THINKING INSIDE THE BOX (SET)
Give the gift of music this season with offerings that span a variety of tastes over a vast period of time
Can’t decide what to get the music lover on your list? There are plenty of box sets to choose from:
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN The Ties That Bind: The River Collection
No one does deluxe album reissues like Springsteen: 22 outtakes, a DVD of a concert from that era (1980) and a new film where he talks about his artistic choices at the time. Even more intriguing, he includes the completed single album he submitted in 1979 only to pull back (he released the double album The River a year later). The quality of the outtakes is such that even Springsteen can’t recall now why some made the final album and some were nixed.
ARETHA FRANKLIN
The Atlantic Albums Collection
Beginning with the landmark album I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You, these 16 CDs highlight Franklin’s explosive breakthrough with Atlantic in 1967 after years of struggling with Columbia, and continue through her more erratic output of the 1970s. She is The Queen of Soul, but the compilation also showcases Franklin’s embrace of nearly every kind of music. Most of her signature hits, including Respect and Think, can be found on the first four CDs. No booklet or biographical notes are included.
BOB DYLAN The Cutting Edge 1965-66: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12
Even Bob Dylan himself was thrown by his 1965 switch from folk to rock. Half a century later, Dylan going electric is hailed as a defining moment in the history of rock. The morphing of his music is captured here on a collection of work tapes from the sessions that produced three landmark albums in a 13-month span — Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde.
The deluxe six-CD set is an exercise in Dylan immersion. Disc 3, for example, consists solely of various versions of Like a Rolling Stone.
FRANK SINATRA
The Ultimate Sinatra
This centennial compilation does not approach the ultimate Sinatra, even at four CDs. So call it Starter Sinatra, a primer for someone who’s heard the name, but not the music. During his 50-some years of recording, Sinatra turned the great American songbook into a personal journal of romance and longing, despair and exhilaration, and the selections here follow a path known to millions of a certain age.
A booklet is included, mostly pictures and random quotes. James Kaplan’s two-volume biography fills in a lot more.
OTIS REDDING
Soul Manifesto: 1964-70
Some consider Otis Redding’s Live in Europe the best concert album ever. Others argue it’s not even his best live record, which speaks to the remarkable depth of his catalogue.
The Georgia soul man recorded enough material for 12 albums before dying in a plane crash at age 26 in 1967, and his glorious music is all collected here in a small box free of frills.
The set includes 12 CDs, each packaged in a reproduction of the original LP sleeve. There are no liner notes beyond what’s reprinted on back of each CD jacket.
THE BEATLES
1+
Beatles 1+ includes a CD best suited for newcomers — small children or visitors from outer space — and two DVDS that will appeal to specialists and newcomers alike.
The CD reprises the millionselling 1 anthology from 2000, featuring 27 chart-toppers. For obsessives who think they know it all, the DVDs are a happy surprise and a fascinating history of the Beatles’ visual appeal, one barely less influential than their music. The videos combine concert and studio footage, newsreels, home recordings and rare outtakes.
AMY WINEHOUSE
The Collection
Given that she put out only two albums during her short life and a posthumous one, an Amy Winehouse box set may seem like a bit of a reach. But the big lure here is the vinyl: The box set is the only way this format is being released. And it allows more casual fans who only heard of Winehouse with Rehab to fall in love with her debut Frank.
There’s also live material, part of the reason this set is eight discs and 65 tracks.
ALICE COOPER
The Studio Albums 1969-1983
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better tutorial of 1970s and early ’80s shock rock than this 15-disc box set. It encompasses every album Cooper released from 1969’s Pretties For You to 1983’s Dada. In between are some great classic rock songs, including School’s Out, Welcome to My Nightmare, I’m Eighteen, Billion Dollar Babies and No More Mr. Nice Guy.
Unlike many box sets, there’s precious little swag here. Each album comes in a mini cardboard sleeve reproducing the front and back covers, but some of the print is so tiny it’s unreadable.
BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS
The Complete Island Recordings
Available only on 180-gram vinyl, with no digital downloads, this 11-record set is targeted to those music aficionados who like their tunes analog, on pressed wax.
The collectors’ edition is packaged in an individually numbered velvet-lined silver metal box set replicating a Zippo lighter and comes with two prints and a turntable slip mat. The more economical regular edition foregoes the prints and mat and comes in a cardboard box. But the music is the same in both — and that’s what really counts.
FLEETWOOD MAC
Tusk: Deluxe Edition
Considered a commercial disappointment when released in 1979, Fleetwood Mac’s double album Tusk is now regarded as a creative achievement. This isn’t just a remastered reissue — that came out in 2004. This deluxe edition includes five CDs, two vinyl LPs, a surround-mix audio DVD and extensive liner notes featuring band member commentary on nearly all of the songs.