Record Store Day Black Friday 2025 preview: Punk & post-punk
Our Black Friday preview continues with a look at all of the punk, new wave, and post-punk discs coming out on November 28. These are among the most anticipated releases on the roster, with historic performances by legendary bands, represses of all-time classic albums, and rare recordings unheard by even diehard fans. There’s also a couple pieces of real junk.
Later this week, we’ll have a look at all the quote-unquote “alternative” records from the ’90s and beyond, so if your preferred punk or punk-adjacent reissue doesn’t appear in today’s rundown, we’ll likely have it for you then. For now, we’re looking at all the Black Friday reissues of bands that were born out of the musical developments of the late 1970s and 1980s.
For the complete US list, take a look at the Record Store Day site here. If you missed our earlier Black Friday preview posts, you can feast your eyes upon them right here:
Ned Lannamann
Ned Lannamann
Ned Lannamann
Ned Lannamann
The B-52’s: Wild Planet picture disc [Rhino]
God bless them, but picture discs are the bane of this record collector’s existence. I’ve yet to hear one that doesn’t sound noisy as all get out, rendering the music on it to a muffled muddle. Naturally, though, this is the kind of limited-edition gewgaw that Record Store Day was built on, so we are once again forced to reckon with a few picture-disc releases on this year’s Black Friday list. Among them is this repressing of Wild Planet, the second album by Athens kitsch-pop delights the B-52’s. While not as immediately grabby as the group’s self-titled debut, it still has a lot of fantastic tunes to frug to, like “Private Idaho” and the hopped-up “Strobe Light.” RH
Bad Brains: Live at the Bayou [Time Traveler]
[We originally ran this one in our hard rock & metal roundup, but it also makes sense to repost it here.] Zev Feldman is generally known for his redoubtable work producing reissues of great jazz and blues performances, but as he continues to unveil his new imprint Time Traveler Recordings (which you can read all about in our feature on the label here), he’s expanding the scope of his efforts for RSD Black Friday with these recordings of punk dynamos Bad Brains performing live in their original home of Washington, DC, in 1980 and 1981. Considering how fearsome the band was as a live act and the quality control that Feldman adheres to with every release he puts his name on, this double-disc is likely going to sound like a goddamn thunderstorm. RH
The Dead Milkmen: Big Lizard in My Backyard [The Giving Groove]
The Dead Milkmen, the Philly band who dunked their pop-punk in a vat of puerile humor and ironic remove, are going all out for this 40th-anniversary reissue of their debut album Big Lizard in My Backyard. This RSD First release features a remastered version of the original album (on green wax) alongside a second disc (on yellow wax) of 10 alternate takes from the LP and a foldout insert of vintage photos, posters, and ephemera. All that and lenticular die-cut artwork too! It’s the kind of super-deluxe affair that the Milkmen probably would have made fun of in 1985. RH
Devo: “Merry Something to You” 12-inch [Rhino]
Just in time for the holiday season is this frivolous little Christmas jam from art-rock legends Devo. Originally available on a handful of Rhino comps over the years, the one-minute-and-19-second-long tune, co-written by Gerald Casale and former drummer Josh Freese, is getting a 12-inch picture disc release with an instrumental version, an “E-Z Listening” lounge take, and the song played in reverse. I don’t get it and I don’t want it and I guarantee this will be in the markdown bin of your local record shop by the next Record Store Day. RH
The English Beat: The Beat at the Beeb [Rhino]
Until 2018, any UK musical act worth anything eventually got the call to come to BBC’s Maida Vale Studios to record a live session that would then be broadcast on one of a number of radio programs. The Beat (aka the English Beat), the Birmingham pop group who arrived as part of a wave of artists that fused punk energy with the loping rhythms of ska and reggae and landed five UK top 10 singles, made the trek numerous times during their commercial heyday. The best of those—particularly the three sessions they did for John Peel’s influential Radio One show that ably harnessed the group’s buoyant energy and pop chops—are finally getting compiled for this RSD Black Friday release. RH
INXS: Live from Royal Albert Hall, 1986 [Rhino]
By the time INXS hit London’s Royal Albert Hall in the summer of 1986, the group had been keeping up a blistering pace of recording sessions and tours. Already stars in their native Australia, they finally broke through internationally earlier that year thanks to singles like “What You Need” and “This Time,” which helped kick their fifth studio album Listen Like Thieves onto the charts. So when they hit the stage for this performance, INXS was coiled and ready to strike. It’s a rip-roaring, airtight set during which the late Michael Hutchence claimed his place as one of the great frontmen in rock via his megawatt charm and killer pipes. Already released as part of a multi-disc CD release of Listen Like Thieves, the live recording is being broken out onto a single LP for Record Store Day Black Friday. RH
David Johansen and the Harry Smiths: David Johansen and the Harry Smiths [Chesky]
A chapter in the career of singer/songwriter David Johansen that often gets overlooked in his time in the late ’90s and early ’00s fronting a band called the Harry Smiths that exclusively performed music either from, or inspired by, the Anthology of American Folk Music. Joined by fellow downtown New York luminaries like drummer Joey Baron and bassist Kermit Driscoll, the group’s takes on tunes like “Well, I’ve Been to Memphis” and Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Don’t Get Me Talking” were rough, raw, and full of spirit. As a tribute to Johansen following his death this past February, Chesky is reissuing the group’s debut LP as a limited, numbered, one-step vinyl pressing. RH
Madness: Hit Parade [State 51 Conspiracy]
Much as I love Camden Town-bred ska-pop gaggle Madness, I question the necessity of this compilation, which attempts, in 15 songs, to give an overview of the band’s history from 1980 hit “Baggy Trousers” to 2008’s “NW5,” their last single to chart in the UK Top 30. It’s the kind of greatest hits repackage that artists like Beach Boys or Queen subject their fans to on a regular basis but rarely move the needle when it comes to their overall cultural influence. Will I probably end up buying it anyway? Sigh. Yeah…. RH
Larry Mullins & Mike Watt: We Will Fall [Org Music]
What’s better than 10 minutes of the Stooges’ “We Will Fall,” the droning mantra at the heart of the Detroit proto-punk band’s 1969 debut album? How about 40 minutes? Toby Dammit—that being one Larry Mullins, who drummed for Iggy Pop in the ’90s—and former Minuteman bassist Mike Watt have decided to fill up two entire sides of vinyl with their “trance-inducing” cover of the song, with Mullins on “shruti box, Moog electronics, tabla, and gongs” and Watt emitting all sorts of low-end hums and vibrations. Look... it wouldn’t be punk if everyone liked it, now, would it? NL
Ramones: Live at CBGB’s 1977 [Rhino]
Originally issued on CD as part of the deluxe 40th anniversary reissue of Ramones’ 1977 album Leave Home, this live recording finds the New York punk group in their natural habitat: on stage at CBGB’s, tearing through 19 of their tunes at a steady, unrelenting clip. That recording, even in its slightly buffed-up digital form, didn’t sound perfect to begin with, covered as it was in a layer of hissy sonic muck. I can’t imagine pressing it on red wax, as Rhino is doing for this year’s RSD Black Friday, is going to do the set any favors, but I’m going to find out for myself when I add this to my shopping basket in a couple of weeks. RH
Jonathan Richman: You Must Ask the Heart [Craft]
Craft Recordings have seen fit to reissue the odd Jonathan Richman album or two on vinyl in Record Store Days past, and this time around they have their sights trained on You Must Ask the Heart, giving the 1995 collection its first-ever vinyl release. Low-key and winsome as all get-out, this intimate record finds Richman in typical troubadour mode, pivoting to rockabilly for more uptempo songs like “Vampire Girl” and “The Heart of Saturday Night” and incorporating Latin elements into tracks like “Let Her Go into Darkness” and “Amorcito Corazon.” SNL’s Julia Sweeney takes the lead on “Just Because I’m Irish,” and Richman handles “Walter Johnson” a cappella. Craft says this one comes from “the original source tape” courtesy of a cut by Jeff Powell of Take Out Vinyl, and it’s served up on “candy-heart” pink wax. And the cover features a photo of Richman petting a cat. NL
The Stranglers: Rattus Norvegicus [Rhino]
The Stranglers were at the epicenter of the British punk explosion of 1976–77, but they immediately set themselves apart with their brilliant, stylistically sprawling debut album Rattus Norvegicus (sometimes referred to as IV due to the meaningless designation on the front cover). The Guildford band’s ungodly stew mixes together punk, new wave, blues, goth, pub rock, organ-led garage rock, and whatever on God’s green earth “Peaches” is, and with it the band instantly exploded the boundaries of punk, more or less inventing the concept of post-punk before punk had even cut the umbilical. Rattus Norvegicus was just reissued in the UK as part of National Album Day, pressed on green vinyl and bearing a brand-new cut by Henry Rudkins of AIR Studios, although it’s unclear what source he was able to use. This looks to be the same exact version, shipped across the pond for US customers in time for Black Friday. Considering this is one of the key texts of the Year That Punk Broke, and that out-of-print reissues command hefty used prices on their own, the chance to get Rattus Norvegicus on vinyl is not to be sniffed at. (The 7-inch that came with the initial 1977 copies is not included.) NL
Talking Heads: Tentative Decisions: Demos & Live [Rhino]
This full-length and 7-inch combo pack, on clear vinyl, includes the never-before-released earliest recordings of Talking Heads, or as they were initially known, the Artistics. With guitarist/vocalist David Byrne and drummer Chris Frantz playing on the very earliest tapes, and then with Tina Weymouth subsequently joining on bass, this batch of demos finds the New York-by-way-of-RISD band in its embryonic form, with a live track from the Ocean Club in August 1976 to round out the package. One has to wonder if any of these demos are the fabled CBS demos from 1975, which were officially released in 2010 in a limited edition of 500 for the Talking Heads fan club. But if that’s the case, they’re not all here, and a source at Rhino says that these recordings are “previously uncirculated.” Without any more concrete information, I have a good hunch that these’ll turn out to be altogether new discoveries. Exciting. NL
A-ha: “Take on Me” EP [Rhino]
What a clever bit of sequencing we have here. Instead of putting A-ha’s smash synthpop hit “Take on Me” onto a record and then surrounding it by a bunch of inferior songs no one cares about, this ingenious release instead features eight versions of “Take on Me” in a row. In addition to the famous 1985 version we all knew, loved, grew sick of, eventually developed an ironic appreciation for, briefly fell back in love with again due to reasons of genuine nostalgia, and then once again grew completely and utterly and permanently sick of, the other seven versions should thoroughly test any lingering affection from even the most devoted A-ha-head. There’s the 40th-anniversary extended version, the genuinely disorienting original single version from 1984, an instrumental version, a symphonic version from 2018, an acoustic version from 2017, an MTV Unplugged version from 2017 that is somehow different from the other acoustic version, and a 1991 live version. It comes on bright red vinyl, which you can attach to your body so that they can easily locate it after you plunge yourself into a ravine. NL
