Bruce Springsteen and Greenday have announced special releases for Record Store Day.
Springsteen's contribution to the music-retail event will be 'American Beauty', a 12" vinyl EP featuring four unreleased songs. Three of the tracks — 'American Beauty', 'Mary Mary' and 'Hey Blue Eyes' — were recorded during the 'High Hopes' sessions and discarded; the origin of the fourth song, 'Hurry Up Sundown', is unknown.
The fact that three of the EP's tracks were discarded from the 'High Hopes' LP doesn't mean the EP won't be worth listening to — Springsteen is not a particularly great editor, as anyone who's heard 'Tracks' or 'The Promise', his previous compilations of 'left over' songs, will attest to.
Green Day, frequent contributors to Record Store Day, plan on putting out 18 demos this year (including a previously unreleased track). According to a Facebook post by the band, the tracks are from the sessions that resulted in 2012's 'Uno', 'Dos' and 'Tre'. The demos will be made available on coloured vinyl, CD and cassette.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, as far as Record Store Day is concerned — according to this list compiled by Exclaim, there'll also be exclusive releases from Damon Albarn, Lily Allen, Black Angels, David Bowie, Charles Bradley, Danny Brown, Jake Bugg, Built To Spill, Chromeo, Clutch, Sam Cooke, Alice Cooper, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cults, Death Cab For Cutie, Deep Purple, Deerhoof, Devo, Dinosaur Jr, The Doors, Dresden Dolls, Elastica, Elbow, Everly Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Fucked Up, Garbage, Grateful Dead, Richard Hawley, Husker Du, Ice-T, Joy Division, LCD Soundsystem, Mastodon, Nirvana, Notorious BIG, Thee Oh Sees and literally dozens more, though it's unclear how many of those releases will find their way to Australia.
Record Store Day 2014 is Saturday April 19.
