New vinyl reissues: October 2, 2026

Hello, friends. I can’t wait to tell you about all of the most interesting new vinyl reissues—there’s a lot to get to this week—but first things first. You may have noticed that there’s a Beatles record in the mix, and I’ve got a comprehensive review of the 5-LP deluxe edition on the site that I hope you’ll check out, if you haven’t read it already. Some are calling the piece “a solid overview of what’s in the new Beatles box,” and “an indulgently lengthy but generally helpful guide to the latest reissue,” and “the Moby-Dick of Rubber Soul reviews.”

Also on the self-promotion front, I will once again be appearing on Steve Westman’s Live Audiophile Roundtable this Saturday morning at 11:15 am Eastern, 8:15 am Pacific. (I suspect we’ll mention the Beatles.) You’ll be able to watch the livestream over on YouTube, but if you miss the discussion as it’s happening, you can catch up and watch it at that link any time afterward. Be sure to subscribe to Steve’s YouTube channel if you haven’t already, and sign up for his newsletter by emailing liveaudiophileroundtable@gmail.com.

I usually kick things off with a look at the latest reissue announcements, so let’s quickly go through those. Talking Heads have a 6-LP deluxe set coming on November 13 for their 1979 album Fear of Music, which includes classics like “Life During Wartime,” “Heaven,” and “I Zimbra,” and the set comes with two complete live shows from ’79 as well as a one-sided rarities and outtakes disc. R.E.M. are marking the 25th anniversary of their 2001 album Reveal with a neon-orange pressing of the album as well as a double live album recorded in Paris in 2001 called The Black Sessions Revealed; both ship out November 20. Meanwhile, the Flaming Lips’ have a 6-LP box planned for their 2006 album At War with the Mystics (due out November 13); Ween have a double-vinyl distillation of their 14-CD box set Boognish Provides (October 16); and Bob Weir’s 2016 album Blue Mountain is coming back to vinyl (October 16).

Here’s the new playlist, which is more than just a collection of catchy tunes. This week’s batch will take you through almost every genre under the sun, spotlighting all the vinyl reissues I discuss below and then some. However, it’s only for paid subscribers, so if you’d like to become one of those, please tap this button.

Your paid subscription gets you access to every darn thing that’s on this site. (Free subscribers get the previous six months of articles, while non-subscribers can only read the past three months). Plus, you will be eligible for our monthly vinyl giveaways—yes, you can win free vinyl by signing up!—and you get to support The Vinyl Cut, a scrappy little newsletter that covers vinyl reissues far more comprehensively and informatively than such trifling publications as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Ranger Rick. I’ll just say it: Their vinyl coverage sucks. Also, paid subscribers get to comment on each and every article. Think my jokes are terrible? Don’t like my incessant use of words like “soundstage” and “all-analog”? Sign up for a paid subscription and tell me so!

Now with all of the business out of the way, let’s dive into some records.

The Beatles: Rubber Soul [Apple/Capitol/UMe]

It’s one of the most wonderful times of the year—the new Beatles reissue has arrived! (For those of you who don’t like the Beatles, what are you doing reading this? Surely there’s a playground nearby with some children who need glowering at.) The all-consuming campaign this time is for 1965’s Rubber Soul, an album that marked major step forward artistically for the Fab Four, and one that embodied their interests in folk-rock, soul, Indian music, and even a little country and western. Giles Martin has remixed the album in full, and there are session tracks and demos to be heard as well. The big box is five LPs with a bonus 7-inch, while a 2-LP version is also available (including the remixed album and some early takes), or you can just get the remixed album all by its lonesome. Click here to read my in-depth review of the super deluxe box set, which contains the remixed album, two discs of sessions and demos, the original UK mono mix, and a replica of the original US Capitol stereo pressing. It’s fab, to say the least. 

Minnie Riperton: Come to My Garden [Capitol]

2026 has proved to be something of a revival year for the Chicago-based arranger and producer Charles Stepney, who died 50 years ago in May. First, Ace Records released the terrific Eternal Journey: The Arrangements and Productions of Charles Stepney compilation, highlighting his work with Rotary Connection, Ramsey Lewis, the Dells, and others. Questlove’s Earth, Wind & Fire documentary on HBO followed, showcasing Stepney’s invaluable orchestral contributions to that band. Then we got Slow Down Sounds’ excellent reissue of Terry Callier’s 1972 album Occasional Rain album (read my review here), plus the announcement from Fontana’s Thousand Club of an upcoming—and already sold-out—analog cut of Marlena Shaw’s 1969 soul-jazz classic The Spice of Life, both of which featured Stepney’s gorgeous production. And now Capitol is reissuing one of Stepney’s greatest production efforts: Minnie Riperton’s 1970 solo debut Come to My Garden, a psychedelic, symphonic soul record that the elastic-voiced Riperton made in between her time with Rotary Connection and her giant 1974 hit “Lovin’ You.” Come to My Garden’s opening track, “Les Fleurs,” has been appropriated by advertising campaigns and film/TV soundtrack supervisors countless times in recent years, but it still packs a mighty wallop—one of the most staggering bits of pop music ever recorded. This new edition was cut by Levi Seitz at Black Belt Mastering and comes on splatter vinyl.

Rush: A Farewell to Kings [Mobile Fidelity]

Mobile Fidelity’s Rush reissue campaign continues with the first UltraDisc One-Step pressing in the series thus far. 1977’s A Farewell to Kings featured bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee playing the Minimoog to a greater degree, a signal of the synthier direction the band would take in the coming years on albums like, well, Signals. But Kings also has one foot firmly planted in glorious prog excess, with epics like “Xanadu” and “Cygnus X-1 Book 1: The Voyage” (weird, a bully just came out of nowhere and gave me a wedgie after I typed that) extending past the 10-minute mark, as well as the band’s most pop-friendly material to date with “Cinderella Man” and the FM radio classic “Closer to the Heart.” The MoFi one-step is limited to 5000 numbered copies and comes inside a slipcase. As it turns out, it’s a big week for Rush vinyl: Their 2003 compilation The Spirit of Radio: Greatest Hits 1974–1987 is coming to vinyl for the first time; the double LP efficiently collects the Canadian power trio’s best-known moments without any truly egregious omissions. And 2112 is getting a liquid-vinyl pressing, which, I’ll just say it, is a dumb way to spend your money—so if you’re tempted by it, please consider a paid subscription to The Vinyl Cut instead. Your money will go to much better use, and I promise to never eventually crack open and leak mysterious fluid all over your precious record collection.

Rhino Rocktober

New vinyl reissues from Rhino Records’ annual Rocktober campaign will be landing in record stores all month long, and the first three titles arrive this Friday. They include colored-vinyl represses of INXS’s first two albums, 1980’s INXS and 1981’s Underneath the Sea, which found the Australian band dabbling in new-wave sounds a few years before their international breakthrough. The other Rocktober title is a picture disc for Type O Negative’s 1996 album October Rust, which saw the Brooklyn goth-metal band branching out from the doomier sound of their earlier albums into a more commercial milieu. Rhino Rocktober is a brick-and-mortar initiative, so you will need to traipse down to the local record store to pick these up (or find one that’s selling them online, as they’re not on Rhino’s site).

Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True [UMe]

Elvis Costello didn’t like the sounds of a 50th-anniversary reissue, so he’s doing a 49th-anniversary one instead. (You can’t outrun Father Time, Mr. MacManus.) Costello’s 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, is getting a 5-CD box set with demos, outtakes, live tracks, interviews, and more. The vinyl component is merely a straight 1-LP reissue of the album itself, but this new pressing is cut from analog tape, and it follows the American edition, with “Watching the Detectives” (a UK non-album single) added to the tracklist. My Aim Is True was Costello’s big, bold introductory statement to the world, containing wiry pop, punk, ska, and balladry (“Alison”) as well as a permeating pub-rock influence from Brinsley Schwarz, Costello’s favorite band as a teen and whose bassist/songwriter, Nick Lowe, produced My Aim Is True. Costello would go on to dabble in almost every kind of music under the sun but remains best known for the nervy, literate power-pop that he would perfect with his backing band the Attractions on future records. No word on who made this new analog cut or where it was pressed, but it should sound great, as it’s sourced from the 1977 master tapes.  

Caravan: For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night [Fontana Thousand Club]

Fontana’s quirky little reissue series continues with its latest entry, an all-analog pressing of Caravan’s 1973 album For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night. The album documents an evolving lineup for Caravan, with new violist Geoff Richardson imparting a new sound to the Canterbury band. Their mixture of Pythonesque humor, sneaky melodies, and dizzying jazz-prog is still in full effect, though, and tracks like “Memory Lain, Hugh/Headloss” and the “L’Auberge du Sanglier” suite showcase Caravan’s adept skill at musical derring-do. This analog pressing was cut by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road and is limited to 1000 copies.

Antônio Carlos Jobim: Urubu [Elemental]

Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim was more or less responsible for the bossa nova explosion that took over the world in the early 1960s, with his song “The Girl from Ipanema” becoming the quintessential song of the genre. But he was much more than romantic beachside melodies and dusky, moonlit rhythms. In 1976, Jobim released the brilliant Urubu, a far darker and more experimental work that fused jazz, classical, and Brazilian music—including deconstructed versions of his trademark bossa nova—resulting in an eerily gorgeous record that’s like nothing else out there. With orchestrations by Claus Ogerman and Jobim’s masterful songwriting at its core, Urubu is one of the most fascinating and overlooked albums of the 1970s, suggesting a fusion of European classical, American jazz, and Brazilian styles and instrumentation that could’ve been the next potential evolution in western musical thought but never quite managed to penetrate the masses. For their part, Spanish label Elemental is reissuing this hidden gem, which deserves to be back on vinyl and on your record player.

Steve Reich: Drumming; Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ; Six Pianos [Deutsche Grammophon Original Source]; Recordings on ECM [ECM]

Minimalist composer Steve Reich turns 90 on Saturday, October 3, and two new multi-disc sets are commemorating his pioneering work, using extensive repetition and canon and round forms to create glacially shifting harmonic phrases beneath his piece’s rapid-patter tones. Deutsche Grammophon is releasing the 1974 triple album Drumming (the title piece extends across four sides, with the third LP containing two additional pieces). The discs were cut at Emil Berliner Studios from the original analog multitrack tapes and are part of DG’s Original Source analog vinyl series. Meanwhile, ECM is also releasing a Reich triple-LP set. Recordings on ECM collects work Reich recorded for the German label, including Music for 18 Musicians (1978), Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase (1980), and Tehillim (1982). ECM says they were sourced from the original analog masters, but there was likely with a digital step before cutting the lacquer.

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris: Trio & Ramones: Ramones [Acoustic Sounds 40]

Acoustic Sounds’ 40th anniversary series continues with two wildly different titles. In 1987, close pals Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris finally made good on their longstanding plan to record together; the result was Trio, a pleasingly stripped-down, prairie-swept effort that put the focus on the three women’s voices rather than burying them in overbearing Nashville production. Still, digital pianos and chorus’ed bass betray the recording’s era. The other album is the Ramones’ 1976 self-titled debut album, a perfect (and timeless) chonk of hard-driving New York punk rock by the group that basically invented the genre. These are both audiophile editions, cut from tape (by Matthew Lutthans, I assume, but the Acoustic Sounds website doesn’t explicitly say) and pressed by QRP at 45 RPM. That makes sense for Trio, sure, but getting up to flip Ramones every seven minutes sounds like an exercise in frustration.

Jazz Alley

The month’s two new Blue Note Tone Poets are Freddie Hubbard’s 1961 hard bop set Hub Cap, featuring drummer Philly Joe Jones, trombonist Julian Priester, and tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath alongside Hubbard on trumpet; and Booker Ervin’s Structurally Sound, an album originally released on the Pacific Jazz label in 1966 on which the tenor saxophonist is joined by Charles Tolliver on trumpet, John Hicks on piano, Red Mitchell on bass, and Lenny McBrowne on drums. Both were cut from analog tape by Kevin Gray and pressed at RTI. Meanwhile, the British label Jazzman has compiled an intriguing-sounding set, Spiritual Jazz: West Coast USA, focusing on the evolution of spiritually minded jazz in California from the 1950s through the 1980s, with tracks from Pharoah Sanders, Harold Land, Charles Lloyd, and others. The survey is split into two double-LP sets: Part 1: 50s & 60s and Part 2: 70s & 80s. Lastly, Rhino’s 6-LP John Coltrane overview, 100: Selections from 1951–1967, includes tracks from the Warner catalog as well as important work licensed from the Columbia (including his collaborations with Miles Davis) and Impulse! labels. A 2-LP abridged version is also available.

OTHER REISSUES OF NOTE:
(*star denotes inclusion in this week’s paid-subscriber playlist)

American Hi-Fi: American Hi-Fi; The Art of Losing; Rock n’ Roll Noodle Shop: Live from Tokyo [Island]
The Animals: The Animals [Parlophone]
Travis Barker: Give the Drummer Some [Interscope Vinyl Collective]
Tony Bennett: A Swingin’ Christmas Featuring the Count Basie Big Band [Sony]
Tab Benoit: Blues Masters Live [APO]
*Mike Bloomfield: Dark Road Blues: Santa Cruz 1981 [Liberation Hall]
Tamar Braxton: Winter Loversland [Sony]
Chris Brown: Chris Brown [Sony]
The Cadets: Exile in Marginalia Vol 4 [Bar/None]
Carnage: Dark Recollections [Earache]
*The Chicks: Taking the Long Way [Sony]
City of the Sun: To the Sun and All the Cities in Between [Chesky]
*Clannad: Magical Ring [BMG]
Paula Cole: Sonic Memoir, Vol. 1 & II: Demos 1989–1998 [675]
Perry Como: Christmas Essentials [Sony]
*The Cyrkle: The Minx soundtrack [Sundazed]
Danzig: III: How the Gods Kill; 4 [American Recordings/RSD Essentials]
Darkthrone: The Cult Is Alive [Peaceville]
*Dexys Midnight Runners: Searching for the Young Soul Rebels [Parlophone]
*The Doobie Brothers: Stampede [Mobile Fidelity]
Earth, Wind & Fire: Holiday [Sony]
Danny Elfman: Mission: Impossible soundtrack [Decca]
Europe: Out of This World [Music on Vinyl]
“The Fall”: Post Script [Cog Sinister]
Freedom North: Freedom North [Lion Productions]
Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto: Live at the Berlin Jazz Festival 1966 [The Lost Tapes]
Ghost: Opus Eponymous [Rise Above]
Goo Goo Dolls: Dizzy Up the Girl [Warner]
Gruppo Sportivo: Vinyl3! Selected Songs 1992–2026 [Music on Vinyl]
Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving [Lee Mendelson]
The Impressions: The Young Mods’ Forgotten Story [Elemental]
Joe Kraemer: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation soundtrack [Mutant]
Korpus Kristi: Stadt der Blauen Eier: Selected Recordings and Rarities 1980–1981 [Tapete]
*Héctor Lavoe: ¡Que Sentimiento! [Craft/Fania]
Teodros Makonnen: With His Organ [Mr Bong/Muzikawi]
Barry Manilow: Christmas Essentials [Sony]
Freddie McGregor: FM [Soul Jazz]
Luis Miguel: Navidades [Warner Music Latina]
Mac Miller: The Divine Feminine [Warner]
Charles Mingus: Mingus Ah Uhm [AudioNautes]
Mo: Bikini Daze [Music on Vinyl]
*Mott the Hoople: All the Young Dudes [Music on Vinyl]
N-Joi: Live in Manchester [Musique Pour la Danse]
New Found Glory: Sticks and Stones [Geffen]
Camille O’Grady: Terminal Fascination [Dark Entries]
Pepper: Give’n It [Law]
The Pineapple Thief: Magnolia [Kscope]
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium [Warner]
Kauko Röyhkä & Riku Mattila: Kaksi Lensi Tuulen Mukaan [Svart]
Todd Rundgren: White Knight [Cleopatra]
*Oumou Sangare: Moussolou [World Circuit]
*Donna Summer: The Casablanca Studio Albums [Driven by Music]
*This Heat: Health and Efficiency EP [Superior Viaduct/This Heat]
*Unwound: Leaves Turn Inside You [Numero]
*Tom Waits: Small Change [Anti-]
Tony Joe White: Blues Masters Live [APO]
Tony Joe White: The Heroines [Music on Vinyl]
Widespread Panic: Space Wrangler; Widespread Panic; Everyday; Ain’t Life Grand [Widespread]
Andy Williams: Christmas Essentials [Sony Legacy]
*Betty Wright: Live [Music on Vinyl]
Hans Zimmer: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest soundtrack [Walt Disney]
Zu & Spaceways Inc.: Radiale [Subsound]
Various Artists: Classic Christmas [Sony Legacy]
Various Artists: Country Christmas [Sony Legacy]
Various Artists: Gold Soundz: A Jazz Tribute to Pavement [Sundazed]
Various Artists: Miami Sound Vol. 2: More Funk & Soul from Miami, Florida 1967–1974 [Soul Jazz]
Various Artists: Tropicalia ou Panis et Circencis [Opinião]