Top 20 Reissues of 2025

🎉 ⛄️ Happy Holidays !!!

2025 delivered another strong year for reissues, with labels digging deep into their vaults and presenting both familiar classics and welcome discoveries in expanded editions. From spiritual jazz and punk bootlegs to prog rock deluxe sets and early Dylan rarities, this year’s releases offered something for just about every serious listener.

Whether you’re after pristine remasters, previously unreleased material, or just a chance to revisit essential albums in their best possible form, these are the reissues worth your attention. What were some of your favorites this year?

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1. Alice Coltrane – The Carnegie Hall Concert (Impulse)

This previously unreleased live recording from February 21, 1971, features a spiritual jazz supergroup, including Pharoah Sanders, Cecil McBee, Jimmy Garrison, and Archie Shepp. This is best heard on vinyl.

2. The Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah (Rhino)

The landmark 1975 album, Blues For Allah, the Grateful Dead’s 8th studio release, is celebrated with a 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. This expanded set features a newly remastered version of the original record, along with a wealth of previously unreleased soundcheck and rehearsal tracks and live performances from 1975-76.

3. Kenny Dorham - Blue Bossa In The Bronx: Live from the Blue Morocco (Resonance)

This rare archival recording from the Blue Morocco Jazz Club in The Bronx, NY, in 1967 captures the hard-swinging trumpeter leading a quintet, including tenor saxophonist Sonny Red and bassist Paul Chambers.

4. Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food (Rhino/Warner)

The expanded super deluxe edition of the band’s second album includes a 2025 remaster of the original, studio outtakes, and a live recording from July 1978. The album was the first of three produced by Brian Eno.

5. Charles Tolliver & Stanley Cowell - Music Inc. (Strata East)

As the debut release for the Strata-East label, this 1970 album is a masterclass in large-ensemble post-bop jazz.

6. Sun Ra - Uncharted Passages (Sundazed Music)

This collection gathers Sun Ra’s unique and often pensive solo piano performances recorded in New York between 1977 and 1979. I love listening to this record late at night. Thanks to WFMU for turning me on to this record!

7. Pink Floyd - at Pompeii - MCMLXXII (Columbia)

The remastered album release accompanies a newly restored, full 85-minute cut of the iconic 1972 film, which features the band performing inside the ancient amphitheater without an audience. The original premiere took place at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Also available on Blu-ray and Dolby Atmos.

8. Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love (Legacy Recordings/Sony)

This deluxe set features new stereo and mono remasters, plus a new Dolby Atmos mix, alongside 27 previously unreleased studio and live recordings from 1967. It comes with a 36-page booklet, filled with rare photos, liner notes, and insights.

9. Miles Davis - 55 (Prestige/Craft)

Nicknamed the “First Great Quintet” and comprised of tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones, with Milt Jackson, Ray Bryant, and Oscar Pettiford. This 2-CD set, subtitled The Prestige Recordings, documents the pivotal year Miles Davis formed his first great quintet.

10. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Strasbourg 82 (Gearbox)

This previously unreleased 1982 live recording captures the legendary Art Blakey with a Jazz Messengers lineup that included Terence Blanchard and Donald Harrison. Recorded in April 1982 in Strasbourg, France. This record sounds so damn good!

11. Hüsker Dü - The Miracle Year (Numero Group)

Recorded live in 1985, The Miracle Year captures the Minneapolis punk trio tearing into their most incendiary year with high-fidelity live recordings. 20 extra live tracks from the 1985 tour and a deluxe 36-page book.

12. Sonny Clark - Sonny’s Crib (Blue Note)

Blue Note put this record out in March 1958. The lineup was a sextet with Donald Byrd, Curtis Fuller, and John Coltrane on horns, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor holding down the rhythm section. Side A features three jazz standards, while side B showcases a pair of Clark originals. Part of the Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition.

13. Charlie Rouse - Two Is One (Strata East)

This 1974 recording finds the tenor saxophonist exploring spiritual jazz with a heavy dose of funk in a unique setting. Two Is One blends sophisticated soul jazz with post-bop and spiritual elements. The reissue features new liner notes by Syd Schwartz.

14. Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska ‘82 (Columbia/Sony)

The expanded edition of this acoustic masterwork includes the fabled “Electric Nebraska” sessions, offering new insight into this prolific period of Springsteen’s career. Worth owning if you’re a Springsteen fan.

15. Frank Wess, John Coltrane, Paul Quinichette, Mal Waldron, Doug Watkins, Arthur Taylor - Wheelin’ & Dealin’ (Prestige/Craft)

This 1958 Prestige All-Stars session showcases a multi-sax lineup blowing over Mal Waldron’s two originals and two jazz standard covers. Before this re-issue I was unfamiliar with the release, so I’m glad I discovered it while shopping this fall in Boston’s Back Bay.

16. Stars of the Lid - Music For Nitrous Oxide (Artificial Pinearch)

This 30th-anniversary reissue of the 1995 debut offers a newly remastered version of the duo’s early, raw, and highly influential ambient soundscapes. I was lucky enough to see them perform live in 2016 to a crowd of 200 people at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth, NH.

17. Unrest - Perfect Teeth (4AD)

This 1993 album was the final release for the indie-pop trio before their initial disbandment and features a blend of sophisticated pop and experimental rock. I remember playing this record over and over when it was originally released and Make Out Club was my favorite track to play on my weekly radio show.

18. Yes - Close To the Edge (Rhino)

YES released a Super Deluxe Edition in March 2025. ‘Close to the Edge’ was their fifth album and one of the most influential prog records ever made. It includes 5 CDs, 1 LP, and a Blu-ray. The release features rare and previously unreleased recordings, and a complete 1972 live performance.

19. Jackie Mitoo - Reggae Magic (Soul Jazz)

This collection features a mixture of classic tracks and rarities from the keyboard king of Studio One, showcasing his unique organ-led funk-reggae sound between 1967-1974. Mittoo’s solo career began after the end of The Skatalites in 1965.

20. Bob Dylan - Through the Open Window: The Bootleg Series Vol. 19 (Columbia/Sony)

This latest installment in the Bootleg Series shows Dylan’s development as a songwriter and performer, from his Minnesota roots through the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s. The collection pulls together rare Columbia outtakes, club recordings, intimate gatherings, sessions in friends’ apartments, and more.

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For my list of the top 50 albums of 2025, click here.

Thanks once again for reading amplified world. I genuinely appreciate it. It’s time for a break and I’ll see you again in early 2026. If you’re a fan, please share this Substack with fellow music fans.

⛸️ Happy Holidays! - JB