Besides an exclusive Rolling Stones mini-turntable, the debut of Chicago club owner Joe Segal’s self-taped archives from his Jazz Showcase nightspot, and the most expansive-ever live albums of Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd’s careers, the notable firsts of this first Record Store Day of 2026 are spread across the vinyl spectrum. Gen-Z favorites such as Charli XCX, Tyler Childers, Violet Grohl, and even Khruangbin are going the 7-inch, 45 RPM single route—which, while cute and eye-poppingly graphics-heavy, offers less bang for your deep-pocked RSD buck.
On the plus side, the multi-disc live album is just as prominent this year. Along with more recent songwriters (Adrianne Lenker, Brandi Carlile), unlikely machine heads (Air), and bygone legends (Jeff Buckley), the April 2026 lineup features live-album packages from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Chet Baker, Cream, King Crimson, XTC, The Darkness, Dead or Alive, Ian Dury, The Power Station, Pixies, and plenty more. These items, frankly, need to rule the roost when it comes to future RSD rarities. Unless you’re Prince or Zappa, you don’t have vaults upon vaults of unreleased music that was recorded and held back. Let live rule.
Live albums or not, here are 40 of the most exciting RSD releases for April 2026.
Adrianne Lenker, Live at Revolution Hall (4AD)
By 2025, the deeply personal brand of songwriting that Adrianne Lenker had crafted away from Big Thief—five albums’ worth, including the all-instrumental Instrumentals—was so opulent, intimate, and full of wonder that a solo show could last, oh, 120 minutes and 43 tracks. That’s what the three-album Live at Revolution Hall is: a motion- (and emotion-) capture of Lenker’s finest, most evocative songs, with cellos and neo-soul instrumentalist Nick Hakim on board, performed live across three days of performances. Along with a handful of non-studio rarities such as “Happiness” and “Oldest,” one reason to buy Revolution Hall comes down to producer Andrew Sarlo, who manages to turn these shows into something worthy of audio cinema vérité, a mix of audience vibes and stage ambience reminiscent of Lou Reed’s binaurally recorded Take No Prisoners. That’s a massive compliment.
Against Me!, New Wave B-Sides (RHINO)
Before uproarious vocalist-lyricist Laura Jane Grace launched her solo career, and in-between periods as indie label heroes, Against Me! signed to Sire and teamed up with star grunge producer Butch Vig to record 2007’s glossy, crusty New Wave LP, which shot into the Billboard charts like a bottle rocket. Pressed deep into RSD pink vinyl, the tracks on B-Sides are the ardent arena-rock/power-pop remnants of those sessions, which—if you crank the volume on “Gypsy Panther,” “Full Sesh,” and, most particularly, “You Must Be Willing”—make no sense as album leftovers.
Air, Moon Safari: The Athens Concert (RHINO)
If I hadn’t actually witnessed Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel—the French space-pop avatars of Air—touring in celebration of their 1998 debut Moon Safari in a large, acoustics-rich hall on their recent tour, I wouldn’t have believed that they could achieve what’s been aptly tagged as “unmistakable electronic grace.” Now, what if you doubled that same irrepressible charm and added in the elegant, vintage analog-electro warmth of their most fully realized album—whooshing melodies, cool asymmetrical grooves, haunting vocals—heard at the Acropolis, the planet’s oldest theater space? It’s a lot to consider: emotive, swishy Franco-pop in a citadel built in the fifth century BC, above Athens. Of course, the oddly mod mood music of Moon Safari is the glittering star of the show in its newly arranged orchestration with its balance of the moderne and the ancient. Just one thing: Where’s the Blu-ray?
Anderson .Paak, Malibu [10 Year Anniversary 7-Inch Box Set] (EMPIRE)
Before becoming Bruno Mars’ silkiest sonic partner, Anderson .Paak did alright by himself with a series of creamy alt-soul hip-hop albums sunnily dedicated to his California upbringing: 2014’s Venice, 2016’s Malibu, 2018’s Oxnard, and 2019’s Ventura. Malibu, however, is the strongest of these efforts, with songs radiantly resplendent and thick with elements of psychedelic R&B and dense but dreamily clustered hip-hop production courtesy of Dr. Dre, with whom .Paak had just worked on the Doctor’s Compton After Dark LP. For its 10th anniversary, EMPIRE breaks down Malibu’s sunset into eight bite-sized pieces. Yum.
Bat for Lashes, A Fleet of Bats: Early Demos (BMG)
Bat for Lashes’ dramatist Natasha Khan is a Gloomy Gus, but she’s our Gloomy Gus—a 21st century art-/dream-/goth-pop Kate Bush fueled with tactile, indigenous, folkloric elements and pre-#MeToo feminism. Going on 20 years of epically told soundscapes (see 2024’s The Dream of Delphi), it’s cool to hear how batty Khan got on these freshly unearthed, genuinely spooky-sounding live recordings of favorites from her 2006 debut full-length Fur and Gold such as “Blood Red Shoes,” “Carrie,” and the aptly titled likes of “Healing Fire,” “Howl,” and “Dark Time.”
Billy Strings, tiny desk (REPRISE)
The Michigan-raised guitarist-songwriter who’s been remaking punk bluegrass for the 22nd century—prog outlaw bluegrass, perhaps—has done something special that no one’s ever accomplished for RSD before in releasing one of the famed, intimate “Tiny Desk” sessions recorded at NPR Studios in Washington DC. Fresh from a pre-Christmas taping, Strings, along with his stalwart crew backing him with banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and bass, make fleshy psychedelic music from the Virginia Plains with dollops of attitude and longitude across this EP’s four tracks, best personified by the countrified complexity of “Malfunction Junction.”
Bob Brady and the Con Chords, Love-In: The Chariot Records Recordings (OMNIVORE)
With only John Waters around to sing its praises, the urgent sound of Baltimore’s garage-rock and blue-eyed-soul biker scene has all but been lost to time. Yet Omnivore brings it back hard and soft with this forever out-of-print marvel. At a time when regional-only hits were a thing, broodingly emotive vocalist Bob Brady’s buoyant brass-and-reeds-filled ensemble on the local Chariot label made them the toast of the Maryland coast, eventually turning “Everybody’s Goin’ to the Love-In” and “Goodbye Baby” into collectables of the UK’s Northern soul vibe. Along with BB&CC hits, misses, and deep-album cuts, this version very appropriately comes on opaque blue vinyl.
Brandi Carlile, Live at Easy Street Records Vol. II (LOST HIGHWAY)
Here’s a Record Story Day LP artifact with real history. Before she became Joni Mitchell and Elton John’s best friend, before her one-time RSD ambassadorship—heck, even before that cool coif of hers—Brandi Carlile was just a folksy punk-country songwriter with intense lyrical capabilities and a huge voice whose greatest support came from Seattle’s Easy Street Records store. How supportive? Carlile’s long-haired solo appearance for 2007’s Live at Easy Street Records was that shop’s doing. Now, nearly two decades after recording her first live album there, she showed back up with The Hanseroth Twins and her SistaStrings (the shop’s small stage had to have been crowded) and taped Vol. II to an enthusiastic crowd. And while “Returning to Myself” certainly speaks to her gratitude toward that town and that shop’s devotion, redoing one of Vol .I’s most intense moments, “The Story,” for II? Pretty fucking awesome.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Live from Asbury Park 2024 (SONY LEGACY)
Just in time for Springsteen and E Street’s current politically driven “Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour” comes this gorgeous five-LP collection recorded at his old stomping grounds during 2024’s Sea.Hear.Now Festival. Rather than sounding like a bunch of guys who’d already been on the road and around the world for a year, Bruce & Co. sound resplendently raw, ready, fresh, and funky as they tear into Jersey neighborhood classics such as “Growin’ Up,” “Rosalita,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” and a rumbling, Diddley-esque “She’s the One” made brawnier by saxophonist Jake Clemons. Nothing in my mind is as effective as Springsteen’s slower, noir-romantic numbers beholden to the spirit of Asbury Park such as Tom Waits’ waltzing “Jersey Girl,” “Meeting Across the River,” “Atlantic City,” and, c’mon, “Jungleland,” all of which are rendered here with passion and appropriate tension. With the new midterms-timed tour sold out, save your money for this RSD instant classic instead.
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Lick My Decals Off, Baby [Deluxe Edition] (RHINO)
As the album following the eccentrically free, quizzically post-everything classic Trout Mask Replica, 1970’s Lick My Decals Off, Baby had everything to live up to for freak-flag purists—and live down to for the rest of the world. Rather than stick with its predecessor’s brief, fragmented bursts of sound and blunt, sunburst-collage squalor, Beefheart & Co. took what started as improvisational piano demos and stretched and shaped them like taffy. The result is a barking brand of avant-garde blues and tangled pop that was nearly as manically discombobulated as Trout Mask, but longer. And if it’s hard to imagine what an alternate version of “Woe-Is-Uh-Me-Bop” or “I Wanna Find a Woman That’ll Hold My Big Toe Till I Have to Go” might sound like, or what “I Love You, You Big Dummy” in its instrumental harp version could be without the caterwaul of the Captain, a second LP of unheard rarities is here for your RSD listening pleasure.
Corinne Bailey Rae, Live in New York (CAPITOL)
While the men of 21st century R&B get their shot at RSD with Dijon (see below), the women have Corrine Bailey Rae to sing out on their behalf. What’s odd and marvelous about Rae and hearing this now 20-year-old, never-before-pressed live album is how much more robust—even durable—she sounds singing on stage than her triple-platinum debut album portrayed, and how R&B pop songs such as “Like a Star,” “Put Your Records On,” and the sensualist anthem “Trouble Sleeping” were the last time that pop music sounded as if it was sung by an adult—a passionate, flesh-and-filigree human fucking adult. Hold this album tight and pray for Corinne Bailey Rae every day.
David Bowie, Excerpts From Outside + Hallo Spaceboy (PARLOPHONE)
After the glossy back-to-back debacles of Tonight and Never Let Me Down, and the mess that was Tin Machine II, David Bowie returned to the experimental-pop blackboard he developed with Brian Eno and crafted 1995’s Outside as a nightmarishly cluttered, industrial-strength concept album about art crimes. Unfortunately, the project’s Lynchian murder storyline confused Ziggy freaks, Let’s Dance lovers, and even fans of Low, and died a miserable death. There was, however, a shot at revival: an album of the Outside songs that hit radio stations (albeit too late), which effectively portrayed Bowie’s finest songwriting in ages, including the raging “Hallo Spaceboy.” Turning rage to rave was the Pet Shop Boys, who reinterpreted Bowie’s sci-fi electronica into several housed-up remixes, giving Bowie his first charting hit in over a decade. Both RSD Outside-related vinyl jams—one clear, the other hot pink—are worth your Bowie Bonds.
Dijon, How Do You Feel About Getting Married? (WARNER)
If you didn’t know Dijon Duenas before 2025 and his platinum-plated Baby or his work on Justin Bieber’s under-estimated Swag, the sonic-booming producer, songwriter, and honey-tined vocalist began his music career with a pair of EPs: Sci Fi 1 in 2019 and How Do You Feel About Getting Married? the following year. Considering the deeply personal nature of his smartly crafted lyrics (and that Baby is about the birth of his child), you don’t need to be a detective to track Married’s dense, dreamy love songs like “Hunni” to his then-girlfriend, now-wife Joanie, the topic of so much of Dijon’s best work. I don’t know what wellspring the surround-sound spin of “Rock n Roll” or the literally and figuratively blunt “Do You Light Up?” comes from, or why this 12-inch RSD EP is this interesting brick color. Despite the soulful transparency of his words and vocals, some things are better left a mystery.
doPE, No Country for Old Men (ORG)
Rhino continues its impossibly deep dive into unheard tape nirvana for Doors fanatics, this time unearthing tapes from the band’s early 1967 sessions featuring rough mixes sans final overdubs on “We Could Be So Good Together” and “Moonlight Drive” and previously unreleased outtakes of “When the Music’s Over.” Yet this year, it’s new Doors-related music that’s most thrilling among RSD’s stock: John Densmore—a jazz and soul drummer before he got to Morrison and Manzarek—teams with Chuck D for a new full-album project that borrows from each of their respective band names for its own offering. Yes, there’s tribute paid to Densmore’s band with “People Are Strangers” and “Break Thru,” but the likes of “Every Tick Tick Tick” provide the track list with wholly organic lo-fi rock-rap efforts that confound and amaze.
Ethel Cain, Inbred (DAUGHTERS OF CAIN)
If transgressive performative poet Kathy Acker had lived long enough to write screenplays, her music might’ve sounded similar to what Tallahassee-born Hayden Silas Anhedönia—the Southern Goth cinematic multimedia artist Ethel Cain—did on this 2021 EP. Sort of. I mean, a track such as “Crush” is actually foppish and poppy in a mean, dark manner, and “God’s Country” is bittersweetly bleak in a witchy fashion (literally, when considering Cain’s duet partners in Wicca Phase Springs Eternal). Mostly, though, Cain is coolest when spinning a web through the tangle of ambient shoegaze rock that is “Michelle Pfeiffer” and “Two-Headed Mother.” The songwriter has four EPs and two albums to her name, including 2025’s ardently abrasive Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You and its noisy 90-minute predecessor, Perverts. Let’s hope we hear more soon.
Flying Lotus, 1983: Deluxe (BRAINFEEDER)
Before Alice Coltrane’s grandnephew became renowned for his unparalleled original artistry and deconstructed jazz-electronica collages, his first album as Flying Lotus was a more subtly devised work. Released in 2006, 1983 is still a startlingly unique album within the FlyLo canon, a hypnotic, interplanetary instrumental hip-hop collection that remains a quietly seductive sedative—economical but not spare, using hints of Braziliana in its jazzy chord changes, and cutting a deep groove while keeping light on its feet. This vinyl celebration of its 20-year anniversary seems like a drop in the bucket for a guy whose music was and is—as the motto of the AACM goes—ancient to the future. History’s funny that way.
HAIM, Relationships (COLUMBIA)
Maybe it’s because the sisters started acting, or maybe it’s because audiences’ tastes toward hard, haranguing pop have gone soft, but the trio of HAIMers is still releasing dynamic, complex pop music with contagiously rhapsodic harmonies and vengeful, vexing lyrics. Take “Relationships” from HAIM’s last album, I Quit. Now add on the equally cool breeze of “The Story of Us,” “Even the Bad Times,” and “Tie You Down,” the latter recorded with the ever-moody Bon Iver—all on vinyl for the first time. As a reminder of all the great that HAIM does, this new EP is going to make you feel bad that you slept on I Quit.
Jeff Buckley, Live À L’Olympia (SONY LEGACY)
While the recent documentary It’s Never Over failed to ignite the public’s passion about the loss of the magnetic Jeff Buckley and his emotive, combustible four-octave vocal range, a live album such as this—recorded across two nights at the legendary Olympia in the Paris that loved him—is exactly what was necessary to remind audiences of his grandeur. While that, of course, means yet another round of “Hallelujah” (Buckley’s the guy who made it famous again, based on John Cale’s interpretation) and his always-slinky “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” there are odd, fun rock-out moments such as a crushing cover of MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” a piss take on Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” a handsome version of Nina Simone’s “Lilac Wine,” and, of course, something from Edith Piaf in her mother tongue, “Je ne connais pas la fin.” Magnifique.
Joe Henderson, Consonance: Live at the Jazz Showcase (RESONANCE)
This never-before-released three-LP live set is important for several reasons. Joe Henderson was a majestic tenor sax and flute man who brought light and airiness to dynamic, hard-blown bop and free jazz, together, with an irresistibly lyrical playing style. This legendary 1978 configuration of his quartet (pianist Joanne Brackeen, bassist Steve Rodby, drummer Danny Spencer) has never been captured on tape. So wild is this ensemble on this release that they still sound uncontained, yet rhapsodic. Mostly, though, this package is one of five culled from Chicago’s legendary Jazz Showcase club, recorded professionally by its owner Joe Segal. Jazz Detective Zev Feldman produced what wasn’t warmly mixed already for Consonance, along with the rest of RSD 2026’s new Jazz Showcase offerings.
John Frusciante, To Only Record Water for Ten Days [25th Anniversary Edition] (RHINO)
Why should Flea be the only Chili Pepper having fun going solo this spring when their off-on-current guitarist has been having his own beyond-RHCP musical adventures for 30 years? After the scuffed-up, lo-fi weirdness of John Frusciante’s first solo LPs, To Only Record Water—expanded into two albums here with four previously unreleased tracks—sounds deceptively conventional at first listen, like a minimalist goth-folk record driven by drum machines. Dig deeper into aptly titled tunes such as “Saturation,” “Murderers,” and “Going Inside,” however, and things start to unravel, gloriously. Bits of madness-teetering art rock reminiscent of Kevin Ayers or Chris Connelly spill out of its sides, and the whole package sounds scraggly, jagged, and broken in a really crisp, clear fashion. It may not be Flea jazz, but it’s a roller coaster ride all of its own odd devising.
John Lennon, Love Meditation Mixes (UMR)
Before you get hot and bothered by a missing Beatle-Lennon link, this is not that; it’s much more in accordance with what Sean Ono Lennon has been up to as his parents’ curator. Across three LPs, Ono Lennon has taken the fam’s “Love” ballad from the Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album and turned its beautiful melody into nine separate “re-imagined Meditation Mixes,” including one side featuring another nine, different mantras that each run for 1.8 seconds and play continuously through the vinyl’s run-out grooves so as to create an infinite loop and entirely unique experience apart from what John and Yoko could ever have hoped to make happen in the name of universal bliss. While the original “Love” is clearly a part of Ono Lennon’s process, each altered, slowed, sped, and stretched take—each prayerful, including several “Binaural Beat” versions focusing on different types of brain waves—elicit peaceful, dreamy calm. But not so peacefully or calmly that you don’t perceive what the son has radically altered in the name of his parents.
Little Feat, Little Feat [Deluxe Edition] (RHINO) + Various artists, Rock & Roll Doctor: The Lowell George Tribute Album (OMNIVORE)
Rhino has happily paid heed to the unique genius of songwriter, vocalist, and slide guitarist extraordinaire Lowell George—the only answer, past or present, to the question, “What happens if you cross Howlin’ Wolf with Salvador Dali with Ray Charles?”—for the last several RSDs with expanded packages on George’s slippery, dusty, funk-country-rock ensemble Little Feet. Their 1971 debut album in its deluxe edition continues the trend with amazingly upgraded sound on the original disc (necessary, given that the hot-headed likes of “Hamburger Midnight” and “Strawberry Flats” always sounded muffled on prior vinyl releases), along with a bonus LP of previously unreleased alt versions and 1971 session outtakes such as a rad take on “Crazy Captain Gunboat Willie.” As far as figuring out the funk, wonk, and wit of Lowell’s talents, Omnivore’s tribute to his songwriting is pretty cool, too, starting with his daughter Inara’s slinky take on “Trouble,” Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris’s woeful “Willin’,” and a clunky, funky version of “Sailin’ Shoes” from Randy Newman and Valerie Carter. If only someone would cover Lowell’s heavenly ascending “All That You Dream,” my heart would be full.
Mark Lanegan, Bubblegum: Original Draft (BEGGARS BANQUET)
People you love, like, hate, and/or celebrate die all the time, and so be it. Somehow, though, losing Mark Lanegan—a Screaming Tree, a Queen of the Stone Age, a stark, dark solo act—in 2022 hit appreciators (namely, me) hard. Luckily, there’s material such as this previously unheard “original draft” version of his 2004 solo effort Bubblegum to make you remember just how unique of a talent he was. All profits from the RSD release get donated to the Mark Lanegan Foundation, but the listener will benefit just as much by hearing his full-blown, bleakly comic takes on road-trip theology (“Strange Religion”), blues lamentation (“Like Little Willie John,” “Methamphetamine Blues”), and connubial bliss (“Wedding Dress”) in this weird, original label submission format. Plus, the gallows-humor prescience of “When Your Number Isn’t Up” and “Blood (Crackers & Honey)”—combined with a guest list featuring PJ Harvey, Greg Dulli, and Josh Homme—is more glum-gleeful than a family wake.
Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts, As Time Explodes (REPRISE)
Anyone lucky enough to see that last messy, improv-mad Crazy Horse tour that Neil Young aborted knows that Shakey was revved, road-ready, and quick to gather together organist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Micah Nelson, and Promise of the Real rhythm section Corey McCormick and Anthony LoGerfo for a series of shows less incendiary and more sentimentally warm to the touch. So even though Young and his Chrome Hearts had new music on their minds at the time of this 2025 live show recording (their Talkin to the Trees LP), As Time Explodes takes on a menaced redo of “Vampire Blues,” an appropriately windy appropriation of “Like a Hurricane,” and the most spirited versions of “Cortez the Killer,” “After the Gold Rush,” and “Harvest Moon” this longtime Neil fan has heard in a minute. Oh, and they conquered CSNY’s “Ohio,” too.
New York Dolls, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (RHINO)
What’s the provenance of this two-LP color-vinyl reissue of the Dolls’ forever-out-of-print 2006 reunion album? Did it take David Johansen dying after Syl Sylvain passed, or was it this record’s 20th anniversary? Crisply produced by Jack Douglas (Aerosmith, Lennon-Ono’s Double Fantasy), this album was certainly no vanity project, but rather an opportunity for composers Johansen and Sylvain to rewrite their glam-proto-punk legacy for 21st century ears. And it worked, as these new-model Dolls had the same happily hammy theatricality of their “Personality Crisis” past (“Fishnets & Cigarettes”) to go with their Noel-Coward-in-a-leather-bar lyricism (“Take a Good Look at My Good Looks”) with a taut, bright, metal-riffic vibe (“Dance Like a Monkey”) to go with their swaggering rhythms. Here’s hoping Rhino sticks with the program and RSDs the Dolls’ 2009 album Cause I Sez So and 2011’s Dancing Backward in High Heels.
OMD, Archive Vol. 1: 1981-1990 (VIRGIN)
For every pricey Elektron Digitakt II and Behringer LmDrum Hybrid machine on the market in 2026, early alt-electro-pop avatars Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark deserve a payday—or at the very least your attention on Record Store Day. The often-unsmiling, home-taping British duo offers on vinyl what we hope is a deep dive into their tin-can canon, with eerie early experiments such as “Brand New Science,” “Dumbomb,” and “Cut Me Down” each proving to be decidedly unlike any of the top-10 hits that OMD would pen for John Hughes teen films half a decade later.
Paramore, All We Know Is Falling [Deluxe] (RHINO)
This is the Hayley Williams that we first fell in love with—the Hayley of Paramore’s 2005 Fueled by Ramen debut, before she grew more marvelously cross, her music more complicated and free-fallingly mood-swinging as of late. Southeastern pop-punk is personified by this RSD release’s second LP, the primo rarity The Summer Tic EP from 2006, wherein we first heard “Emergency” and “This Circle.” If you knew then what you know now about Paramore, you would never have let your ex walk off with that EP.
Pavement, Perfect Sound Forever (MATADOR) + James Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Ali Jackson, Reginald Veal, Gold Soundz: A Jazz Tribute to Pavement (MODERN HARMONIC)
On Pavement’s 1991 slacker-noise EP Perfect Sound Forever—predating their debut album by a year—Stephen Malkmus shows off his absurdist lyrical éclat and low-key vocalizing in this early trio setting on seminal Stockton-derived alt-classics such as “Heckler Spray” and “Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent.” That latter track should have been a warning sign when it comes to hearing respected stately jazz familiars—saxophonist James Carter, keyboardist Cyrus Chestnut, drummer Ali Jackson, and bassist Reginald Veal—tackling “Stereo,” “My First Mine,” and “Cut Your Hair,” stretching each to ridiculous but mesmerizing lengths. If I say this once, I’ll say it again: Re-releasing stuff like Gold Soundz (previously published on the Brown Brothers label in 2005) is what Record Store Day is all about. Same goes for the aptly titled 35th anniversary white 7-inch vinyl of Perfect Sounds Forever, repressed here for the first time.
Phoenix, United + Alphabetical (RHINO)
Thomas Mars’ Franco-fabulous four-piece may finally be accorded the respect of a group like Radiohead with each fleeting release, but back at the top of the 2000s Phoenix’s steely electro-pop sound too often got lumped in with other Parisienne ensembles such as Air and Daft Punk. Yet their first two albums—2000’s United and 2004’s Alphabetical—are sturdier, more sophisticated, and less porous than most other French pop bands of their time, and songs such as “Everything Is Everything” and “If I Ever Feel Better” are something their contemporaries haven’t always been: catchy when you least expect it. Here’s hoping Rhino keeps going up through It’s Never Been Like That and go really mega-deluxe on Phoenix’s magnum opus, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
Pink Floyd, Live From the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th, 1975 (SONY LEGACY)
With Columbia and Pink Floyd’s brain trust finally digging into the previously unissued tapes surrounding Wish You Were Here and Animals, every thought-lost (or worse: undocumented) live recording is essential to such desired forensic recovery. To that request, here comes beloved bootlegger Mike Millard—the Rock Gumshoe to Zev Feldman’s Jazz Detective—and genius remastering prog-conjurer/producer Steven Wilson to the rescue to clean up four LPs’ worth of Floyd in LA with RSD date-stamped material. From mesmeric side-long tracks such as “Raving and Drooling,” “Echoes,” and “Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Pts. 6-9)” to daydream-nightmarish versions of “Breathe (In the Air),” “Time,” and a genuinely exquisite “Us and Them,” this is the Pink Floyd you’ve always yearned for—the spacey, paranoid avatars of post-psychedelic bad-mood rock.
Polo G, Hall of Fame (SONY LEGACY)
This is an interesting choice for Legacy, RSD-wise, in respect to the song-first giant of the Chicago trap sound. Sure, Polo G’s third full-length album Hall of Fame came complete with that haunted, piano-overdrive vibe over sharp, spare beats and melodic, spaced-out, yet concise—even explosive—raps about his mental state, racial divides, and all-around trauma with tracks such as “Painting Pictures,” “EPIdemic,” and “No Return,” the latter with The Kid LAROI and G’s fellow local-hero contemporary Lil Durk in tow. Despite its “Gilded Smoke” vinyl pressing, I can’t help but think, however, that without additional deep cuts or unreleased stuff, maybe Polo G’s first albums Die a Legend or The Goat would’ve been more suitable choices for a reissue. Still great to hear Hall of Fame over again if for no other reason than remembering how down and dope “RAPSTAR” is.
Ray Charles, Live in Concert: The Complete Performance (TANGERINE)
In 1962, Ray Charles created a label called Tangerine Records through his deal with ABC-Paramount. Though he signed raw R&B acts Ike & Tina Turner and the Ohio Players, as well as shadowy jazz soprano Little Jimmy Scott, it wasn’t until Brother Ray jumped into Tangerine himself in 1966 that his label started percolating. One of its instant classics, his career-spanning Live in Concert, not only celebrates its 50th anniversary with RSD, but its new release marks the first-ever vinyl drop on the entire 75-minute gig and comes complete with a lithograph from that date’s poster. Still, the best thing is Charles’ brawling, bawling, provocative sound. From Live’s sturdy, smoldering, brassy, reedy arrangements and The Raelettes turning up the vocal background heat (“What’d I Say”) and coolness (“You Don’t Know Me”) to Charles’ own stomping, soulful manner on “Busted,” “Don’t Set Me Free,” and the nearly 14-minute, back-to-back purr “I Gotta Woman” and “Georgia on My Mind,” this package is a thing of genuine beauty.
The Rolling Stones RSD3 Mini-Turntable + 3-inch records (CROSLEY/ABKCO)
At the top of the 2000s, before newly pressed LPs sold nearly 48 million units in 2025 alone, 8ban 3-inch records were marketed in Japan as an easily stored alternative to 12-inch discs. They didn’t necessarily take off, despite sounding great and looking cute. But now, by order of RSD co-founder Michael Kurtz and his decade-long desire to remake the Bluetooth-driven tiny record player through the sole remaining 8ban factory in Japan, comes the colorful Rolling Stones RSD3 Mini-Turntable. The full package features an adorable stylus, tone arm turntable, and a replicated wood crate filled with vintage Stones singles like “Honky Tonk Women,” “Play with Fire,” and “Mother’s Little Helper,” together with their original US-released sleeves in bite-sized morsels. You won’t know you needed this until the RSD3 is displayed in a place of RSD-obsessive honor.
Runt, The Necessary Cosmic Frenzy (RHINO)
After leaving his hit-making South Street psych-pop band The Nazz, Upper Darby’s Todd Rundgren went solo with blue-eyed soul worthy of Gamble & Huff & Bell—but in a garage-R&B-band setting featuring future Utopia keyboardist Moogy Klingman—starting with this live radio concert for WMMR FM, recorded at Philly’s legendary Sigma Sound Studios in June of 1971. Along with a cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby” and a bluesy “Broke Down and Busted,” Cosmic Frenzy offers up a slew of clever, unreleased, pre–Something / Anything? hard chamber-pop gems and soul jams such as “Everybody in the Congregation,” “Lady on the Terrace,” and “Before I Grow Too Old,” available now on RSD-centric transparent light blue vinyl. So yes, this album is as irresistible as it is necessary.
Terry Callier, At the Earl of Old Town (TIME TRAVELLER)
Considering that Terry Callier—a melancholy revolutionary and soulful, folkie, coffee-house songwriter with a socioconscious edge; a guitarist with smoother, more improvisatory jazz licks in him than a dozen dozy Wes Montgomerys—didn’t make his full-album debut until 1968 on Prestige, this never-before-released live gig from 1967 is akin to finding another Dead Sea Scroll in a minor key (E minor on “Willie Jean,” according to Callier’s in-between tune patter) and some funky, dusky twists. Portraying a lithe, weary vulnerability in his voice and a cosmopolitan feel to his bittersweet and smoky urban folk songs, cuts like “The Seventh Son” and “900 Miles” jump off the tape they were recorded on.
Violent Femmes, The Blind Leading the Naked (CRAFT)
Another long-out-of-print album saved by RSD (and Craft) is this 40th anniversary reissue of Gordon Gano, Brian Ritchie, et al’s third album. It’s not as tense, nasal, and/or cranky as their first two nervous classics, but like all good disgust-filled ’80s albums, there’s a song about President Ronald in “Old Mother Reagan.” There are also longtime setlist faves such as “I Held Her in My Arms” here, an expansion of Gano’s twitchy songwriting style in “Cold Canyon,” a worthy Ritchie-written track in “Love & Me Make Three,” and an angrier-than-necessary cover of T. Rex’s “Children of the Revolution”—all of which, together, make The Blind better than I remembered it the first time around.
The Walker Brothers, Nite Flights (SONY LEGACY)
There isn’t much precedence to be found in this, the last album from The Walker Brothers, save for imagining the Jonas Bros as produced by Merzbow. That said, after Scott Walker spent time away from the pop-charting trio (not biological brothers, by the way) doing solo albums that made him into a windswept Neil Diamond of the avant-garde, the threesome returned to the studio greatly inspired by Bowie’s Berlin-period recordings with Eno, then managed to out-weird Low and “Heroes” combined with a maudlin, synth-damaged brand of operatic art-pop with deep, resonant saxophones, angry guitars, and wooly, grand orchestration. There isn’t much that sounds like the Scott-penned “Fat Mama Kick” or “The Electrician,” and likely never will be. RSD just got kicked up a dozen notches with the aid of Legacy—between this and the second volume of tribute to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music (see below), the label is going for oddball points and scoring big.
The Who, A Quick One [Deluxe] (POLYDOR)
Besides arriving on the one-year anniversary of The Who’s last tour, this last-minute RSD addition has scads going for it—including the original UK cartoon cover and title for their 1966 sophomore album (as opposed to Happy Jack, as it was released Stateside a year later). A Quick One is pretty much the only Who album where Daltrey, Moon, and Entwistle penned tracks alongside Townshend (yes, that includes “Boris the Spider”) and serves up the controversial sexually curious “I’m a Boy” among the valuables on its second LP (which also includes Quick instrumentals, their rare Ready Steady Who EP, and the tougher, single-version mix of “Substitute”). The original album also includes the nine-minute closer “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” Townshend’s gorgeous story-song inspiration for Tommy and all rock operas that followed. A Quick One is the album where everyone figured out that The Who were smarter than they looked.
Various artists, Just Tell Me What You Want: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac (CRAFT)
Can I talk about the first side of this two-LP, translucent-sea-blue vinyl dedication to Lady Nicks, Misters Fleetwood and Buckingham, and the once-married McVies? It’s got Chris Whitley’s country-hollering kid Trixie doing “Before the Beginning” and warm-winded operatic angel ANOHNI doing “Landside” (a truly inspired choice) besides ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and a collaboration between Lee Ranaldo and J Mascis—this is why God made various-artist albums. While HAIM makes their second RSD26 appearance on this reissue of the 2012 tribute comp, rocking the harmonies of “Hold Me,” Washed Out, MGMT, Karen Elson, and the late Marianne Faithfull show up and actually do Fleetwood Mac more than mere justice: They make magic.
Various artists, Metal Machine Music: Power to Consume Vol. 2 (SONY LEGACY)
The only thing more unlikely than a various-artists tribute to Lou Reed’s skull-bending, white-noise, contract-ending instrumental classic Metal Machine Music is a second sonic testimonial to Reed’s anxious soundtrack—and one as amazing as this collection is. While Lydia Lunch pulls out the slide guitars that made her no-wave days with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks a revelation on “2:32 AM on a Tuesday Morning,” Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld, Reed’s nerve-jarring noise contemporary Martin Rev, and Merzbow each pay deeply personal respects to the 1975 curio while somehow avoiding its irresistible irritability (that’s a compliment to Reed and his minions throughout Power to Consume). As this was a Legacy-commissioned project, I dare them to release a third one for RSD 2027.
