New vinyl reissues: July 10, 2026
All of a sudden, it feels like the vinyl calendar is exploding with reissues. Things don’t normally feel this way until the holiday shopping season gets going, but after a few quiet weeks, it seems that the gloves are off (it’s summertime, way too hot for gloves anyway) and the reissues are coming fast and furious. Not only is this week’s list jam-packed, but as I detailed in yesterday’s newsletter, the past couple of days have given us some really big announcements of what we can look forward to in the coming months, including the much-anticipated analog remaster of Funkadelic’s legendary Maggot Brain on both 33 and 45 RPM, plus Mobile Fidelity’s launch of their Rush reissue campaign, with three Rush albums coming later this year AND MoFi also announcing a one-step of Donald Fagan’s Kamakiriad.
This week also sees a new Rhino High Fidelity installment in Joni Mitchell’s Blue (which I write about below), but tomorrow morning will see the unveiling of an additional RHF title. To be among the first to know what that mystery album is, tune into Steve Westman’s video with Rhino Records’ Patrick Milligan; that goes live Friday at 9 am Eastern/6 pm Pacific on YouTube. (Whatever could Rhino have planned this time? I hate to speculate, but fingers crossed, as always.) Meanwhile, Rhino has a very stacked docket for the rest of July, with their extensive Spirit of ’76 campaign kicking off next week, featuring a bevy of 50th-anniversary reissues of albums released in 1976. I’ll have plenty more to say about that in upcoming newsletters.
And speaking of Steve Westman, I’ll be on his Live Audiophile Roundtable this Saturday, July 11, at 12 noon Eastern/9 am Pacific. We’ll discuss all of these exciting things and more. Please tune in!
Here is this week’s playlist for our paid-tier subscribers, with selections from all the albums I mention below and more. This is definitely one of the best and most wide-ranging of these weekly playlists yet, so you’ll definitely want to listen to this one. And if you’re not a paid subscriber yet, it’s easy to upgrade. Here’s a button to do it. See? Easy!
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Thin Lizzy: Thin Lizzy [Decca/UMe]
Thin Lizzy wouldn’t quite become the band we know and love until the 1972 single “Whiskey in the Jar,” but their self-titled debut album from 1971 is a fascinating glimpse at the raw materials that eventually transformed into the rock powerhouse. And while Thin Lizzy is a far cry from their later, more rocking efforts, it finds the Irish band honing a sound that contains wisps of psychedelia, traces of Irish folk, and bassist/vocalist Phil Lynott’s innate knack for storytelling that would serve the band in good stead in the years to come. The album is being reissued in two different packages: A 2-LP set includes the original LP plus a new album remix from Richard Whittaker and comes on either green or blue vinyl. And there’s a 4-LP set on black vinyl with the album, BBC sessions, outtakes, and contemporaneous non-album tracks from singles and the New Day EP, which has also been given a Whittaker remix (both the original and the remix appear in the set). For the digitally minded, there’s a 3-CD/1-Blu-ray version as well, with a Dolby Atmos mix and a 40-page hardcover book. I reckon true Lizzy obsessives will need to get all of these, unfortunately.
Joni Mitchell: Blue [Rhino High Fidelity]
Joni Mitchell’s stark, shiveringly great Blue is the ne plus ultra of singer/songwriter confessionals, and the 1971 album has been reissued countless times over the years, even as original pressings start to make their way northward of $50 on the used market. And if you already have a fine original or a recent Bernie Grundman pressing, chances are you can leave this one be. But to my way of thinking, it’s a perfect candidate for the Rhino High Fidelity series, which presents a new analog cut from Kevin Gray inside a sturdy gatefold sleeve. This edition serves to institutionalize the album as one of the masterpieces of the vinyl era, and it ostensibly ensures that those who have never owned a copy will get a well-mastered, well-pressed version on brand-new vinyl—a crucial component for songs as spare and bare as these, where even subtle pops and clicks can hamper the experience. Pressed at Optimal, the RHF edition comes with an insert featuring a Q&A with Mitchell, and the first 5000 copies are numbered.
Paul McCartney: Flowers in the Dirt [Capitol]
Paul McCartney’s 1989 album Flowers in the Dirt was designed to recenter him back to the mainstream after the relative disappointments of 1984’s Give My Regards to Broad Street and 1986’s Press to Play. In hindsight, it functioned more as the launchpad for the massive world tour that followed; the album itself is a bit overcooked and scattershot, with the usual winsome Macca moments shuffled up with execrable dreck like the faux-Purdie shuffle of “Rough Ride.” Still, it’s impossible to truly conceal his sly pop genius—just hear how “My Brave Face” resolves on a major sixth chord, for instance. McCartney enlisted an armada of ludicrously expensive producers to help put this thing together, including Trevor Horn, Chris Hughes, David Foster, Mitchell Froom, and Neil Dorfsman, and he famously collaborated with one Declan MacManus (better known as Elvis Costello) on the songwriting, although their collaboration didn’t go swimmingly and much of Costello’s stuff got pushed to the side. Flowers in the Dirt got a 2-LP vinyl reissue in 2017 with an extra disc of demos. Now it gets its first stand-alone vinyl release since 1989.
Cat Power: The Greatest [Matador]
The steadiness, warmth, and elegance of The Greatest came as a bit of a shock upon its initial release in 2006. While Chan Marshall had always summoned great reservoirs of feeling in her previous work as Cat Power, the music could sometimes be scattershot and her performances could be unpredictable, to say the least. This time around, with the backing of seasoned Memphis pros and her best batch of self-penned material yet, Marshall’s songs were in the driving seat, rather than the unbridled emotions. The result was a gorgeous, flinty, 21st-century soul classic, with Marshall both more poised and more communicative as a singer than ever before, and arrangements that recalled the best of Al Green and Ann Peebles. The Greatest is getting a 20th anniversary pressing on pink vinyl with a foil cover, a worthy treatment for an album whose honeyed, narcotic vibe becomes more indelible and irresistible every year.
The Stooges: Fun House [Mobile Fidelity]
For a record that used to be a little hard to find, the Stooges’ 1970 album Fun House has enjoyed a resurgence that’s progressed in lockstep with the recent vinyl revival. Following plenty of repressings and an absurdly thorough box set that excavated every last thing that was recorded at the album’s Los Angeles recording sessions, Fun House most recently received the Rhino High Fidelity treatment earlier this year with a Kevin Gray analog cut mastered at 33 RPM. Now Mobile Fidelity is releasing the album at 45 RPM on two LPs, cut from a DSD digital transfer of the master tapes. This is the part where I feign surprise that such a raw, nasty-sounding album is getting multiple audiophile treatments, but candidly, the album was groundbreaking for its merging of skronk and proto-punk, and it remains a vital and invigorating listen, having more than justified its status as a true-blue classic in the past half-century-plus—so its graduation into the realm of Steely Dan and the Alan Parsons Project shouldn’t really be surprising at this point. Any MoFi adherents who resisted the RHF pressing are no doubt rejoicing over this one, but I have to imagine that’s a pretty narrow wedge of the vinyl-buying demographic.
The Doobie Brothers: Takin’ It to the Streets [Rhino Reserve]
Another week, another Doobie Brothers reissue. This one—for 1976’s Takin’ It to the Streets—marks the paradigm shift for the Doobs, when Michael McDonald joined the band and dramatically altered their sound. His velvet-Chewbacca vocal stylings reinvigorated the California group’s profile and gave the late ’70s some of its most distinctive and memorable hits, including the title track here. Nowadays we call it yacht rock, but back then, it was just soft rock, brother, and no one could make it smoother and softer than Michael McDonald. This Rhino Reserve reissue was cut from tape by Matthew Lutthans and pressed at Fidelity. It comes on the heels of the album’s 50th anniversary, and Rhino are about to launch their Spirit of ’76 campaign that’s chock-full of other 50th-anniversary vinyl reissues, although this particular release doesn’t seem to be an official part of that series. (As mentioned up top, I’ll have lots more to say about Rhino’s Spirit of ’76 in future newsletters, so stay tuned.)
Geto Boys: We Can’t Be Stopped [Rap-a-Lot]
Bearing one of the most infamous album covers of all time, the Geto Boys’ 1991 album We Can’t Be Stopped introduced itself to the world with the now-legendary photo of Bushwick Bill on a hospital gurney flanked on either side by Scarface and Willie D, the image clearly showing Bill’s wound after he had been shot in the eye by his girlfriend. Their best and most successful album, We Can’t Be Stopped is now regarded as a gangsta rap classic, with Scarface’s “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” a perennial favorite. Only appearing on vinyl upon its initial release in 1991 and a 1-LP reissue in 2014, the 52-minute album is now expanded to two LPs for this 35th anniversary reissue from Rap-a-Lot Records. (It’s also being reissued on cassette and as a CD packaged inside a cardboard longbox—remember those horrendous things?)
Conrad Schnitzler: Conal [Bureau B]
The prolific German electronic artist Conrad Schnitzler—who formerly tangled with Tangerine Dream and Kluster—released seven albums in 1981 alone; one of those, Conal, was released in a limited edition of 4000 in Norway and features two side-long synth explorations that explore dark sonic textures and environments rather than anything resembling a melodic structure. The authors of the essential krautrock reference text The Crack in the Cosmic Egg dub Conal “one of the most arresting and strange” of Schnitzler’s many albums from this period (all of which are given a title that begins with the letters C-o-n), and it’s now getting its first-ever vinyl reissue from the folks at Bureau B.
The Ladybug Transistor: Beverely Atonale [Dust and Memory]
The winsome pop of Brooklyn’s Ladybug Transistor reached full maturity on their second album, Beverley Atonale, first released on Merge Records in 1997 and now receiving a vinyl reissue from the specialists at Spanish reissue label Dust and Memory. The Ladybug Transistor is one of the many associated with Elephant 6 and bears the familiar hallmarks of the larger collective, with strong psych-pop influences that fondly gaze backward to the ’60s output of the Brothers Wilson, Davies, and Gibb. But there’s also a gentler, more introspective tone to the Ladybug Transistor as well as an art-damaged indie-rock sensibility, with the end result coming out a little like Pavement on Prozac after listening to a steady diet of the American Analog Set. It’s a lovely record with hidden depths that reveal themselves after multiple listens, so big ups to Dust and Memory for doing what Merge was apparently afraid to. The upstart label, which was launched in 2025, also has a reissue of Minneapolis guitar-psych band Flavor Crystals’ 2012 triple album Three making its way Stateside this week.
Yamasuki: Le Monde Fabuleux des Yamasuki [Sdban]
How on god’s green earth does one explain Yamasuki? The brainchild of Belgian Jean Kluger and Frenchman Daniel Vangarde (né Daniel Bangalter, the father of Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter), the 1971 album features a children’s choir singing in a sort of fake Japanese—think of how Adrian Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol” is meant to sound like American English but is actually just a bunch of nonsense syllables. And to top it off, a local judo grandmaster was hired to provide grunts and yells, giving it the feel of a fever-dream soundtrack of some warped samurai cartoon fantasy. The music is part pop, part funk, part rock, and part indescribable mixture of virtually every genre on earth—except, quite notably, traditional Japanese music. It’s one of those things where the flavor contrasts shouldn’t work at all but end up blending together spectacularly well, and its genre agnosticism is catnip for a certain kind of vinyl collector [raises hand]. The Belgian label Sdban reissued it back in April but it looks like copies are finally becoming available through American distributors this week.
Cobraa: Cobraa [Made in Germany]
The prog-pop band Cobraa resembles a lot of music that was coming out in the early ’70s but with an off-kilter twist, kind of like Three Dog Night meets Wizzard. Of course, the band was neither American nor English, but rather German, having been kicking around for nearly a decade before releasing their 1974 self-titled debut album. The album is a fascinating alternate-universe view of what some of the more desperately commercial German bands were up to during the high period of krautrock, where overseas influences like English glam and American boogie carried greater weight than the spacier homegrown sounds that groups like Can, Faust, and Tangerine Dream were delving into. The album is being reissued on Made in Germany, who have tacked on Cobraa’s 1973 “Ride a Pony”/“The End of the Day” single as bonus tracks—a welcome addition, as they’re probably the band’s two best tunes.
Metabolist: Hansten Klork [Analogue Pulse]
The avant-garde UK group Metabolist can perhaps be filed in the genre rolodex somewhere near This Heat, as both outfits were more interested in sonic exploration than adhering to any established styles. On their only album, 1980’s self-released Hansten Klork, Metabolist seemingly used the vernacular of punk, post-punk, and the burgeoning industrial movement to explore ominous underworlds of tightly coiled minimalism, but the playing draws from psychedelic, prog, and krautrock precedents, only fitting as the band members were a bit older than many of the bands they found themselves sharing bills with. The album, long an obscurity unknown to even those heads who have the Nurse by Wound list committed to memory, is receiving a worthy vinyl reissue from Analogue Pulse, which expands the original album to two LPs with the addition of six tracks from the group’s three 7-inches.
Jazz Alley
Things have been a little light in Jazz Alley recently, but this week makes up for it with a vengeance, with a teetering stack of worthwhile reissues here to make mincemeat of your wallet. First up are three new selections in the terrific (and terrifically affordable) Verve Vault series, and they all seem flat-out fabulous. Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s 1972 album He’s Coming is a mixture of covers and originals, with the vibraphonist/bandleader locating a uniquely special position within the overlapping Venn diagram of jazz, R&B, funk, and easy listening that sounds more crucial with each passing year. Gil Evans’s 1964 album The Individualism of Gil Evans features the pianist/arranger using the big-band jazz palette to create remarkable sonic images that evoke the era of impressionism. And Art Farmer’s 1962 album Listen to Art Farmer and the Orchestra features arrangements by Oliver Nelson, resulting in lush cascades of sound and symphonic color. These sonic smorgasbords were all cut from tape by Ryan K. Smith and pressed at Optimal, and they will likely make your speakers very, very happy.
The Jazz Dispensary series on Craft continues with Roger Glenn’s Reachin’, a 1977 Brazilian- and disco-inflected fusion effort featuring arrangements by the Mizell Brothers supporting Glenn’s peppy flute; it comes in a Kevin Gray analog cut and was pressed at Fidelity. ECM’s Luminessence series offers guitarist Mick Goodrick’s 1979 debut, In Pas(s)ing, a mellow, furrowed-brow affair featuring John Surman on sax and clarinet, Eddie Gómez on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. The Parisian record store/label Souffle Continu continues their reissue series of the works of Byard Lancaster, with new editions of Exactement and Funky Funky Rib Crib, avant-garde pieces that both date from 1974 (although the latter was not released until 1979). These were both remastered by Gilles Laujol and come with four-page booklets; there’s also a four-album bundle if you also want to pick up Souffle Continu’s other Lancaster reissues.
Sony is reissuing a no-frills (and likely cut-from-digital) pressing of Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin; the 1958 recording was the final album released in the singer’s lifetime and features her damaged, diminished voice in renditions that are perhaps more intensely emotional and arresting than anything she previously recorded. And lastly, the Record Store Day reissue of Charles Tolliver’s 1971 Strata-East album Right Now… and Then—featuring Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers, and Gary Bartz, and newly remixed by Tolliver with mastering by Kevin Gray—is getting a wide release from Mack Ave, in case you missed it back in April.
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
(*star denotes inclusion in this week’s paid-subscriber playlist)
Salvatore Adamo: Mes Chansons Ma Vie [Music on Vinyl]
Agitation Free: Live in Berlin [Made in Germany]
America: Halcyon Days [America]
Archaic Oath: Determined to Death and Beyond [AOP]
Authority Zero: Rhythm + Booze: Live [Suburban Noize]
Backyard Babies: Stockholm Syndrome [Music on Vinyl]
*The Black Angels: Passover [Light in the Attic]
Blackfoot: Kumitanda [Zambia Music Parlour]
Black Marble: A Different Arrangement [Hardly Art]
Black Sabbath: Seventh Star (wide release after RSD) [Rhino]
*Michael Brook: Cobalt Blue & Live at the Aquarium [4AD]
Carpenters: Collected [Music on Vinyl]
Chief Keef: Bang [43 Label]
The Contemporary Jazz Quartet: Predetermination [Formalibera]
Alice Cooper: Along Came a Spider; Welcome 2 My Nightmare [Earmusic]
Divine: Native and Queer (The Complete Experience) [Music on Vinyl]
*El Michels Affair: Enter the 37th Chamber [Fat Beats]
*Embryo: Opal [Bonfire]
Evoken: Quietus [Peaceville]
Fela Fresh Crew: Taking Charge [Charly]
5 Revolutions: Mrs. Brown [Zambia Music Parlour]
*Flavor Crystals: Three [Dust and Memory]
Tennessee Ernie Ford: Shotgun Boogie: The Country Hits Collection 1949–56 [Acrobat]
*The 4th Street Orchestra: Yuh Learn! [Real Rock]
*John Frusciante: Trickfinger in a Box [Acid Test]
Billy Gayles: Night Howler 10” [Bear Family]
*Generation X: Generation X [Chrysalis]
Grave: Necropsy: The Complete Demo Recordings 1986–1991 [Soulseller]
Steve Grossman: With Michel Petrucciani [LMLR]
*Gryphon: Red Queen to Gryphon Three [Music on Vinyl]
Guru Guru: Live in Concert [Edition Red]
Coleman Hawkins: Hawk’s Flight 1937–48 [Acrobat]
The Head and the Heart: Live at Neumos 2011 [Sub Pop]
(hed) PE: Back 2 Base X [Suburban Noize]
Keith Hudson: Torch of Freedom [17 North Parade]
Iced Earth: Plagues of Babylon; Incorruptible [The Circle Music]
The Imperial Gospel Singers: Leave It All to Him: The Savoy & Gospel Singles 1958–62 [Acrobat]
Incubus: If Not Now, When? [Music on Vinyl]
Insane Clown Posse: The Great Milenko [Hollywood]
Diane Jenkins: I’m a Woman: The Complete Singles [Sonic Wax]
*Ngallé Jojo: Na Bo Ndedi [Celluloid]
Giya Kancheli: Music for Stage and Screen [Tbilisi]
Katatonia: Viva Emptiness (half-speed master) [Peaceville]
Robert Earl Keen: Gravitational Forces [Lost Highway]
Kelis: Tasty [Sony]
Khalid: Free Spirit [Sony]
King Crimson: 2014 NYC [DGM Panegyric]
Nate Krafft: Crimson Arsenal/Man Machine [Musique pour la Danse]
Jim Lang: Hey Arnold! The Music Vol. 1 [Enjoy the Ride]
Barrington Levy: Money Move [VP]
Louisiana Red: Anti-Nuclear Blues [Made in Germany]
Magic Sam: The Essential Magic Sam: The Cobra and Chief Recordings 1957–1961 [Friday Music]
Magyar Posse: Random Avenger [Svart]
Barry Manilow: Ultimate Manilow [Sony]
*Aimee Mann: Bachelor No. 2 (repress of 20th-anniversary edition) [SuperEgo]
Ziggy Marley: Love Is My Religion [Tuff Gong]
Mars: Live at the Village Gate, August 26, 1977, New York City [Hozac]
Massacre: From Beyond [Earache]
Mayhem: Deathcrush EP [Deathlike Silence]
Ministry: Rantology [Music on Vinyl]
The Mission: Resurrection: The Best Of [Cleopatra]
Moondog: Moondog in Europe [Managarm Musikverlag]
*Mötley Crüe: Crucial Crüe (picture disc box set) [BMG]
Mr. Projectile: Sinking [Ear Candy]
*My Chemical Romance: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys [Reprise/Warner]
Nas: It Was Written [Sony UK]
Orquestra Suprema: La Suprema [Sonic Wax]
Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels: Sonic Sunset [Gemini]
Robert Palmer: Collected [Music on Vinyl]
La Polla Records: Donde Se Habla; Bajo Presion [Elkar]
Ranking Dread: Kunta Kinte Roots [Burning Sounds]
Ishmael Reed: The Hands of Grace [All Night Flight]
The Residents: Warning: Uninc.: Live and Experimental Recordings 1971–1972 [Cryptic Corporation]
Cliff Richard: Gee Whizz, It’s Cliff! The Chart Hits 1958–62 [Acrobat]
Pharoah Sanders & Bill Laswell: With a Heartbeat [Glossy Mistakes]
Say Anything: Say Anything [Parting Gift]
*Scritti Politti: Cupid & Psyche 85 [Rough Trade]
Selena: Selena Live [National Own]
Seventh Avenue: Between the Worlds [Retroactive]
Frank Sinatra: All the Way: Best of the Capitol Years 1953–60 [Acrobat]
Igor Tamerlan: Bali Vanilli: Experimental Pop from Paradise Island (1987–1991) [Elevation]
Henry Thomas: Texas Worried Blues: Complete Recorded Works 1927–1929 [Yazoo]
*Os Tincoãs: O Africanto dos Tincoãs [Cosmic Rock]
Big Joe Turner: Honey Hush: The R&B Hits 1950–60 [Acrobat]
*The Underground Set: The Underground Set [Morgan Blue Town]
Urbn DK: Mass Grave [Beer City]
*Waxahatchee: American Weekend [Don Giovanni]
Wesseltoft & Schwarz: Duo [Mule Musiq]
*Whipping Boy: Heartworm [Needle Mythology]
Bill Withers: Greatest Hits [Sony]
*The Zeros: Don’t Push Me Around [Bomp]
Various Artists: Blues in the Mississippi Night [Lomax Archive]
Various Artists: Déclic, Kaz A Zouk: Zoul, Creole Rap & Ragga, Kompa, Gwo Ka Modern (1987–1998) [Heavenly Sweetness]
Various Artists: Listen Up! Rocksteady [Kingston Sounds]
Various Artists: Living for the City: Soul Reggae Classics [Trojan]
Various Artists: Mermaids soundtrack [Universal]
Various Artists: Moulin Rouge soundtrack [Universal]
Various Artists: Traditional Jazz from New Orleans [Mardi Gras]
