was once racy yet restrained about his composition “34 Skidoo” in its original studio-recorded form is now windingly free without being avant-guarded. The once-tasteful adult balladry of “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” and “Autumn Leaves,” and the rich, swerving theatricality of “Who Can I Turn To?” become boyish and teasing in Evans’ hands. For anyone keeping score, by the way, Evans—more so than the usual heroes of RSD, such as Elton John—has truly become the genuine spirit of Record Store Day due to Elemental Music’s dedication to purging the finest of this icon’s archives.
Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard and Soft: Isolated Vocals (DARKROOM/INTERSCOPE)
When you consider how downright spooky and scared the actress-y Eilish can be throughout her haunted-house ballads co-penned with her brother FINNEAS for their third album, the very idea of stripping down the pains (“Bittersuite,” “Blue”) and pleasures (the carnal “Lunch”) of their dusky cinematic opus is a no-brainer. Actually, as much as I love the full-blooming power of the siblings’ Hard and Soft act, this raw, breathy album is much better.
Bobby Shmurda, Shmurda She Wrote (LEGACY)
Miami-to-Brooklyn drill icon Bobby Shmurda is probably better known for his legal hassles than his rap hustle at this point. That should change, now, with this bleak Black Friday re-release of his debut EP on red translucent vinyl and the rat-rat-rat-thrum of tracks such as “Bobby Bitch,” “Wipe the Case Away,” and a handful of his biggest hits whose titles…nah, I won’t say them.
The Carl Stalling Project, Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons 1936-1958 (WB/RHINO)
In 1990, producer and V/A curatorial genius Hal Willner joined forces with avant-garde composer/saxophonist John Zorn to display the busy marvel of Carl Stalling, the visionary arranger, composer, and voiceover artist associated with Warner Bros.’s animation department and their historic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. Notable for musical puns tied to popular radio songs of the 1930s through the late 1950s, to jazz, as well as to opera and the wiggiest classical music, Stalling’s wild original sound-effects-filled music can only be described as frantic—at least as frenzied, fractured, and disconnected from space and usual time signatures as the Coyote was in hot pursuit of Road Runner. Stalling’s insistently zig-zagging compositions are as revolutionary as those of Varese, Stravinsky, and Zappa and deserve greater identification as totems of the avant-garde. For now, enjoy bits such as the aptly titled “Anxiety Montage” and his whack “Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals,” one of Stalling’s inspired collaborations with another avatar of American cartoon music: Raymond Scott.
Charles Tolliver’s Music Inc., Live at the Captain’s Cabin (REEL TO REAL)
With saxophonist Jackie McLean and drummer Max Roach as your mentors-turned-bandstand-collaborators-turned-clients-for-your-songwriting-skills, how could post-bop, spiritualized modal jazz trumpeter, arranger, and composer Charles Tolliver go wrong? Together with his outfit Music Inc., he brought the fire of latter-day Coltrane to bear on his haunted, provocative trumpet stylings at the basement of an Edmonton grocery store. Along with this 1973 show’s live, salty take on Neal Hefti’s composition “Repetition” best known in its racing Charlie Parker rendition, this Cabin collection is all Tolliver and bassist Clint Houston, from the blasted-forth freneticism of “Black Vibrations,” through to the doleful balladry of “Earl’s Tune,” into the vicious, swinging closing licks of their nearly-20-minute-long “Stretch.” How Tolliver isn’t a household-name jazz icon is anyone’s guess.
Charley Patton, The Father of Delta Blues: Selections From Paramount Recordings (ORG)
Songwriter/guitarist/singer Charley Patton’s mysterious blues from the early 1920s are accompanied by a backstory that’s equally cryptic and somewhat bizarre: When was he born, exactly? Was he Black, Indigenous, Mexican, or Caucasian? What is known for certain is how his crusted-over, roughhouse, self-penned blues, his powerful vocal prowess, and crying, angered guitar sounds—his overall performative skills, as reported in his day—changed the face of popular music with the rural, folksy, rhythmic likes of “Shake It & Break It,” “Some Summer Day,” “Lord I’m Discouraged,” and “Some of These Days I'll Be Gone.”
Dead Prez, RBG: Revolutionary but Gangsta (LEGACY)
Florida’s poli-rap pair stic.man and M-1 quickly became indie hip-hop’s Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X with the release of their Y2K debut Let’s Get Free and its two-volume follow-up mixtape Turn Off the Radio. So, what to do for a proper encore? RBG: Revolutionary but Gangsta was Prez’s aptly titled sophomore response with its hard-pulsating, smart set of philosophical treatises that confronted violence with more violence on tracks like “Way of Life” without missing the intricate portraits of personalities that made their streets come alive (e.g. the humorous poetry of the neighborhood alcoholic on “Fucked Up”). Though dissing the state of music circa 2004 (“Radio Freq”) may seem dated now, the prescient “Hell Yeah (Pimp the System) Remix” with a vital-sounding JAY-Z is right on time.
The Doors, Live in Detroit, May 8, 1970 (ELEKTRA/RHINO)
No one got out of Detroit’s legendary Cobo Arena alive, it seems, from this shockingly long (for The Doors) live set. How long? The band played more than an hour past curfew and wound up getting banned from the Cobo forever—which, considering the fact that Jim Morrison would die a year later, likely didn’t have the desired effect. From a lava-lit, 25-track set filled with the scorching-red, rubber-burning blues of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train” (and, of course, their usual “Back Door Man”) through to its taunting caba-rock rarities such as “Dead Cats, Dead Rats” and the truly magnificent “Love Hides,” one wishes this concert had been filmed as well as professionally taped. Add snaking Dead-like lengthy versions of “Light My Fire,” “When the Music’s Over,” and their usual set closer, the massively ceremonial “The End” (the latter equaling one side of vinyl, featuring guitarist Robbie Krieger at his most majestic), and Detroit didn’t know what it had until it was too late.
Grateful Dead, Veterans Memorial Coliseum, New Haven, CT 5/5/77 (GRATEFUL DEAD/RHINO)
Any Deadhead is a completionist Deadhead—that’s how it works. So, for those of us who started the Get Shown the Light vinyl saga back in 2017 and stuck with the program, RSD and otherwise, everything closes with this four-album box of New Haven 5/5/77’s opening night performance. Tuned up and running for almost a year after their long live hibernation (and after funneling percussionist Mickey Hart into the group), the well-oiled Terrapin Station–era Grateful Dead turned out the weird reggae of “Estimated Prophet” in Connecticut, along with lengthy, epically Impressionist runs on Hart, Hunter, Lesh, Weir, and Jerry–written jams such as “Fire on the Mountain,” “St. Stephen,” and “Sugar Magnolia.” The best find from New Haven is the oft-bootlegged and much-heralded take on “Peggy-O”—if you know Dead live lore, you know how exciting this is.
Herbie Hancock, Possibilities (RHINO)
Expanded into three ruby-red discs, the Miles Davis alumnus, jazz priest, and electro-hop “Rock It” keyboardist extraordinaire found a new brand of experimentality with 2005’s Possibilities by working his magic through pop music. It’s fun hearing Hancock and Paul Simon do the jazzbo thing on the latter’s “I Do It for Your Love,” getting Herbie to jam “Gelo Na Montanha” with Trey Anastasio and Cyro Baptista, and welcoming two of pop’s biggest voices—Annie Lennox and Christina Aguilera, the latter on Leon Russell’s “A Song for You”—to wail. Possibilities is both a right-hand turn for Hancock in terms of artistry (it’s surprisingly subdued) and for Rhino in its choice of 21st century MOR.
Isaac Hayes, Truck Turner: The Soundtrack (CRAFT)
Anyone who thinks that Hayes’ grand Blaxploitative orchestral maneuvers closed shop with his Oscar-winning Shaft soundtrack need only listen to the surprisingly dark, proto-rap, jazz-combo, jams-and-blues riffage spread throughout his Truck Turner score’s songs like honey butter on crisp toast. Oh, and Hayes’ sorrowful moan-talk-vocal on “You’re in My Arms Again”? Yeah.
Jesse Ed Davis, Tomorrow May Not Be Your Day: The Unissued Atco Recordings 1970-1971 (REAL GONE)
When Native American guitarist Jesse Ed Davis died at the age of 43, he left behind a boatload of promise. Not only was he a session cat who jammed with Clapton, Lennon, Harrison, Neil Diamond, and Conway Twitty, and played as part of Taj Mahal’s band, Davis recorded a small handful of funky, fastidious, blues-rocking, countrified solo albums at the top of the 1970s that have, too long, gone wrongly ignored despite their all-star contributions. With the recent airing of the documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, Davis’ stock has soared, and a double album’s worth of stuff not included on his Atco label LPs is here in time for RSDBF. Yes, there’s the usual pre-session jam stuff like covers of “Kansas City” and “Tracks of My Tears,” along with a handful of gorgeously expressive, out-of-the-blue jazzy takes on Bob Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit.” Most importantly, though, his sole soulful “hit,” “Washita Love Child,” gets several different-sounding alt versions and dissections. Along with some great annotations from his biographer Dr. Douglas Miller (a full biographical work is coming out in 2025), the expansive Atco package is highlighted by its two-LP cobalt-toned “blue jean” vinyl.
Joe Bataan, Riot! (CRAFT)
Joe Bataan’s streetwise take on boogaloo with his Fania-era recordings and beyond set the pace for Latin R&B (1967’s Mr. New York), hip-hop (1979’s “Rap-O, Clap-O”), and disco (1974’s Salsoul and its obvious pre-dating of the Salsoul Orchestra and label). Riot! from 1968 focuses on Bataan’s burgeoning fame and its reflection on Tropical Latin soul and (oddly enough) pop with everything from his shiny, grooving “It’s a Good Feeling (Riot),” to the syrupy, sensual R&B of “My Cloud,” to the sweet sentimentality of “Daddy’s Coming Home.” Craft’s new remaster of Riot! is so much better than the original’s messy mix with its warmer, brighter horn sounds from his Latin Swingers ensemble and its forceful, machine-gun percussion hits sounding as crisp and vicious as intended.
Johnny Bragg, Let Me Dream (COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM / ORG)
Johnny Bragg wrote, recorded, and sang a handful of R&B doo-wop hits in his rich, tenor voice, such as “Just Walkin’ in the Rain” and “Rollin’ Stone,” the former on Sam Philips’ Sun Records during the same year that Philips produced Elvis’ “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” That Bragg recorded “Just Walkin’” as part of The Prisonaires while in Nashville’s Tennessee State Penitentiary is just part of the narrative—the bigger part of Bragg’s story comes in this batch of long-hidden songwriting demos, band rehearsals, and live tapes found in a garden shed. Soul stirrers such as “Hurt and Lonely,” groovers like “Let’s Rock, Let’s Roll,” wronged romancers like “You Know It Ain’t Right,” and spirituals such as “How Great Thou Art”—even in skeletal form—are lovely, powerful testaments to Nashville’s imperial country R&B sound.
Joni Mitchell, Hejira Demos (RHINO)
As part of Rhino’s recent dissection of Joni Mitchell’s long songwriting career as it transitioned from luminous folk to frankly personal, epic jazz-pop, going into the roots of Mitchell’s prairie-ambient masterpiece Hejira is the most attractive-ever proposition. Mitchell’s lonely version of On the Road with Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorious as her Neal Cassadys has more deeply poetic, lived-in lyrical turns than the whole of her output to this point of 1976. Hearing stark, sad, yet somehow plush moments like “Amelia,” “Furry Sings the Blues,” and this disc’s exclusive blend of “Coyote” with “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” is stunning and never-to-be-forgotten once witnessed. Oh, and Chaka Khan provides background vocals on a previously unheard version of Hejira’s dark centerpiece “Black Crow.”
Jungle, Back on 74 (AWAL)
It’s hard to believe that the ’80s-esque London electronic duo Jungle’s dreamy, chorale “Back on 74” is only a year old. From its floating, uplifting chords, its layered sets of holy voicings courtesy newest member Lydia Kitto, its obliquely optimistic lyrics, and its everywhere-all-the-time ubiquity on TikTok and Gap ads, “Back on 74” feels as if it’s been on an eternal loop. What better than for RSDBF to show off Jungle’s glimmering house music ambience and curvaceous grooves on what seems like a loop of remixes?
Kacey Musgraves, Deeper Into the Well (MCA NASHVILLE/INTERSCOPE)
I’ll admit it: I was cool to the wise, literary-laced passions of Kacey Musgraves’ hillbilly elegy Deeper Well upon first listen. Further engagement has allowed me to discover its more personal and politicized elements, its subtler grace. Now, Well songs such as “Dinner with Friends” and “The Architect” are radiant and expansive, with “Heart of the Woods” dedicated to ecological dreaminess rather than doctrine. Deeper Into the Well takes the heartbeat and soul’s poetry of its original further, not only with seven additional tonal equals full of fine hippie rhetoric (“Flower Child”) and choice rustic pairings (“Superbloom” with Leon Bridges, “Perfection” with Tiny Habits), but a “20-minute woodland sound experience” on green vinyl is worth the price of ambient-admission alone.
Max Roach, Deeds, Not Words [Mono Edition] (CRAFT)
From hard bop to free jazz to protest music, percussionist, drummer, and composer Max Roach changed music so many times over on so many albums that it takes a neat trick like an original mono mix to shock casual listeners and Roach lovers alike. Best known for its unaccompanied all-drumming track “Conversation” and a monologue that comes across like a group prayer session, additional cuts such as the prancing “Jodie’s Cha-Cha” (written by Spike Lee’s bassist dad, Bill Lee) and the album’s title track provide an early listen into the soaring trumpet tones of young Booker Little together with tuba player Ray Draper, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, and bassist Art Davis.
The Minus 5, Down with Wilco (YEP ROC)
Remember when alt-rock had a sense of humor and a genuine feel for probing? This 2001 recording produced and written by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and The Minus 5’s Scott McCaughey—surprisingly long out-of-print for such a minor masterpiece—actually manages to capture the dark playfulness and wronged romanticism of the latter’s supergroup with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and the then-experimental Americana of Wilco, along with each man’s shared love of Pet Sounds’s sonic saturation, baroque harmony, ’60s-centric acid psychedelia, and early synthesizer expression. While “The Old Plantation” tickles the senses with its AM radio-pop innocence, “That’s Not the Way It’s Done” apes the sun-and-strangeness of latter-day Beach Boys, leaving tracks such as “Days of Wine and Booze” to mine McCaughey’s usual discontent.
Modest Mouse, Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again (LEGACY)
Issac Brock’s hotly atmospheric post-Pixies emo-prog-pop—a precisely layered noise topped with tales of religion, PNW-set loneliness, and getting by (or out) of a small town’s dreariness—never got its proper due for how such bramble-shaken innovation sounded in a live setting. Oh, wait, yes it did: specifically in 2004, when Modest Mouse’s label recorded the band live at The Social in Orlando shortly after the release of Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Epic Records never released Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again for real, instead allowing it to be sold privately and exclusively at Park Avenue CDs in Orlando. So this RSDBF first-time public release is a true gift, capturing Brock band faves such as “The Good Times Are Killing Me,” “3rd Planet,” and “I Came as a Rat” in all their alt-rocking, overheated glory.
Morphine, B-Sides and Otherwise (RYKO/RHINO)
There’s truly been nothing like the punkish, skronking, art-rock groan of Mark Sandman’s deep vocals, his two-string slide bass and guitar together with Dana Colley’s stuttering low saxophones (bari, tenor, double sax) since Morphine died alongside Sandman in 1999. Additionally, there’s not been enough posthumously released Morphine. To satisfy that need, the band’s Ryko label teamed with Rhino for the RSD release of rare experiments in distance and atmosphere (the long, arid soundscape “Down Love’s Tributaries”) along with the mysterioso jazz of “Bo’s Veranda” (included among John Lurie’s score for Get Shorty), the Japanese-only, Beat-driven likes of “Pulled Over the Car” and their contribution to Allen Ginsberg’s Kerouac: Kicks Joy Darkness tribute, and a handful of live clips and radio recordings. If such dynamic stuff was locked away for so long, open the Morphine vaults wider.
Mötley Crüe, Dr. Feelgood [35th Anniversary 7" Single Boxset] (BMG)
In 1989, headbangers, hair-ballers, and strippers alike got hot and bothered by the pop-core roar of Mötley Crüe at their cheesy-menacing metal-melodic best with Dr. Feelgood. Producer Bob Rock and the Crüe were completely in sync with an overheated mix that worked its ass off to keep vocalist Vince Neil’s milk-and-whiskey throatiness at one with Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee’s thundering rhythmic roll without obscuring Mick Mark’s shock-and-awe guitar lines. That Rock and Mötley managed to keep such balance is what makes Dr. Feelgood the band’s best album—one whose speeding title track is pop-metal’s ultimate thrill ride, followed by effortlessly powerful power ballads such as “Without You,” the greaser-rocker bop of “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away),” and sexy sing-along “S.O.S. (Same Old Situation).” To go with its 35th anniversary, the Crüe pulled out all of the bells and whistles for its commercial multimedia deluxe edition and this unhinged RSD-only 7-inch single box.
Raekwon, Immobilarity [25th Anniversary Edition] (LOUD/GET ON DOWN)
How in the Wu-Tang do you follow up Only Built 4 Cuban Linx—not only one of the Clan’s single best solo efforts, but easily one of all of hip-hop’s true street operatic classics? If you’re Raekwon, you maintain the spooky movie-mood-music that RZA made famous as Wu’s producer on OB4CL, only this time subbing in American Cream Team and Infinite Arkatech while keeping up the paranoid string-synths and sad, stuttering drum sounds, moving Ghostface Killah aside for Method Man and Masta Killa, and turning out a series of picturesque, guts-and-grief East Coast–driven short stories like “Live From New York” and “Friday.” Oh, and Pete Rock produced the best song on Immobilarity, “Sneakers.”
Rage Against the Machine, Democratic National Convention 2000 (LEGACY)
Rage Against the Machine’s brand of crooked-finger funk-punk and too-righteous rap-rock has, on occasion, left me cold. But you can’t ignore the politically minded quartet’s dedication to cause and predilection toward protest. So in a year of election blues, what’s better than recalling Rage’s own heated Summer of 2000 across the street from LA’s Staples Center while the stuffy Democratic National Convention raged inside? Transparent on window-pane-clear vinyl, their tough, raw, short set—“Bulls on Parade” and “Sleep Now in the Fire,” in particular—is captured with its equal doses of fury and purpose high up in its raw, ugly, in-the-red mix.
Sahib Shihab, Sahib’s Jazz Party & After Hours (ORG)
Like a Southern version of soul-searching California saxophonist and flautist Eric Dolphy, post-bop reed man Sahib Shihab is known to most for becoming one of the first jazz musicians to convert to Islam and change his name back in 1947. Actually, Sahib’s work as a flautist predates Dolphy’s, as does his rush into the avant-garde when he wasn’t rolling his free-swaggering solos through bop’s hectic rhythm. Jazz Party is a lively affair, recorded at the Jazzhus Montmartre not long after he left America for Copenhagen, and featuring the crème of the Danish capital’s scene, including then-up-and-coming bass prodigy Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. If you don’t know Shihab, this is a swell, open-ended place to start, especially as it features a smokey blue bonus live LP appropriately titled After Hours.
Scarlett Johansson, Anywhere I Lay My Head (ASBESTOS)
From the reissue label that brought us a release of Reagan shooter John Hinckley’s Redemption record comes actress and noir-vixen vocalist Johansson singing the clanging jazz and skronky blues of ’80s- and ’90s-era Tom Waits and lyricist Kathleen Brennan. Produced by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek and featuring his bandmate Tunde Adebimpe on loops and vocals (TVotR collaborator David Bowie also croons, you know, Bowie-like behind ScarJo on “Falling Down” and “Fannin Street”), the whole package sounds like 2008’s Dear Science if its blue songs were vocalized by Blue Velvet’s Dorothy Vallens.
Steve Martin, King Tut (RHINO/WARNER)
Long before he was the respected elder statesman of alternative comedy from the piquant Only Murders in the Building, Steve Martin was the extraordinarily silly guy from LA whose every move made headlines. Take “King Tut,” Martin’s jazzy chant of a comic novelty single performed with the Toot Uncommons (his friends in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band). Martin’s then-propelled stardom coincided with the Treasures of Tutankhamun traveling exhibit touring America to over eight million visitors during its run throughout the 1970s. Capitalizing on this, a hairy, bare-chested Martin—complete with a Pharaoh-like headdress—debuted his goofy song on Saturday Night Live in 1978, sold over a million copies, and cracked the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Stevie Nicks, The Lighthouse (WARNER)
Rare are the 7-inch singles that catch my RSD eye, but give Nicks credit. At the same time she’s announcing how she’ll never participate in anything Fleetwood Mac–related again, Stevie drops her most relevant song to date—a dense, scarily but becalmed electronic track dedicated to the rights of women and the future of empowerment at a time of siege. Kamala may have lost the election, but Nicks listeners won when it comes to battle cries and angel whispers. Produced by Nicks, Sheryl Crow, and Dave Cobb, this “Lighthouse” even comes exclusively in white vinyl.
Sun Ra, Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank 1978 (RESONANCE)
From its animalistic introduction “Thunder of Drums” through to its drunk-y, circus-like closer, Monk’s “Round Midnight,” this loopy, live night with Ra and his ever-increasingly large Arkestra at Baltimore’s Famous Ballroom has all the sonic hallmarks of the grubbily great intergalactic jazz mess that Sun & Co. made famous by the close of the 1970s. Lights on a Satellite happens to sound as crisp and cutting as the music is vitally genre-jumping, as free, funereal jazz cut “Tapestry From an Asteroid” cascades giddily into the space-schmaltzy, show-bizzy “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” into the lovely, tweeting “Lady Bird,” the cocky “Yeah, Man,” the boogaloo-ing “Watusi,” the long, offshoot-of-Jupiter jam of “We Travel the Spaceways” and so on, immaculately.
Sunn O))), Black One [Deluxe Edition] (SOUTHERN LORD)
Without attempting humor here (and who would joke about Sunn O)))?), once these pioneers of doom-drone went fully into black metal with this, Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson’s fifth album, they never went back. Faster and denser than their usual fare, and very possibly featuring songs recorded while locked in a coffin (“Báthory Erzsébet”), this rare Southern Lord RSD edition hosts tracks from the original vinyl release’s bonus disc, Solstitium Fulminate, filled with underwater live recordings from 2005’s Roskilde Festival. Worth its weight in coal, this.
Teddy Swims, I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 1.5) (WARNER)
You love the blue-eyed-soul, social-mediated pop rocker, balladeer, and country shit-kicker Teddy Swims and the gusty emotionality of “Some Things I’ll Never Know,” the smoldering lived-in noir of “Flame,” the drama of “The Door.” So if you’re going to do a blue-eyed debut album, why not re-make it for RSDBF on baby-blue vinyl with a swath of moody, catchy tracks long available to his YouTube fanbase, but never before on record?
Todd Rundgren, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia (BEARSVILLE)
After the state-of-consciousness-plumbing, synth-and-guitar-wailing, way-un-blue-eyed-soul-singing pre-prog he released early in 1974, Rundgren blew up his past and went full-blown progressive with Utopia. So dedicated to this expansive, complex sound (and lineup—Todd brought in three keyboardists for his six-piece ensemble) was Rundgren that Utopia became a separate outfit with its own albums often released, confusingly, in tandem with their frontman’s solo efforts. What’s fascinating about this RSD version is two-fold: The first is that long, sensuous songs such as the prayerful “Utopia” and the side-long “The Ikon” owe more to the dense fusion jazz of Mahavishnu Orchestra than they do prog elites such as EL&P. The second comes with Rundgren’s main problem with the original vinyl edition of Utopia. An already legendary producer and a stickler for fine, detailed sound, the over-long (for the state of vinyl in 1974), hour-plus recording had to be tightly compressed to fit on one slab on vinyl. Now, in the heavy-duty vinyl of 2024 and an era of rich remastering, Utopia’s every languid guitar screech and holy vocal yowl sounds thick and intricate.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Challengers [MIXED] by Boys Noize (MILAN)
NIN members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross brighten up their pulsing, electro-musky original score for Luca Guadagnino’s sexy tennis flick, Challengers, with some hi-NRG disco provided by producer-DJ Boys Noize. If that sounds like a simple remix deal, think again: Boyz Noize turns this score out by making Challengers 2.0 into a chopped-and-screwed, continuous dance floor score complete with frazzled techno beats and trembling, sensual melodies.
U2, How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb: The Shadow Album (ISLAND)
With remix projects such as Melon and 3-D and whole-cloth re-recordings such as Songs of Surrender, U2 has always had this history of shadow albums under its wide belt. So, while 10 more songs from the original recording sessions for 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb may not be unexpected, what’s thrilling is how different and occasionally daring these tracks sound in comparison to their mothership. The buzzing baroque of “Luckiest Man in the World” finds a coolly blasé Bono rhyming “hero” with “Nero” before dipping into his lower register. The Edge’s classic flange gets a group singalong on “Country Mile.” Adam Clayton and Larry’ Mullen Jr.s punchy rhythm section gets something swaggering to dance (and rock out) to with what should’ve been a raging hit single on “Picture of You (X+W).” Then there’s U2’s impersonations of The Cure and PiL on the spooky call-and-response of “Happiness” and “Theme from the Batman.”
Yes, Fragile Outtakes (ATLANTIC/RHINO)
For all of the highfalutin pretense of G-Britain’s prog-rock kings in Yes by 1971, before all of their gloss and glissandos, Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, and Co. once made music that was snaky, soulful, and husky—just listen to The Yes Album, released months before 1971’s fussy Fragile with its groovy, weighty organs played by Tony Kaye and then-new guitarist Steve Howe throwing some dirty rockabilly into his classical gassiness. But with Kaye moved aside for Rick Wakeman’s grand wizardry, Howe headed into the hall of the mountain king, Anderson’s high voice getting higher, and bassist Squire’s complex lows going lower, Fragile was one fancy epic. RSDBF’s Outtakes remove the shine with shockingly rough alternate versions of the ever-ascending “Heart of the Sunrise” and “Long Distance Runaround” without losing any hint of magnificence, thanks to producer, remixer, and dedicated art-rock romantic Steven Wilson.
Various artists, The Elephant 6 Recording Co. Soundtrack (ORG)
The bucolic psych-pop throwback of the Southern-baked Elephant 6 Recording Company collective, their lo-fi take on Pet Sounds, and colorfully dressed characters in bands such as The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power, and The Apples in Stereo is what made 2023’s rock-doc The Elephant 6 Recording Co. shine. Why not have an equally shiny soundtrack with less-heralded, dreamier-still, Elephantine heroes W. Cullen Hart, Dixie Blood Moustache, and The Always Red Society along for the bumpy, beauteous ride?
Various artists, The Soul and Songs of Young Curtis Mayfield: The Spirit of Chicago (CRAFT)
One of R&B’s most innovative songwriters and producers of the 1970s (honestly, there was nothing as funk-cinematic as Super Fly before he recorded it), Curtis Mayfield brought that same sense of wondrous filmic soul and lyrical street realism and romanticism to all that he wrote between 1958 and 1965 in his native Chicago. Yes, that means the wealth of material he wrote for the impressionable doo-wop vocal group The Impressions he’d one day sing lead with on songs such hits as “Senorita, I Love You” and “Young Lover.” That also means that Mayfield selections created for one-time Impressions frontman Jerry Butler (“He Will Break Your Heart,” “Isle of Sirens”) and Gene Chandler (“Men’s Temptations,” ”Rainbow”), and rarities rendered for Betty Everett and soon-to-become Earth, Wind & Fire co-founder Wade Flemons. Amazing stuff when placed side-by-side, this is an essential and historic glossary of soul.
