New Music Monthly: November & December 2019 releases

It's the end of the road for 2019, and record labels are emptying the vaults to try and grab their share of your Christmas cash. There's a wealth of vinyl reissues and pricey multi-disc box sets coming our way from artists like The Police, Queens of the Stone Age, Rick Wakeman, and Little Steven, among many others. If you've got the cash, there's plenty of great tunes to be had over the next six months! 

Release dates are subject to change and nobody tells me when they do. If you’re interesting in buying an album, just hit the ‘Buy!’ link to get it from Amazon.com...it’s just that damn easy! Your purchase puts valuable ‘store credit’ in the Reverend’s pocket that he’ll use to buy more music to write about in a never-ending loop of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy!

NOVEMBER 1
The Bar-Kays - Gotta Groove [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Booker T. & the M.G.'s - Melting Pot [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Cold War Kids - New Age Norms 1   BUY!
Delaney & Bonnie - Home [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Jeff Lynne's ELO - From Out of Nowhere   BUY!
Los Straitjackets - The Utterly Fantastic and Totally Unbelievable Sound of Los Straitjackets [CD & vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Los Straitjackets - ¡Viva! Los Straitjackets [CD & vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Nirvana - MTV Unplugged In NY [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
David Porter - Victim of the Joke? [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Simple Minds - 40: The Best of 1979-2019 [3-CD set]   BUY!
Johnnie Taylor - Who’s Making Love [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Uncle Walt's Band - An American In Texas   BUY!
Vetiver - Up On High   BUY!

NOVEMBER 8
Fats Domino - I've Been Around [12-CD box set]   BUY!
The Police - Ghost in the Machine [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Police - Reggatta de Blanc [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Police - Synchronicity [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta [vinyl reissue]   BUY!

NOVEMBER 15
The Band - The Band [50th anniversary edition]   BUY!
Julianna Hatfield - Julianna Hatfield Sings the Police   BUY!
The Pineapple Thief - Hold Our Fire [live]   BUY!
Various Artists - Send I A Lion [compilation w/the Mighty Diamonds, Gladiators, Wailing Souls & others]   BUY!

NOVEMBER 22
Leonard Cohen - Thanks For the Dance   BUY!
Junkyard - Old Habits Die Hard [unreleased 1992 LP]   BUY!
Harry Nilsson - Losst and Founnd   BUY!
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For the Deaf [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
The Who - Who   BUY!

NOVEMBER 29
Various Artists - Land of 1000 Dances: The Rampart Records Complete Singles Collection   BUY!

DECEMBER 2
Rick Wakeman - Box Of Boots: Official Bootleg Series [10-CD box set]

DECEMBER 6
Gentle Giant - Unburied Treasure [Limited edition 30-CD box set]   BUY!
John Hiatt - Only The Song Survives [15-disc vinyl box set]   BUY!
Lee "Scratch" Perry - Heavy Rain   BUY!
Little Steven Van Zandt - RockNRoll Rebel – The Early Work [11-disc CD/vinyl box set]

DECEMBER 20
Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies To Paralyze [vinyl reissue]   BUY!
Frank Zappa - The Hot Rats Sessions [deluxe 6-CD box set]   BUY!

Album of the Month: I dunno, it's really hard to choose from all the great archival material the labels are spitting out here in Q4, but if I had to choose, I'd go with Frank Zappa's The Hot Rats Sessions, a deluxe six-disc box set that provides the rabid Frank fanatic with everything they could want from the storied collection. Zappa's sophomore solo effort, from 1969, Hot Rats was the first album anywhere to be recorded on 16-track tape, and the Maestro used the expanded technology to his advantage. The set is said to include every song recorded during the sessions, as well as a "Zappa Land" board game. The Hot Rats Sessions includes 65 tracks, all but six of them previously unreleased.