Post by rick on Aug 14, 2023 4:16:37 GMT -5
We saw a 40th anniversary reissue of 1977's "Simple Dreams" (such as it was) in 2017. Nothing for "Living in the U.S.A." or "Mad Love" or "Get Closer," but
we did see the PBS airing of 1980's "Live in Hollywood" TV special with an abridged release of the set in 2020, another 40th anniversary.
With "What's New?" having been released in September 1983, next month will be the 40th anniversary. I keep hoping we might see something announced.
One idea would be to package the original 1983 album "What's New?" with the Jerry Wexler-produced attempt "Keepin' Out of Mischief" as well
as the ABC special interviewing Linda and Nelson Riddle, the "What's New?" concert, etc.
But I can dream, can't I?
From Wikipedia -- Wikipedia: 'What's New?' Linda Ronstadt album
Reception
What's New was released in September 1983 and spent 81 weeks on the main Billboard album chart. Its release came as the radio programming format known as Adult Standards was taking off via programming concepts such as Music of Your Life, which specialized in returning pre-rock popular music and the songs of the Great American Songbook to the American airwaves. The album held the number 3 position for five consecutive weeks while Michael Jackson's Thriller and Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down locked in the number 1 and number 2 album positions. The album also reached number 2 on the jazz albums chart. It was RIAA certified Triple Platinum for sales of over 3 million copies in the United States alone. Global sales surpassed five million. The album also earned Ronstadt another Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female alongside Donna Summer, Bonnie Tyler, Irene Cara and Sheena Easton, all of whom performed live on the 1984 Grammy telecast. Two singles, the title song and "I've Got a Crush on You," became hits on Adult Contemporary radio stations, with the title song also reaching the Top 50 on the Billboard Hot 100.
All tracks also included in the compilation "'Round Midnight", released on Asylum Records in 1986.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times noted the significance of the album to popular culture when he wrote that What's New "isn't the first album by a rock singer to pay tribute to the golden age of pop, but is ... the best and most serious attempt to rehabilitate an idea of pop that Beatlemania and the mass marketing of rock LPs for teen-agers undid in the mid-60s. In the decade prior to Beatlemania, most of the great band singers and crooners of the 40s and 50s codified a half-century of American pop standards on dozens of albums, many of them now long out-of-print."
