Tag Archives: Black Friday

Dark Horse to Release Billy Idol Christmas LP

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Dark Horse Records have struck again – this time with another Billy Idol release.

Just in August the label, now headed by George Harrison’s son Dhani, issued a new four-song EP by Idol called The Roadside.

Now comes a remixed and remastered version of the singer’s 2006 Christmas album, Happy Holidays. It the first time the disc has been on vinyl and streaming platforms.

As the title suggests, Happy Holidays features Idol performing a variety of Christmas classics as well as one new original called ‘On Christmas Day’ as a bonus track.

It’s available on limited edition white vinyl (now sold out):

Happy Holidays is also on standard black vinyl. It comes in a gatefold sleeve and is available now:

And it’s also available on CD:

We think it’s interesting and a little unusual that Dark Horse is taking artists like Billy Idol under their wing and are releasing a mix of new and back-catalogue music like this. Maybe it’s just not what we expected would happen when the revamp of Dark Horse was first announced. What do you think?

Just as an FYI, for Record Store Day Black Friday this year the label will be issuing another 12″ single taken from Assembly, the Joe Strummer ‘Best Of’ compilation that Dark Horse released earlier this year. It’ll be on limited edition pink vinyl with ‘Johnny Appleseed’ on the A-side and ‘At the Border, Guy’ as the B-side.

Another Joe Strummer for Record Store Day

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Dark Horse Records has just announced there’ll be a further single taken from the Joe Strummer ‘best of’ compilation, Assembly, from earlier this year.

The label will be releasing, as part of Record Store Day Black Friday, a limited edition pink vinyl 12″ single with ‘Johnny Appleseed’ as the A-side and ‘At the Border, Guy’ as the B-side.

The 12″ will be limited to 4,500 copies worldwide and is out on 26 November. The single celebrates the 20th anniversary of Strummer’s album Global A Go-Go.

Both included tracks are remastered by Paul Hicks (The Beatles/John Lennon/The Rolling Stones/David Bowie) and will be cut at 45rpm on 12” vinyl for maximum audio quality.

The first single from Assembly was the picture disc 12″ of ‘Junco Partner’, released for Record Store Day Drop 1 on June 12.

More on the My Sweet Lord RSD Limited Single

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The only Beatle related item in today’s Black Friday Record Store Day releases is a re-issue of the George Harrison single ‘My Sweet Lord’/’Isn’t It A Pity’.

This is described on the official RSD website as being a 7″ Vinyl, on the Capitol/UMe label, a ‘RSD First’ release, and that it would be limited to 7500 copies worldwide.

From the cover image supplied at the time collectors soon worked out this was going to come in a picture sleeve which replicated the one issued in Portugal, and was pressed in the former Portuguese colony of Angola way back in 1970. See our original post on this release for more.

Well, one of the new RSD singles has already popped up on the Discogs site – and it seems there is much more to it than that….. Firstly, from the hype sticker on the front we can see that the single is pressed on clear vinyl!

There’s confirmation it’s a reissue of the 1970 Angola pressing, but also that it is a numbered limited edition.

Additionally, the picture sleeve has been very faithfully reproduced – right down to the flipback construction style that would have been used for the original Angolan sleeve:

And we can see that the limited edition number is stamped in gold foil on the rear:So, there’s much more to this RSD release than we first thought. For collectors this sort of attention to detail is good to see. Well done Capitol/UMe.

Meanwhile, in other George Harrison news, it looks like there’ll be a big reissue program for the album All Things Must Pass in 2021.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary the George Harrison Estate has made available to stream a new 2020 stereo mix of the LP’s title song as a prelude of what’s to come.

“The new stereo mix of the album’s title track is just a taste of more things to come in 2021 as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of my father’s legendary All Things Must Pass album,” says Dhani Harrison.

 

All Things Must Pass – George Harrison’s Masterpiece Celebrated

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We’re not getting a 50th anniversary box set of All Things Must Pass, but the anniversary hasn’t been missed by the BBC. You can now stream a great 56 minute radio documentary narrated by musician and composer Nitin Sawhney.

The radio special tells the story of George Harrison’s most successful album and shows how its themes, lyrics and musical style put it ahead of its time. It’s a terrific exploration of the music, and the musicians, who made the amazing triple LP.

While there won’t be a box set celebrating All Things Must Pass (at least not this year), don’t forget there’ll be a faithfully re-created single from the album released for Black Friday Record Store Day – this coming Friday:

New George Harrison For RSD Black Friday

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This year Record Store Day just keeps on giving.

We’ve already had the main Record Store Day release program for 2020 spread out over three separate “drops”. This has stretched out the process considerably.

And now the folks at RSD are adding to that with the traditional Black Friday set of releases thrown into the mix as well.

Amonst the Black Friday offerings (which is November 27 this year) is one for Beatle collectors, a 45 rpm single of George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’/’Isn’t It A Pity’:

This will be limited to 7,500 copies worldwide, and comes in a re-created picture sleeve – the one pressed for the Portuguese market in the former Portuguese colony of Angola back in 1970. Curious to know if it will come complete with the same mis-spelling on the B-side of the original, ‘Ins’t It A Pity’?

Not sure why we’re getting this Angola/Portuguese picture sleeve, but it looks cool. I guess this is in line with the Beatles’ The Singles Collection box set that came out about this time last year, with every Beatle single in a picture sleeve from a different place around the world?

(Just as an FYI – Valentim de Carvalho CI SARL was a Portuguese record company that, in a joint venture with EMI, had the contract for pressing Beatle and Beatle-related titles back in the 1960’s and 70’s. They had a plant in Angola which, back then, was still a Portuguese colony. Aparently the quality of these pressings was excellent.)

Note that this reissue single is listed as a ‘RSD First Release’. These titles are sold first at independent record stores, but may also be released to other retailers or webstores at some point in the future.

For the full RSD Black Friday release list click on the icon below.

 

The Design of McCartney’s RSD Release – ‘Home Tonight’/’In A Hurry’

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One of the most striking things about Paul McCartney’s Egypt Station LP from last year was the amazing cover design – both for the initial release, and for the Explorer’s Edition which came later.

The art directors hired for those projects were Ferry Gouw, an illustrator, graphic designer and video director, and Gary Card, a set designer, illustrator and artist. Both are based in London. They took an original McCartney painting and extended out its themes and style across many panels (for both the CD and the LP) in colourful and spectacular ways.

Turns out the latest McCartney vinyl single, the limited edition picture disc just issued on Record Store Day Black Friday with two tracks recorded during the Egypt Station sessions but never released, is also designed by Card and Gouw. Again, the design looks fantastic.

Ferry Gouw posted this message on his Instagram account over the weekend: “Made this for @paulmccartney for his Record Store Day release (really great songs). This was based on a card that my dad bought me some time ago, you spin the wheels n the faces get jumbled up.”

The official press release says that the design is also inspired by the parlour game/collaborative drawing method known as Exquisite Corpse.

It seems however that there’s now some bad blood between Ferry Gouw and collaborator, Gary Card?

Card has messaged Gouw on Instagram saying: “Love how you bastards have completely cut me out now. I’ll be talking to my lawyers.”

Hmmm. Clearly not a happy camper……wonder what is going on?

Record Store Day Black Friday 2019 – McCartney Release Announced

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Just when you thought that all the Egypt Station releases had been tapped to the full, there’s more.

The Record Store Day people have just announced that Paul McCartney will be issuing a further two tracks from his Egypt Station recording sessions as a limited edition vinyl picture disc single for RSD Black Friday, coming up on Friday, November 29. The songs are ‘Home Tonight’ and ‘In A Hurry’:Both ‘Home Tonight’ and ‘In A Hurry’ are previously unreleased and were produced by Greg Kurstin during the sessions for the Egypt Station LP – which has come out in numerous versions and iterations in the year since its release.

The limited edition vinyl picture disc will feature new artwork exclusively created for this RSD Black Friday release, based on the parlour game/collaborative drawing method known as Exquisite Corpse. The single will include a lyric insert.

See the full list of RSD Black Friday special releases here. And check out McCartney’s blog about the release too.

Black Friday RSD Blues

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Record Store Day and Black Friday for us is definitely a hit-and-miss affair.

Today we were of course on the hunt for the Paul McCartney RSD double A-side single ‘I Don’t Know’/’Come On To Me’.

On Black Friday last year it had paid off to get up bright and early to be somewhere near the front of the queue at the biggest and best independent record store in Sydney – Red Eye Records. This time around we got there so early the store wasn’t open yet and were actually the very first in line! Our massive fail from Record Store Day proper in 2017 wasn’t going to happen this time around, oh no…..

…or was it?

That sense of euphoria at being very likely to secure the new, limited-edition single was soon brought crashing down when we saw, much to our disappointment, this sign posted on the front door:

That was a blow. We’d checked their website earlier in the week and there’d been no indication of a delay. So we decided to stick around to see if the sign meant they hadn’t got all of their order, but possibly had received some.

When 9 o’clock rolled around and the doors finally opened the staff were very apologetic. They had in fact got zero of their entire Record Store Day order. No Paul McCartney, but nothing of anything else either. None. Zilch.

The only bright side to the story was that they were expecting the new Paul McCartney. It’d been confirmed from the supplier that the single was definitely included in their order and so, because we’d actually come into the store, they were prepared to take our name and put one aside. When will we get it? ‘I Don’t Know’. But we’ve got one!

UPDATE:  Seems that there are two different pressings of this single, one for the US market and one for the UK. The US version is hand-numbered on the rear (from a total of 5600 copies) and comes with a non die-cut inner sleeve: 

While the UK/Europe version is not individually numbered on the rear, has no FBI anti-piracy logo on the rear, and comes with a die-cut inner sleeve that reveals the labels: 

Just one more collecting wrinkle for those completists among us!

(Click on iamges for larger versions)

Paul McCartney – 2018 Record Store Day Single

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The Record Store Day people have just announced their Black Friday release list, and it features a Paul McCartney 7″ vinyl single.

On November 23 Capitol Records will issue a limited edition, hand-numbered, one-time pressing of the special Double A Side single ‘I Don’t Know’/’Come On To Me’.

The two tracks, from Paul McCartney’s 17th solo album, Egypt Station, were initially only released as a “digital” Double A Side single in the lead-up to his LP release.

The vinyl single is described as a Record Store Day exclusive (i.e. a title that is physically released only at indie record stores), and only 5,000 will be issued worldwide.

Black Friday – McCartney’s ‘Holidays Rule Vol.2’

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Getting up early to go into Red Eye Records this morning for the two different RSD Black Friday releases of Paul McCartney’s Holdays Rule Vol.2 has paid off.

This time around we got ’em both:

(Double click images to see larger versions)

This is in marked contrast to Record Store Day proper earlier this year and the quest to find The Beatles’ ‘Penny Lane’/’Strawberry Fields Forever’ single – which you can read about in two parts here and here…..it has a happy ending, but was painful at the time!

UPDATE:  The Black Friday RSD singles above are Made in the U.S.A. We were not aware that versions of these coloured discs were also pressed in Europe – until one of our very knowledgable and well-connected readers, Andrey in Russia, sent us through scans of the EU pressings:  

If you click on the images you can pull up larger images. In the small print on the rear covers you can clearly see that these are Made in the EU. The hype stickers on the front are different to those on the US copies as well.