New vinyl reissues: July 17, 2026
It’s another busy week in the vast realm of vinyl reissues, where everything old is new again, and some of these new pressings can sound very good indeed. At the top of yesterday’s newsletter, I briefly mentioned some exciting announcements for upcoming reissues, so be sure to check that out if you missed it. And today I’ll touch on some interesting vinyl-related news from around the interwebs before we get to the main event.
• The big story is that CDs are on the rise, with the format’s 2026 sales growth figures outpacing those of vinyl by more than six to one. (These are growth figures, not overall sales figures—vinyl is still outselling CDs significantly.) While this is not the best news for vinyl, as it does look like the astronomical growth for vinyl is slowing down, perhaps it also means we’re getting closer to equilibrium in the vinyl market, which should be good for long-term stability. And it’s great news for CDs, which are indeed finally experiencing something of a comeback—although it should be noted, again, that vinyl is still far outselling CDs at the moment (it’s not a competition) and that a lot of the uptick in CD sales are coming from special editions of K-pop albums that are mostly collector bait. Truthfully, I think healthy CD sales can only help vinyl—music’s music, and people paying for it is a good thing. The full midyear report from sales tracker Luminate can be found here.
• Last week audiophile news and review site What Hi-Fi? asked several turntable engineers what they thought about the vinyl resurgence and what changes the industry needs to make to improve. Some of their answers are very sensible (more transparent sourcing info, better quality control for newly pressed vinyl). And others are downright kooky (make the diameter of records bigger!). Find out who said what by reading the piece over at What Hi-Fi?
• Ecoustics reported on a vinyl- and cartridge-wear tracker program from a company called Secret Chord Analogue. The web-based Vinyl Record Tracker allows you to log the time you’ve spent using the different cartridges in your arsenal, making it easier to keep track of how long you’ve been using a particular stylus. I suppose this would be quite helpful if you’re the kind of vinyl head who swaps out different cartridges for different purposes. I’m not, but maybe someday I can grow up to be one.
• Following Discogs’ involvement in selling the record collection of Television guitarist Tom Verlaine, who died in 2023, the site has now joined forces with Los Angeles record shop Permanent Records to handle the collection of rock journalist Mikal Gilmore, who is still with us but has decided to liquidate his lifelong collection of promos, review copies, test pressings, and more. The first drop of 1000 items hits Discogs tomorrow (July 17) at noon PDT.
• Lastly, the proprietor of Redwood City, California, record store The Record Man passed away in May. Gary Saxon was 82 and opened the shop in 1988, after many years of commune living. I’m guessing Saxon likely sold Neil Young a bunch of records over the years, and maybe bought some from him too. The business reportedly houses 1,000,000 pieces of vinyl in both the store itself and assorted outbuildings and shipping containers. A celebration of life will take place on July 25, and the store’s annual $1 parking lot sale will take place August 22 and 23.
Here is this week’s playlist for our paid-tier subscribers. If you’d like to become one of those, you’ve come to the right place! Please support my writing—and get perks like weekly playlists, monthly vinyl giveaways, full site access, commenting privileges, and more—by clicking here.
And now let’s look at the week.
The Spirit of ’76 [Rhino]
The big news at the record store this week is the launch of Rhino’s The Spirit of ’76 campaign, a three-week-long drop of 50th-anniversary reissues of albums from the Warner catalog that were all originally released back in 1976. While that was America’s bicentennial, The Spirit of ’76 seems to be equal opportunity in terms of nationality, with plenty of British bands in the mix as well as American acts (and even one album from a Canadian, coming later in July). But by evoking America's 200th birthday, The Spirit of ’76 is happily rinsing from our collective memories the dull, hot dud that was our nation’s recent 250th.
The series starts this week with three reissues in the excellent Rhino Reserve line: Bootsy Collins’s Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band is the Parliament-Funkadelic bassist’s first solo album (released in 1976, of course) and, as you’d expect, it’s a riotous funk extravaganza, co-produced by George Clinton and featuring ungodly amounts of stank. Meanwhile, Faces’ 1976 greatest-hits set Snakes and Ladders compiles material from all four Faces studio albums plus a pair of stand-alone singles, summing up the career of the British group—which included Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, and Ronnie Lane in its ranks—following their split in 1975. And Al Stewart’s wonderful Year of the Cat finds the British folk rocker incorporating his sly songwriting smarts into a state-of-the-art Abbey Road production from Alan Parsons; I’ll have a full review of this new pressing in the coming days. All of these Rhino Reserves were cut from analog tape by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas, and were pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing.
The analog wax doesn’t end there. The Flamin’ Groovies’ Shake Some Action has received a new analog cut from Chris Bellman, plus there’s a second disc of alternate mixes, rarities, and killer live stuff recorded at the Roxy in LA. (I have a review of this one coming soon as well.) And Western swing act Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen’s double live album We’ve Got a Live One Here! has a new AAA pressing, also cut from tape by Bellman.
In addition, Rhino is re-releasing Black Sabbath’s Technical Ecstasy on splatter vinyl, Bad Company’s Run with the Pack in a foil cover, and the Ramones’ immortal self-titled debut as a picture disc. (The digital/analog provenance of these is unconfirmed, so I would suspect they’re digital.) Finally, an archival Yes album, Live at Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ (6/17/76), comes from the 1976 tour Yes did to collectively support the members’ individual solo albums, although the triple LP mostly relies on the group’s back catalog of prog chestnuts from the early ’70s. (Audiophiles, take note that the soundboard recording is pretty unrefined, although Yes fans should be used to the quality, as it’s similar to the other archival Yes recordings that we’ve gotten in recent years.)
Robyn: Complete Body Talk [Interscope]
In 2010, it seemed like the conventional album format was in the process of being upended by digital files replacing physical media—mixtapes, streams, EPs, and one-off tracks all began to appear without a formal full-length to house them. That paradigm shift never quite happened, of course; physical media held strong, and the album as an experience has maintained its general shape, although its dimensions have become more elastic in the streaming era (wide-release full-lengths can often now be shorter than 25 minutes or stretch up to two hours these days). In 2010, Swedish pop artist Robyn chose to unveil her new material by releasing Body Talk as a series of “mini-albums” in order to get them to market swiftly, but by the time the third installment was reached, the material was so incredibly good that it seemed like commercial suicide not to make a proper album out of it all. Complete Body Talk more or less mirrors the 2010 full-length that was compiled from the Body Talk releases, with a handful of extra tracks from the “mini-albums” that didn’t make the original album. Containing songs like “Dancing on My Own” and “Call Your Girlfriend,” Body Talk is nothing less than the best dance-pop album of the 21st century, and considering that used copies of the original double LP now sell for $500-plus (a 2019 RSD reissue is also prohibitively priced), this reconfigured vinyl version is long overdue.
SWV: It’s About Time [Sony] & Jodeci: Forever My Lady [Universal]
Two big R&B albums from the early ’90s are back on wax this week. SWV’s 1992 debut It’s About Time included their number-one song “Weak,” with the New York female vocal trio—it stands for Sisters With Voices, see—tackling ballads and upbeat new jack swing numbers with equal aplomb. The album has not been on vinyl since its initial release; an original pressing recently went up on the wall of one of my locals for $200 and sold instantly, so this reissue on double pink vinyl is a big deal. Meanwhile, across the gymnasium floor at the 7th-grade dance, male vocal group Jodeci’s 1991 debut Forever My Lady is equally coveted, containing “Come and Talk to Me” and other slinky electro-R&B hits from the Charlotte, North Carolina, quartet. While originals are scarce, Forever My Lady was given a limited repress in 2024 on tan vinyl, although even used copies of that are not cheap nowadays. This black-vinyl 35th-anniversary reissue expands the album to two LPs with the help of five bonus tracks.
Chris Isaak: Heart Shaped World [Mobile Fidelity]
Chris Isaak’s retro rockabilly-informed James Dean cosplay always felt more like a cologne ad than actual musical expression, but it reaped dividends with “Wicked Game,” the smash hit from his 1989 album Heart Shaped World—aided, no doubt, by its inclusion in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and a black-and-white music video that featured a topless Helena Christensen frolicking in the ocean waves. The song’s parent album was oily-smooth and one-dimensional, featuring sterile ’80s blues-rock production and lethargic performances (to be fair, “Wicked Game” does conjure up some black-hearted moodiness that the rest of the album lacks). And now Heart Shaped World is coming to Mobile Fidelity via their UltraDisc one-step process, cut at 45 RPM across two LPs, likely sounding more crisp and chrome than ever before.
Gary Stewart: One Track Mind [Delmore Recording Society]
Depending on what part of the internet you’re looking at, country singer Gary Stewart was either “king of honkytonk” or “King of the Honky-Tonks.” Both titles apply to the Kentucky-born, Florida-raised singer, who had a run of hits in the ’70s and ’80s that updated the sounds of rockabilly and honky-tonk, reframing their qualities by adding flairs of Me-Generation melodrama. Stewart’s forlorn, heartsick style reached its apex with the immortal “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles),” a classic drown-your-sorrows country ballad that also has a bit of rock ’n’ roll chug-a-lug running in its engine. One Track Mind is a collection of unreleased Stewart material dating from the early part of his career, with home recordings, demos, and studio sessions from his years trying to make a living as a Nashville songwriter.
New Order: The Best of New Order; The Rest of New Order [Warner]
1987’s Substance instantly became the essential New Order anthology and remains so to this day, but by 1994 the Manchester band was already due another hits collection, one that gathered up not just more recent album tracks but stray singles, remixes, and soundtrack songs. The Best of New Order did the job, adding three new tracks into the bargain; The Rest of New Order followed in 1995, collecting several lengthy dance remixes from their 12-inches alongside a few newly commissioned ones. Both of those anthologies have been combined for a new 4-CD set that includes an even bigger selection of remixes from this period. On vinyl, however, they’re being released separately, more or less following their original UK tracklists, albeit with the song order switched up some. The Best of New Order is a double LP, while The Rest of New Order is a triple, mirroring the original CD and adding two additional tracks, greatly expanding on the abbreviated 2-LP set that came out back in 1995. More astute New Order fans than me will need to carefully comb the tracklists of all the various releases to find out what’s different or new here—a job they will no doubt relish.
The Waterboys: Atlantic Rain: The Lost Fisherman’s Blues Recordings [Chrysalis]
The Waterboys’ 1988 album Fisherman’s Blues came after the big success of 1985’s This Is the Sea, and it found the band stepping away from their arena-ready sound and forging new territory informed by Irish folk and American country music. The shift was the result of countless hours and hours (and hours) of recording, as a full second album of material from the sessions, Too Close to Heaven, was released in 2001, and then a huge 6-CD set called Fisherman’s Box: The Complete Fisherman’s Blues Sessions (1986–1988) emerged in 2013. And now there’s even more, with Atlantic Rain: The Lost Fisherman’s Blues Recordings, a further culling from the nearly 400 reels of tape the band recorded at the time. All previously unissued, the triple-LP set contains a big helping of one-off cover versions as well as alternate takes of original material.
Franklin: Go Kid Go [Solid Brass]
Philly band Franklin ran all over the art-punk gamut, with aggressive sounds that stemmed from post-hardcore and pointed toward the emergence of emo. Their 1995 debut album Go Kid Go featured snarling guitars, slap-slam drums, and cunning songwriting that evaded the grunge tropes that had come to dominate hard rock in the mid-’90s. It’s being reissued by Solid Brass Records and is expanded to two LPs and a bonus 7-inch; it now includes everything the band recorded between 1993 and 1996.
Cheo Feliciano: Cheo [Fania/Craft]
In 1971, salsa singer Cheo Feliciano released his solo debut, Cheo, made in close collaboration with producer Tite Curet Alonso. The album followed Feliciano’s many years as singer for the Joe Cuba Sextet and the Eddie Palmieri Orchestra, during which the Puerto Rican-born New Yorker became a star. A heroin addiction sidelined Feliciano in the late ’60s, so after a stint in rehab, Cheo was his tentative step back into the spotlight, where it became a sensation in the Latin music community; Feliciano credits Alonso’s patronage, friendship, and partnership for his recovery, both physical and artistic. This reissue for Cheo’s 55th anniversary was cut from analog tape by Dave Polster and Clint Holley at Well Made Music, and it comes on black or “medianoche morada” (midnight purple) vinyl.
Earth, Wind & Fire: Open Our Eyes; That’s the Way of the World; I Am [Sony]
Maurice White’s funk-disco-pop powerhouse Earth, Wind & Fire is back in the spotlight thanks to Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World, a loving HBO documentary from director Questlove. And now three of the Los Angeles–based group’s albums are being reissued by Sony, although with no documented pedigree, it’s likely these are par for the Sony course and come from digital transfers cut to vinyl. Still, EWF vinyl, once ubiquitous in the used bins, is getting scarcer these days, and out of this batch, 1973’s Open Our Eyes has not been repressed on vinyl in decades. The other two, 1975’s That’s the Weight of the World and 1979’s I Am, have seen a few reissues in recent years, including Impex and Speakers Corner reissues of Weight. Whether these new pressings will punch above their, uh, weight remains to be seen.
Hot Chip: The Warning; Made in the Dark; One Life Stand [Domino]
London electro band Hot Chip are celebrating 20 years of their breakthrough album The Warning by reissuing it along with their next two albums, 2008’s Made in the Dark and 2010’s One Life Stand. They merged the simultaneously surging trends of indie rock and synthpop during the blog-rock explosion of the ’00s, becoming figureheads of a particular brand of intellectual dance music that also worked brilliantly in the live setting. All three of these reissued albums are interchangeably good, but The Warning seems to capture a zeitgeist that went on to fuel the next decade-plus of musical trends, where indie rock was frequently disguised as club music and vice versa. The double albums all come with bonus objects (a 7-inch, a slipmat, or fabric patches) and feature new liner notes by Kate Hutchinson.
Ose: Adonia [Bureau B]
French music journalist Hervé Picart and Heldon guitarist Richard Pinhas came together as Ose and released a single album, an atlas of Picart’s synth landscapes called Adonia that also featured Heldon drummer François Auger. The 1978 album is an interesting counterpart to more familiar synth records of the era, such as those by Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, as there’s a compositional throughline that suggests these works could have functioned just as well in the 18th century as organ fugues, or in the 19th century as chamber-music pieces. And yet there’s that glorious ’70s prog/krautrock flavor to Adonia that will make it catnip for a certain kind of music listener. The trusted custodians at German label Bureau B are reissuing it on both black and clear vinyl, marking its first time on wax in nearly half a century.
Jazz Alley
It’s all Blue Note this week, with a brand-new vinyl series from the legendary jazz label taking up the bulk of the attention. Blue Note Essentials is actually not aimed at you, the discerning vinyl consumer, but rather is an effort to combat the deluge of gray-label pressings coming from overseas labels like Wax Time, who play fast and loose with their various countries’ copyright laws to manufacture cheap, unlicensed reissues of classic jazz albums. Blue Note’s new budget line, therefore, is aimed for casual vinyl buyers who might be suckered by these cheap pressings, and they’re competitively priced at around $20 a pop, although they’re sourced from digital files, rather than analog tape as is used for Blue Note’s Tone Poets and Classic Vinyl Series. I’m not sure how cutting from digital makes the end product cheaper—especially when all five of the titles chosen to launch the series already have AAA counterparts in either the Classic Vinyl Series or the Tone Poet series, which means analog-cut plates already exist and could be used for these pressings—but then again, I’m also not a world-renowned jazz label. The five inaugural titles for Blue Note Essentials very much live up to the “Essential” part of the name, being some of the label’s best-known and most crucial work: Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ Moanin’, Horace Silver’s Song for My Father, Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, and Chet Baker’s Chet Baker Sings. Unless you’re really short on cash, I’d advise skipping these new pressings and getting the first four in their Classic Vinyl Series cuts and the Baker album as a Tone Poet.
Speaking of Blue Note’s Classic Vinyl Series, that long-running line carries on this week with two new ones. Freddie Hubbard’s Goin’ Up dates from 1961 and features the trumpeter joined by Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones for an energetic hard-bop set. And Lee Morgan’s 1960 album Leeway also features Chambers, with Jackie McLean, Bobby Timmons, and Art Blakey rounding out the ensemble for a round of soul-infused bop performances that are happily heavy on the solos. As always, the Blue Note Classics are cut from tape by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal.
OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
(*star denotes inclusion in this week’s paid-subscriber playlist)
Alcazar: Alcazarized [Music on Vinyl]
Horace Andy: Agony [Clocktower]
A$AP Ferg: Trap Lord [Sony]
A$AP Rocky: Long. Live. A$AP; At. Long. Last. A$AP [Sony]
The Bangles: Different Light [Music on Vinyl]
Blue Eyed Soul: You Ain’t No Weight [Numero]
Bronski Beat: Peel Session and Radio Broadcast 84–85 [Outsider]
Bubble Puppy: Gathering of Promises [International Artists/Charly]
The Calling: Camino Palmero [Music on Vinyl]
Laura Cantrell: Humming by the Flowered Vine [Propeller Sound]
Paul Chambers: Chambers’ Music [Jazz Wax]
The Citadel: Dawns on Mental Highways [Subsound]
Mychael Danna & DeVotchKa: Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack [Phineas Atwood]
Wolfgang Dauner Quintet: The Oimels [MPS]
Guido & Maurizio de Angelis: Il Cacciatore di Squali [Beat]
DJ Shadow: The Mo’ Wax Singles 1993–1997 [PIAS]
Dope Lemon: Honey Bones [BMG]
Earthen Vessel: Hard Rock [Guerssen]
Embryo: Embryo’s Rache [Bonfire]
Envy: Insomniac Doze [Temporary Residence]
Everything Everything: Get to Heaven [Music on Vinyl]
The Forecast: Late Night Conversations [Parting Gift]
The J. Geils Band: “Live” Full House (retail) [Rhino High Fidelity]
Gun: Swagger [Cooking Vinyl]
Woody Guthrie: This Machine Kills Fascists [Cleopatra]
Hawthorne Heights: If Only You Were Lonely [Craft]
Head Automatica: Decadence [Omnivore Recordings]
Home Grown: Act Your Age [Parting Gift]
The Horrible Crowes: Elsie [SideOneDummy]
Antonio Infantino: Follie del Divino Spirito Santo [Black Sweat]
Irving: Dark Waters Stir [Kyrck]
Himiko Kikuchi: Woman [Teichiku]
King Tubby, Scientist, Bunny Tom Tom, Barnabas: Universal Dub [Solid Roots]
Eero Koivistoinen: Valtakunta [Svart]
Letter Kills: The Bridge [Parting Gift]
Yo-Yo Ma: Simply Baroque [Music on Vinyl]
Albert Mangelsdorff: Never Let It End [MPS]
Metal Church: The Dark [Music on Vinyl]
The Del McCoury Band: Del and the Boys [McCoury Music]
Elizabeth Mitchell: You Are My Little Bird [Smithsonian Folkways]
Los Mockers: Los Mockers; Rewind [Little Butterfly]
*Yoko Ono: Season of Glass [Secretly Canadian]
Oum Shatt: Oum Shatt [Wanda Y]
Penguin Café: The Red Book [Erased Tapes]
Dave Pike Set: Album [MPS]
Baden Powell: Poema on Guitar [MPS]
Ras Michael & The Songs of Negus: Rastafari in Dub [Charly]
*Reigning Sound: Time Bomb High School [Merge]
*Fritz Reiner/CSO: Prokofieff: Lieutenant Kije/Stravinsky: Song of the Nightingale [Acoustic Sounds RCA Living Stereo Series]
Bora Rokovic: Ultra Native [MPS]
Rose Tattoo: Scarred for Life; Southern Stars [Music on Vinyl]
Jimmy Scott: Doesn’t Love Mean More? [Modern Harmonic/Sundazed]
The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World (yellow smoke vinyl) [Light in the Attic]
Horace Silver: Silver’s Blue [Pan Am]
Small Faces: Decca Singles 1965–1967 (8x7-inch) [Nice]
Social Distortion: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell [Music on Vinyl]
The Soul Vendors: On Tour [Coxsone]
Sproton Layer: Press Your Hand and Feel the Whole Room Fluctuate [12XU]
The Stranglers: BBC Radio One Recordings 77–82 [Strangled]
Earl Sweatshirt: Doris [Sony]
Tanglewood: Rise and Shine [Solid Roots]
Thor: Recruits Wild in the Streets [Cleopatra]
Uncle Tupelo: Anodyne (retail) [Rhino High Fidelity]
Carlos Walker: A Frauta de Pã [Music on Vinyl]
*Earl Wild, Arthur Fiedler, Boston Pops: Gershwin: Concerto in F, Cuban Overture, I Got Rhythm Variations [Acoustic Sounds RCA Living Stereo Series]
*Xzibit: At the Speed of Life [Sony]
*Neil Young: Tonight’s the Night (single LP repress) [Reprise]
Frank Zappa: Zappatite: Frank Zappa’s Tastiest Tracks [UMe]
Sophie Zelmani: Sophie Zelmani [Music on Vinyl]
Attila Zoller, Hans Koller, Martial Solal: Zoller/Koller/Solal [MPS]
Various Artists: In Reggae Time [Cinedelic]
Various Artists: Sixties Japanese Garage/Psych Rarities Vol. 2 [Crown/Cosmic Rock]
Various Artists: Super Rappin’: Grandmaster Flash and the Roots of Rap [Charly]
