Eric Clapton‘s 1977 album Slowhand is being released as a super deluxe edition box set (and other formats) on 19 November to celebrate its 35th anniversary. The album includes of two of Clapton’s best known songs Wonderful Tonight, and the cover of J.J. Cale’s Cocaine. The Super Deluxe box set includes three previously unreleased session outtakes (four in total) and two CDs are devoted to presenting the complete 14-track performance of the Hammersmith Odeon concert on 27 April 1977. The record has been remastered from the original Olympic Studios 1/4″ flat analog master tapes and the session tracks and live performances are newly mixed from the original two-inch analogue tapes. This all sounds very promising from a sound perspective. Probably the most exciting aspect is the audio-only DVD that comes only with this super deluxe box. This disc offers the album in 5.1 surround sound (not hi-res) and a hi-res stereo version.
Forty-fifth anniversary box set release from The Velvet Underground & Nico featuring the latest remastering. Set consists of 6 discs includes 29 unreleased tracks in a 92-page hardcover book packaging with a sticker of banana. Japanese edition features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player). The set includes both stereo and mono versions of the album "The Velvet Underground & Nico" (Disc 1-2), as well as Nico's 1967 solo debut CD "Chelsea Girl" (Disc 3), a studio session at Scepter Studio recorded to acetate, and unreleased recording footage from rehearsal at Andy Warhol's Factory in January 1966 (Disc 4), and a live show from Columbus, Ohio (Disc 5-6).
Graced with cover art of a grotesque gorilla sporting the Stones' trademark leering lips, GRRR! doesn't quite have the classy veneer usually associated with a 50th anniversary collection. Frankly, that's a good sign for the Rolling Stones: they're celebrating their half-century together but refusing to take themselves too seriously, even when they're assembling a mammoth retrospective that's available in two wildly different incarnations…