It’s come to that that time of the year, where we look back and reflect on all the incredible music the year has brought us. And, with live touring on hold for most of this year – we’ve seen a veritable treasure trove of previously unreleased, unheard, and lost tunes unearthed from the archives, remastered and restored to give us a perfect snapshot of the past.
On that note, Rolling Stone have just published their 10 Best Reissues of 2020 that lists classic icons, Prince, Joni Mitchell and Tom Petty among the high-profile ranks. You can check it out here.
At the top of the list you’ll find Prince’s epic Sign O’ the Times: Deluxe Edition that arrived back in September this year. RS describes the album as “a kinetic tour de force of tightly wired pop, exploding bedroom funk, and soaring, redemptive climax.” The deluxe reissue is described as “Prince’s urgency in three CDs of unreleased studio treasures: diamonds and pearls by anyone else’s measure.” GET IT HERE.
Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967) also sits pretty close to the top, hailed as “a portrait of the young singer as a Joan Baez of the North, covering Woody Guthrie and the public-domain song bag.” Moving chronologically through the tracklisting reveals Mitchell “predicting the solitary grace and confessional fortitude of the singer-songwriter era” as she draws from her own songbook later in the decade. GET IT HERE.
A little further down the list, you’ll find Tom Petty’s extensive Wildflowers & All the Rest collection, described as a “songwriting tour de force: raw, varied, and hard-hitting, full of cathartic reckoning.” The reissue completes the 1994 LP which Petty originally intended to be a double album with a stack of unreleased bonus songs that “add dimension to its raw power.” GET IT HERE.
Check out the full list of Rolling Stone’s 10 Best Reissues of 2020, which also features classic icons like the Stooges, the Rolling Stones and more, here.
Listen to Tom Petty on Spotify:
Listen to Tom Petty on Apple Music:
