Entertainment For Lively Minds
Box Sets!
Posted by DrJ on 2 June 2010 - 11:47am.
I have been getting a lot of milage out of this box set the past few weeks:
It's a pretty good mix of known & unknown, live & studio with a good book and great remastered sound.
Anybody got any favourite box sets or opinions on what makes a good one?
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My current favourite
after seeing him the other week is Guilty: 30 Years Of Randy Newman
it has the right mix of most well known tracks spread over 2 CDs, a third disc of rarities, demos and such and a 4th Cd covering his film soundtrack work.
Think its currently out of print but well worth tracking down.
My alltime favourite is probably Beach Boys '30 Years Of Good Vibrations' - stuffed to bursting point with hits, demos, alt versions, live and radio spots. And 30 mins of Smile tracks. Was pure dynamite when it came out.
I only own one
Punk & New Wave 76-79. I bought it in MVC after they mispriced it at 7.99. It should've been 49.99. Result. It's splendid and a perfect snapshot of the greatest musical movement in British history ever.(sets up barricades waiting for brick bats from crusty old ELP fans).
Mid-50s to '69......accept no substitute
60s dodgers.....better than rock 'n' roll?
Better than the 60s?
That'll be the big, resounding 'no' and 'no'.
And punk is now so MOR.
Dress like a punk in Central London in 2010 and old ladies want to touch your hair.
Try dressing like a hippy (even a mild version of one) circa '67 in Central London in 2010 and see where it gets you.
Told you so.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.
>
You said, and I quote, 'ELP fans'.
I've never heard an ELP record in my life.
Who'd put 1978 ahead of '65?
Alright
Sean! What you up to next Friday?!
Who'd put 1978 ahead of '65?
Me.
I've never heard an ELP record in my life.
You've never heard Fanfare for the Common Man? Even at Rangers? Hhhmmm.
Have you played Skylarking yet?
Me too...
1978 any day of the year.
'I don't believe you'
ELP?
Never knowingly.....have I?
And does it being played at football count as listening to it?!
Hi FreakGene,
re: Skylarking
Just can't bring myself to listen to anything from 1986.
One day I will.....no, one day I might.....no, I never will.....no, hey, I might.....but life's just too short.....I've still never heard The Blossom Toes' second LP so why would I listen to 'Skylarking' before that?
Friday was fine by the way.
Doug B have you checked out the fashions in 1978?
Not exactly 'sharp'.....unless dressing up as an Action Man (Joe Strummer) counts as 'sharp' for 1978?
Miles Davis: The Complete "In a Silent Way" Sessions
It almost seems too obvious to mention, but this is simply indispensable:
agreed
received it as a gift from a mate..absolutely ever changing music of real beauty
I have 3 and a bit
The Great Deceiver by King Crimson - 4 disc set of mainly improvs from the mid seventies juggernaut version, it's suitably dense, impenetrable in fact
Genesis Archive vol.I - the good stuff but did we really need a full LLDOB show?
Roxy Music The Thrill of it All, this is the stuff - all the hits, some b-sides and a back to front South Downs
the bit is The Pink Floyd's Is there Anybody Out there? - a double CD of The Wall live in America in a beautiful box/book
Sort of Box sets...
I own two, that I heavily recommend.
Tom Waits - Orphans
Though not strictly a bix set, it does come in a sort of box, and there are 3 discs with 56 tracks. Not for the first time casual listener, but there are so many treats to be found in this cavalcade of sound.
Y Cyrff - Atalnod Llawn 1983-1992
A 5 CD box set of Welsh post punk from the band that Catatonia's Mark Roberts and Paul Jones were in first. Some interesting treats in there. Worth investigation certainly.
Here's my collection.....
.....Clapton's Crossroads still remains my favourite boxset.
Eric Clapton – Crossroads / Crossroads vol 2 – Live in the 70’s.
Steve Winwood – The Finer Things
Motorhead – Stone Deaf Forever
The Band – The Last Waltz 4cd
Cream – Those Were The Days
Derek & The Domino’s – 20th Anniversary of Layla
Joe Meek – The RGM Legacy Portrait of a Genius
Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series vol. 1 to 3 / Biograph
The Stranglers – The Old Testament
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Playback
Island Records – Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal
Vertigo Records – Time Machine
Decca Records – Strange Pleasures – Further Sounds from the Decca Underground
Who can live without
The Temptations Emperors Of Soul box set ?
Otherwise I'm partial to those Original Album Classics 5XCD-sets.
Recently bought the Laura Nyro one, great stuff!
'Fan Club'
by Jellyfish. Lots of previously unreleased gems on here spread over four discs. Best are the band's ( seemingly ) impromptu versions of Japanese hits on NHK. The whoops of appreciative delight from the audience is lovely to hear.
'The Works' by Nick Lowe. Most of what the great man has recorded ( up to- but not including- 'The Contender'. There are some great live tracks on there too.
'Mythology' The Beatles. Not, ahem, available in your local shop but worth tracking down if you ever see it. Actually 'Mythology' comprises three boxed sets and it features Fabs outtakes and interviews from 1963 through to 1970. Makes 'Anthology' look like '1'. This even has an audio recording of the Juke Box Jury appearance and the complete John and George showing on 'The Eamonn Andrews Show' in 1968.
Oh if we're going 'not available in shops'
then
Bob Dylan 'A Tree With Roots: The Genuine Basement Tapes'. 4 CD on Scorpio and 'Genuine Live 66' all the board tapes from the 1966 world tour beautifully packaged with booklets, postcards, posters and liner notes that would put most offical releases to shame
C'mon Zimmy, let us have it!
Stax of Stax
Complete Stax-Volt Soul Singles Vols 1, 2 and 3. Every soul single Stax and its offshoots released between 1959 and 1975. 28 CDs, about 700 songs - 1/3 dreadful, 1/3 from interesting to very good, 1/3 about as good as popular music has ever been. Wonderful, endlessly fascinating things. After the wife and children these would be next out in the case of fire.
Snap!
Me too. Just sublime.
Me, I bloody LOVE them
Ideally, they should take you on a journey, words, pictures and music. They should be lovingly compiled with a mixture of articles/ discographies / pictures.
The TG ones are excellent - lovingly produced with postcards, badges, text etc. The Beatles box set is also a thing of beauty.
This.
Is very right.
Walking on a Wire - RT. Kept me going on the 6 hour drive from Charlotte to DC. The accompanying booklet was fascinating as well.
Springsteen 75-85 Live (vinyl) matches all those criteria as well.
Nuggets - 4 dIsc version
Best box set in the world... Ever!
Nuggets II
is very good too. Possibly even better to these ears.
Nuggets I vs Nuggets II: There's only one way to find out...
I love both those boxes, they're brilliant and keep throwing up songs you haven't noticed before. Like this one, off Nuggets II
Anyone got the Nuggets San Francisco box or the 1980s Children of Nuggets boxes? Worth it?
Hey!
That's my favourite track off Nuggets 2. Not sure how it made it on there, as it seems more prog rock than garage rock.
I have children of nuggets box
Bought from a bargain bucket in a closing down Borders. I'm not sure it's a terrifically coherent set, but it's got some interesting stuff on it, and was certainly worth a tenner.
The Jam
Direction, Reaction, Creation
The Roxette
Box set
obv.
Free
Songs of Yesterday.
A 5 CD set. A good mixture of alternate versions, early singles and B sides, unreleased tracks, new mixes, a whole CD of live tracks (all but 2 previously unreleased) and a CD full of tracks from the short lived Peace, Kossoff Kirke Tetsu & Rabbit, Sharks (Andy Fraser version), a song Paul Rodgers did with the Maytals and the full Time Spent, (a shorter version of this song Kossoff did with John Martyn appeared on the Back Street Crawler album as Time Away).
The masters were all mixed by original Free engineer Richard Digby Smith.
The one I'd most like to get is out of print...
The Philly Sound: Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and the Story of Brotherly Love (1966-1976).
I have that one. It's really
I have that one. It's really great.
How to do box sets and how not to
Richard Thompsons Watching the Dark was an excellent box set which, from memory, was the first time that From Galway to Graceland appeared on disc. Lots of unreleased live stuff, Fairport stuff and also with Frith,Kaiser and French.
A few years later Free Reed did a box set RT - I waited patiently for it and was one of the first to order therefore qualifying for a free bonus disc. It was a huge disappointment. Badly compiled, murky sound. Horrible.
I still think Bruce Springsteens Tracks takes some beating both in terms of content and packaging.
The Move - seconded
LOVE IT!
And Randy Newman as well.
Slade Box Set
A great box set featuring all the best stuff from 69 to 91.
Everyone knows the Glam Rock era, but the late 70s/early 80s stuff is, I think, just as good.
And another vote for 'Direction, Reaction, Creation' from me
I'm listening to a fabulous one at the moment...
Bill Evans' The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961.
It's just beautiful music.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Village-Vanguard-Recordings-1961/dp/B00...
Beach Boys - The Pet Sounds Sessions
You don't buy a box-set like this unless you love the original album, and because you love it, you know it backwards. But still - this is a set that not only reminds you of things you no longer hear in the original, because you take them for granted: it shows you things about it you never heard before. It's like the original album is a church, and the SESSIONS box-set reveals that it's always been a cathedral.
would that be
a sonic cathedral perchance? ;)
acapella
The acapella version of the album on that box set is astonishing - that, on headphones, is so moving.
I'm a sucker for them
Several favourites :
all the Miles Davis ones are fantastic - I've probably listened to "Complete On The Corner" the most, lately.
Rhino have produced some absolute corkers -
"The Stooges - The Complete Fun House Sessions" shows how great a band they were.
"Beg, Scream & Shout - The Big Ol' Box of 60s Soul" is packaged to look like a record box of 7" singles, and sound magnificent.
Probably my favourite of the lot is the magnificently remastered "Loud, Fast & Out of Control" which is a 50s rock & roll collection. The Eddie Cochrane singles in particular sound fantastic -the tambourines, the handclaps, the huge acoustic guitars.
And the first 2 Nuggets, the Elvis Decades sets (in preference 50s/70s/60s), and the Stax Singles boxes.
I listened to them all more once I had ripped them to the ipod.
Music - the gift that keeps on giving!!
Thin Lizzy
Vagabonds Kings Warriors Angels
Bargain
Since starting this thread at lunchtime I've been thinking about box sets all day. So I went over to Amazon UK and found out that the deluxe Electra boxset which I couldn't justify with its three-figure price tag 3 years ago has dropped to a virtually free £35. **CLICK**
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-Changing-Elektra-1963-1973-Limited/dp/B0...
**CLICK** again
There's one less on Amazon now
Only three left in stock
**CLICK**
And another one sold.
C'mon Massive!
Let's buy them all! The dispatch time has dropped to 6-11 days - therefore stocks are running low.
According to Amazon, my copy is on route. The box weight 2.5 kilos! Woo! Yay!
And another one gone, and another one gone...
It looks wonderful. Can't wait to hear it.
Another one
went last night, and should be chez moi, next week.
Well well well
It arrived today and it really is a lovely thing - the book is really substantial. Can't wait to listen to it - which will probably mean ripping the discs and putting the box away again!
Try also "Rubaiyat"
which was a double CD of covers of famous Elektra artists by current WEA artistes. It sounds a bit gimmicky but there are some awesome acts covering some awesome songs. I think it's unavailable now but there are a few second hand copies available:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rubaiyat-Elektras-Anniversary-Various-Artists/dp...
Yes
I remember almost buying that when it came out because it had They Might Be Giants on it. Still haven't heard it though. Will keep a lookout for it.
Forever Changing. Ordered on Thursday...
...arrived this morning.
My copy arrived at work this morning and ...
as a result two work colleagues have now each ordered a copy. Shouldn't Dr. J be on commission?
I had just got in from work
when the doorbell went.
I thought it must be one of those guys trying to get me to change gas & electricity suppliers and picked up the entry phone to send him away with a flea in his ear when a voice said *Delivery".
Oh what a thing of beauty!
My copy has just arrived...
and what a wonderful thing it is.
If all record companies put as much effort (and more importantly, love) into packaging as has been put into this, then the music industry would be in much ruder health than it is.
Know what you mean Dr J.
I had my eye on the Peter Green 4 cd anthology boxset for a year or so since its release. At nearly £50.00 I held back but at the current £21.00 at Amazon it was a bargain I couldn't resist. Must check to see if the John Martyn one has come down now.
Anthology of American Folk Music [Edited by Harry Smith]
Fellow Word-massivers,
I do not own this legendary box set of Harry Smith's collection of blues and hillbilly recordings from the birth of American folk musics in the 20s and 30s. But I've been considering buying it for about 15 years. It intrigues me. But it's rather expensive.
Do any of you own it and like it? Is it worth the money? Is it something that I'd actually play regularly and enjoy, rather than a rather worthy historical document that just sits there in the box? Convince me one way or the other...
I used to have it...
It's magnificent. A treasure trove of glorious music that crackles with life and energy. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Agreed
It's magnificent. A treasure trove of glorious music that crackles with life and energy. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
However - will you listen to that often??? Its hard work - a full CD - never mind 3 - is a little wearing. I threw it into the iPod - and it adds to the shuffle nicely
Seconded
I only listen to it maybe once a year but it makes me feel better knowing that it's on the shelf. It will probably now get an airing at the weekend.
agree with Steven C
have it - dont play often
the full album size booklet is remarkable
what harry did was unusual at the time : a compilation of assorted and rare stuff on a theme but they are a dime a dozen now
but as steven says- nice knowing it is there
if it is on sale -grab it
Starter for under a tenner
The box set contains volumes 1-3, as originally released as 3 double albums in the 50s. There is a volume 4 due for release next week. 8.99 at Amazon, this might be a good place to start.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Smiths-Anthology-American-Music/dp/B00004S...
Fab fab fab
It is terrific, though awesomely expensive. The package seems to reflect the original LPs , so the CDS are not exactly filled, and it is full price. But still, buy it.
I bought it from the old Tower Records in Glasgow, and on its packaging they had the blurb from some reviewer (Spin magazine I think) who had described it as "Gangsta Folk". The youth behind the counter took one look at this and sneered "What ? Drive-by shootings from tractors ?"
Bob Marley - Songs of Freedom is great
Even manages to reinvigorate some of the 'Legend' singles that you've heard a million times.
Johnny Cash - Unearthed is unreleased Rick Rubin sessions and is brilliant. They then found another volume to release though.
Low - A lifetime of temporary relief. Just magical. This band so rarely have an off day.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - B sides & rarities. The 3 part O'Malley's bar is worth the price of admission alone. Odd to think that Mark Goodier sessions were where this stuff was found at that time.
Xmas present
The wife bought me the Kraftwerk one last Christmas. Lovely item.
This is a thing of beauty
As is the Coat of Many Cupboards set.
As is the Apple Venus box...
You get the drift
Agreed.
I'm lucky enough to have a signed copy of 'Coat'! ( Interviewed the great man and he agreed to add his moniker in a gold felt tip to my entire XTC collection! ) The nine-disc Partridge solo set is a lovely thing to own although, to be honest, in terms of actually listening to it, I've had it since it came out and I've still not progressed past disc three.
Interestingly, today I am actually wearing the black t-shirt that came with the 'Apple Venus' box. Spooky or what?
Jealous
Actually, probably uniquely for box sets, The box was made available with the release of the last two installments to collect the previously released individual albums; which meant I had many years of pleasure collecting (and listening to and loving) warbles before purchasing said box. Gorgeous bit of packaging by Andrew Swainston and not having to fork out all in one go.
I only have the record only version of the apple box however, no badges or tee shirts, but still a lovely peacock feather.
Box Set Go!
everytime I see this topic in my tracker I want to type that
I feel better now
Box sets - would love your feedback about them
Hi guys,
I've really enjoyed finding your box set blog. I'm a music lover and I'm lucky enough to be doing a MA research project about box sets.
I'd love to talk to any of you for my research - please let me know if you're interested by replying to the post or emailing:
boxsetresearch@googlemail.com
Much appreciated!
Chris
The Move Anthology is indeed
The Move Anthology is indeed mighty fine and I also second the original Nuggets box. My own favourites on this self-indulgent Sunday evening would include:
The Rubble Collection (volume 1-10). The best UK Psych anthology of them all, although the original LP liner notes were actually better.
Henry Cow 'The Road' (2 volumes worth!): not a big crowd pleaser I know, but a tremendous archive of new material for the fan.
Pere Ubu 'DataPanik in the Year Zero': all the original recordings plus a family tree of related Cleveland bands. A very underrated group indeed.
Van Der Graaf Generator 'The Box': rendered a little superfluous by the CD Reissues, but a brilliantly choreographed survey of their weird 1970s
And on a crappier note-the Buffalo Springfield box from 2002 was a swizz with its duplicated tracks and lack of rarities, but it still the only way to hear the remasters
Seconded...
...on both the Henry Cow set (worth every penny) and the VdGG box. In fact, the Cow set includes a THIRD volume, containing all the studio albums, remastered: all three volumes are a thing of beauty and a joy to behold...
Boxes
John Martyn - Ain't No Saint
Dylan - bootleg series (vols 1 - 8) / Biograph/ Masterpieces
Elvis Presley - Elvis Aron Presley/Close Up/ Live in Las Vegas/Today, Tomorrow and Forever/ That's The Way it Is
Waits - Orphans
Pixies - Death to the Pixies
Recommended ...
Aretha Franklin - Queen of Soul
Phil Spector - Back To Mono
The Who - Maximum R'n'B
Another thumbs up...
Another thumbs up for Fuzzy Warbles here, also:
Neil Young's Archive (like someone said earlier about the Harry Smith box set, it's rather exhausting by itself, but great when it comes up on shuffle)
Good Vibrations - 30 Years Of The Beach Boys (especially disc 2 and the original 'Smile' tracks)
Sandy Denny's Boxful Of Treasures
Yes - In A Word (also The Word Is Live)
The Band's A Musical History
This is excellent:
As is this: