Pete Droge - Necktie Second [2 LP]

Reissue 2025. Necktie Second finally gets its first vinyl release three decades late, and the deluxe edition sweetens the wait with two previously unreleased tracks and five acoustic re-recordings of the songs people actually remember.

Pete Droge released Necktie Second in 1994 on Rick Rubin's American Recordings, with Brendan O'Brien producing, the same ear behind Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots records, which allowed it to sound like the era without sounding grunge. It worked, the album charted on the radio charts and attracted strong press interest, and sent Droge on tour for a year and a half, including Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit, an opening act for Tom Petty, and a night on Letterman. Its greatest posterity came later and in a roundabout way, when If You Don't Love Me landed in Dumb and Dumber and quietly continued to find listeners who had no idea the film was doing them a service.

Northern Bound Train and Hampton Inn Room 306 still sound like a guy who could write a chorus without much effort, with a jangly sound that never quite fit the flannel of the era. Chris Bellman's new mastering at Bernie Grundman, cut from the half-inch tapes, finally gives it room to breathe, and the deluxe bonus tracks reduce five favorites to their bare minimum.

Droge is back, chronic fatigue behind him, new music to come.