The 31 best rock reissues and deluxe editions of 2025

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti [50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition] + Live EP (Rhino)

This new edition includes early mixes of the tracks, plus 1975 and 1979 live recordings. Released 50 years ago, Physical Graffiti isn’t part of the rock continuum. It didn’t especially pave the way for anything, but it isn’t a mere marker of its era. It hasn’t dated. It’s outside of the rock timeline, a gigantic, impermeable, orbital black achievement, which has intensified with age.

Foreigner - 4 (Rhino)

One of the mega releases of the 80s, 4 is absolutely deserving of the super-deluxe treatment, not having been reissued in a properly expanded format up until now. Produced by ‘Mutt’ Lange, this now remixed hit-studded classic is available in multiple formats, boasting a plethora of extras. Depending on which version your wallet will stretch to, you can have an Atmos mix, five previously unreleased songs, 14 alternative/early versions, 15 instrumentals and 15 live performances, with the five-disc CD/Blu-ray and digital versions containing the most bang for your buck.

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska ’82 [Expanded Edition] (Sony)

The story behind the making of Bruce Springsteen’s stark acoustic masterpiece is so compelling, and such a significant chapter in his career, it’s now the subject of a dramatised feature film, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. Now in full-bodied, five-disc form, this set includes unused songs from his home recordings, a skeletal demo of Pink Cadillac, everything from the 1982 solo studio sessions in which he attempted to recapture that intimate bedroom vibe, a remastered Nebraska, and an exclusive 2025 live performance - also available to watch on the bonus Blu-ray disc.

Status Quo - Live! (Edsel)

Classic live double repackaged in an eight-CD set with three full show recordings. It has been suggested that Status Quo tracks can sound a little, well, samey. Even Quo diehards might find largely the same set of songs performed four times in the same box set (two of which are literally identical) a little repetitive. Nonetheless, as a polished-up re-release of a classic live album, a careful remastering of these recordings from Glasgow Apollo in October 1976, it does a handsome job, heightening the best qualities of the original without smoothing off any essential rough edges. Must-read sleevenotes from Classic Rock’s Dave Ling.

Rush - R50 (UME/Mercury/Anthem)

Given that Rush began playing heavy blues rock that saw them pegged as Canada’s Led Zeppelin, it’s worth reflecting on how far they flew from that starting point. R50 does that. Ten of the 50 recordings are officially exclusive to R50. Each of the 19 studio albums, plus 2004’s Feedback covers EP, is represented. Other studio takes are three alternative mixes (of Working Man, The Trees and One Little Victory) plus both newly remastered sides of that long-lost first single – a cover of Not Fade Away backed with You Can’t Fight It. It’s a mindboggling ride.

Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms [40th Anniversary] (Mercury)

Revisiting their behemoth fifth album on this five-LP/three-CD reissue four decades on, its era-defining charms still exude the assured, enfolding warmth that first made it such a massive hit with estate agents testing the limits of their Mazdas on the M11. Key to the reissue’s appeal, however, is the inclusion of a two-hour 1985 live show from San Antonio, pure manna for a fan base denied any whiff of a reunion.

Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac 1975 To 1987 (Rhino)

For those few remaining souls who don’t own most of this already, here’s the five albums recorded by the mightiest Mac line-up in one handy box. There’s no new remastering and no extras apart from ‘crystal clear’ vinyl and a limited edition that includes Silver Springs, the B-side that should have been on Rumours. What you get is the soundtrack to the greatest rock’n’roll soap opera ever.

Peter Hammill - The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 71-86 (UMR)

An overdue 18-CD collection, presenting his first 14 albums, with fascinating extras including a 76-page Hammill-annotated book. Long-time fans will gorge on Fool’s Mate demos, five Peel sessions, live concert versions and a 1978 Kansas City set including Van der Graaf Generator’s A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers. While Bowie, Cave, Gabriel, Mark E Smith and Lydon acknowledged Hammill’s influence, the true impact of his fearless, hyper-prolific odyssey was never suitably bottled until this magnificent set.

Yes - Close To The Edge [Super Deluxe Edition] (Rhino)

Steven Wilson’s 2013 stereo mix was a revelation at the time, but now there is a brand new Wilsonian remix that breathes even more imaginative life into this timeless, cherished material. It’s accompanied by a full, instrumental version of the same remix, which provides a chance to explore its mesmerising, textural depths without Jon Anderson piping up every 30 seconds. A third disc of rarities includes new remasters of everything from 1972 standalone single America to a furious studio run-through of Siberian Khatru.

XTC - Drums And Wires [Dolby Atmos & Vinyl] (Ape House)

A new-wave landmark, XTC’s 1979 breakthrough Drums And Wires was first remixed by Steven Wilson in 2014, and that stereo version is now available on vinyl for the first time. But it’s the new Blu-ray disc of Dolby Atmos Immersive Audio that will have XTC audiophile completists salivating. Wilson’s mix lends more satisfying separation than social distancing during lockdown. The exhaustive Blu-ray edition also includes multiple extras as included on the 2014 version, plus reworkings of the track That Is The Way and B-side Officer Blue.

Pink Floyd - Pink Floyd At Pompeii MCMLXXII (Sony/Legacy Recordings)

Filmed and recorded live over several days in October 1971 in the ruins of Pompeii’s amphitheatre, with only the camera crew as the audience, these performances show a band in transition as they begin to find their identity following the enforced departure of Syd Barrett. With one foot in the band’s psychedelic past and the other pointing at the future, the updated and retitled Pink Floyd At Pompeii – MCMLXXII is a vital historical snapshot. Visually cleaned up, and remixed by Steven Wilson, it’s liberated from memories of scratchy sound and grainy visuals. Pink Floyd’s best live album.

Small Faces - Autumn Stone (Immediate/Nice)

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Immediate label, Small Faces drummer and sole surviving member Kenney Jones has overseen this expanded and remastered edition spread over six sides of ‘autumn stone and gold’-coloured vinyl (and a three-CD set), complete with previously unissued tracks and a sumptuous 68-page booklet. Spacious, bright, full and punchy, the new mono and stereo masters sound fantastic.

Dio - The Complete Albums 1983-1993 (UMR/Mercury)

At the time of Ronnie James Dio’s passing in 2010, an ongoing reunion with his Mob Rules-era Black Sabbath bandmates, as Heaven And Hell, brought a reappraisal of the singer’s Sabbath legacy. His work with Dio wouldn’t receive the same long-overdue re-evaluation during his lifetime. This round-up of the six studio albums and live mini-album released under the Dio banner (not remastered, but now on 140g vinyl) between 1983 and ’93 might redress the balance.

UFO - No Place To Run [Deluxe Edition] (Chrysalis)

This Paul Chapman-era classic has never sounded better. Recording with producer George Martin in Montserrat overran, forcing Way, Chapman, and vocalist Phil Mogg to fly from an already scheduled European tour to London every few nights for mixing. Chapman later said: “Our ears were knackered”, and he felt that subsequent remasters improved Martin’s original mix. This newly remastered edition heightens the effect, outstripping its 2009 predecessor with a more focused balance of frequencies, adding clarity to Mogg’s passionate vocals and Chapman’s white-hot guitar solos.

Lindsey Buckingham And Stevie Nicks - Buckingham Nicks (Rhino)

Long deleted and widely bootlegged, Buckingham Nicks is finally restored to its rightful place in the Mac story. Pretty much everything here could have slotted onto the more famous records that followed, but it’s Frozen Love that’s the real prize. A distant precursor to Mac’s The Chain, it has the voices dancing around each other, and Buckingham’s acoustic break gives way to an orchestral swell and stinging electrics. A superb album rescued from the dustbin of history at last.

Queen - Queen I [Dolby Atmos Blu-Ray] (Universal)

For audiophiles who like every surface spick and span, this immersive Dolby Atmos release pans the parts around the room individually, drawing attention to the intense, unique layering of voices and instruments – and use of space – that Queen and producer Roy Thomas Baker crafted. That post-pause guitar re-entry on Liar at 5.39? Phwooar. But an album either has it or doesn’t, and Queen 1 has it. Play it on even a crappy old cassette deck today and it’d knock out the neighbours. It’s one of the most cocky, action-packed albums of its era.

Metallica - Load [Deluxe Box Set] (UMC/Mercury)

Subtitled ‘The Whole Kitchen Sink’, this package doesn’t exactly scrimp. Its 301 remastered tracks, 245 of which are previously unreleased, are spread across 15 CDs and six 180g vinyls, along with four DVDs of live shows, rough mixes, demos and all the other stuff that serious ’Tallica collectors have come to expect of the band’s gold-standard backcatalogue boxes. There’s a picture disc, laminates, picks, posters, prints, a pack of 14 Rorschach Test cards, and a 128-page hardcover book with lashings of exclusive content, both editorial and pictorial.

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway [50th Anniversary] (Rhino)

What we said: “While it might be pushing it to claim The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was a ‘weirdly prescient precursor of punk’, as Alexis Petridis suggests in the sleeve notes, there is no doubt as to its influence or longevity. This edition comes in multiple formats – five LPs/Blu-ray audio, four CDs/Blu-ray audio, digital – and includes The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway live at the Shrine Auditorium in LA from January 1975, plus a handful of previously unreleased demos from the Headley Grange sessions.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Bold As Love: The Axis: Bold As Love Sessions (Legacy)

Axis: Bold As Love marked Jimi coming of age in the studio, embracing technology with the micro-perfectionism that drove away producer Chas Chandler. This bells-’n’-whistles upgrade includes mono and stereo versions plus 40 bonus out-takes, alternative versions and TV and radio appearances. Considering the hours of outtakes in circulation, it’s a random tip of the iceberg, including Mr Bad Luck (aka Look Over Yonder), untitled instrumentals, Castles’ backwards-guitar track, and energised demos of Little Miss Lover and Ain’t No Telling that highlight drummer Mitch Mitchell’s polyrhythmic jazz genius.

Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Volume 18: Through The Open Window 1956-1963 (Columbia)

The Bootleg Series, which began back in 1991, has been a rich and often revelatory treasure trove of Dylan rarities, but the latest edition is particularly fascinating. It’s a time capsule, in which we follow Robert Zimmerman from his Minnesota origins as a teenage rock’n’roller all the way to the Greenwich Village folk scene, the March on Washington and eventually a watershed concert at Carnegie Hall. A vivid chronicle of his rapid ascent and growth as an artist, it captures the thrill of a young man finding his voice while making an indelible mark on history.

Motörhead - The Manticore Tapes (BMG)

A lovingly restored recording of the first full-length session the legendary Three Amigos ’Head line-up – Lemmy, ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke, Phil ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor – made, recorded in August 1976. It comprises 11 previously unheard takes on songs, some of which later surfaced on 1977’s Motörhead and 1979’s semi-official release On Parole, and is as raw as fuck, and as brutal, high-velocity, downright mean and no-nonsense hard-rockin’ as you’d expect.

Deep Purple - Made In Japan [50th Anniversary Super Deluxe] (UMR)

Purple’s very best is now better than ever, a five-CD set (plus Blu-ray). CD 1 has a Steven Wilson Dolby Atmos remix of the original 77-minute album, CDs 2 to 4 the three seven-song sets in performance order, and on CD 5 all six encore performances for the first time – Black Night at all three shows, two versions of Speed King and one of Lucille. The 10-disc vinyl version includes the same, with each gig including encores, sequenced across five sides. Incredibly, Wilson has revealed subtleties hidden for more than 50 years. No edits, no overdubs, just the real deal.

David Bowie - I Can’t Give Everything Away 2002-2016 (Parlophone)

Offering a choice of either 13 CDs or 18 vinyls (each with hefty hardback book), the set comprises four remastered studio albums – Heathen, Reality, The Next Day, Blackstar – a stunning unreleased 31-track set from the ’02 Montreux Jazz Festival, a resequenced remaster of the A Reality Tour live album (Dublin ’03), The Next Day Extra EP, the Lazarus stage musical-focused No Plan EP and – the gold for fans still deep-pocketed enough to remain completists – a 41-track Re:call segment corralling non-album alternatives, B-sides and soundtrack work.

Bruce Springsteen - Tracks II: Lost Albums (Sony)

Putting the flawless first 14 years of Springsteen’s recorded output to one side, there’s been a marked inconsistency since 1987’s Tunnel Of Love. But rumours of lost work abounded, especially from his unusually sparse 90s. This staggering collection of seven albums recorded – and in some cases very nearly released – between 1983 and 2018 fills in the blanks and makes you wonder why lesser records were released instead. A breathtaking gift that Springsteen acolytes will cherish.

Iron Maiden - Live After Death [40th Anniversary double vinyl] (Parlophone)

Famously, Live After Death was recorded on the gruelling World Slavery tour (189 shows in 331 days) that left the whole band physically and mentally shattered. And no wonder, when every night they left nothing in the dressing room. The performances are heroic, and pretty much every track is a genuine heavy metal classic, from hit singles Run To The Hills and 2 Minutes To Midnight to deep cuts Wrathchild and Children Of The Damned. This 40th-anniversary vinyl edition includes a replica tour programme and new band interviews in a booklet titled Rime & Punishment. If you know, you know.

Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All [50Th Anniversary Edition] (Zappa/UME)

Zappa landmark album reissued with extra bells, whistles, kitchen sink etc. A rough mix of Sofa No. 2 is one of this reissue’s 58 tracks (the original album was nine songs long), although when Zappa says ‘rough mix’ it can sometimes sound as complete as a Jim Steinman edit. This is the kind of treasure trove that’ll make a Zappa fan fall on it like a vulture on a dead body. It includes a complete, previously unreleased show from Rotterdam from autumn 1974, with the Mothers in thunderingly good form.

Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes - Live At The Greek [25th Anniversary Edition] (The Orchard)

The pairing of Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes still appears incongruous, although the results contained here prove it to be an ideal match. As displayed by the restoration of In The Light and Hots On For Nowhere, the contributions of guitarists Rich Robinson and Audley Freed flesh out the material in a way that would have been impossible in the 70s. Likewise, Page serves the Black Crowes’ songs well as he embellishes Remedy and She Talks To Angels with an empathetic yet emphatic lightness of touch.

Elton John - Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy [50th Anniversary Edition] (UMR)

The comparisons to The Beatles and Sgt.Pepper’s were understandable. Arguably, Elton’s team had delivered the more coherent story. The music was modest, vulnerable and autobiographical. Elton and lyricist Bernie Taupin took us from London pubs to a superstar trail that would sell out Dodger Stadium in LA. The album had a bankable hit with Someone Saved My Life Tonight, an escape from wedding bells that hinted at the singer’s fraught sexuality. Few of the other tracks were catchy by design, but that was the point. The record was made to reward close listening.

The Rolling Stones - Black And Blue (Polydor)

Black And Blue wasn’t universally loved at the time, and the band’s new line-up found a better expression on the Some Girls album a couple of years later. But the step-change after Mick Taylor’s exit gave the Stones some respite from havoc. Keith had checked into rehab in 1975, a condition for his US tour visa, while Ronnie Wood’s presence on stage became a reminder that the Stones could actually be a gas. Expanded versions of this reissue include loose workouts with Jeff Beck, who entertained himself on the Meters-like funk of Rotterdam Jam. There are live recordings from the Pavillion de Paris in 1976, plus a keepsake of the Stones’ Earls Court shows the same year, when a million fans made postal applications for tickets and the homecoming was sufficiently raucous.

Faces - Early Steps (Rhino)

What we said: “The major surprise on this miraculous document is the previously undocumented tracks recorded at Olympic Studios. From Rod’s searing vocal entry on Shake, Shudder And Shiver sending chills, these rough mixes are a revelation, capturing Faces finding their feet, groove and repertoire. Shake, Flying and sepulchral blues ballad Devotion show the group already hitting the glorious stride that would place them among the early 70s’ most exciting live bands; skintight rhythm section, Mac’s whirling organ, and Woody’s jagged slide now lathered with Rod’s raw-throated blues holler, erupting with an energy diluted on First Step by period stereo effects. Priceless, and more to come.

Patti Smith - Horses [50th Anniversary] (Legacy)

It’s been called the first art-punk album - faint praise for a work that redefined what rock could be. Smith wasn’t just breaking rules, she was inventing new ones. Fifty years on, the album still blindsides with its passion and heat, its endless sense of possibility and its fearlessness. This 50th anniversary edition includes eight previously unreleased tracks, RCA demos, and a rather surprising cover of Smokey Robinson’s The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game.