Music from Santa's sack

November 30, 2003

Here's a look at some of the most notable gift ideas among the pop-music CD and DVD box sets and music-related books on the shelves this holiday season:

* **

TALKING HEADS, "ONCE IN A LIFETIME" (WARNER ARCHIVES)

The eagerly awaited Talking Heads box could easily have been a set in the style of the Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin collections, a simple compilation of all of the original albums, and it probably should have been, since whether you're a diehard fan or an initiate, you'll still need to own all of the original albums. What we get instead isn't bad, but it isn't perfect, and it comes packaged in what is perhaps the most annoyingly misshapen box ever, guaranteed to protrude awkwardly from your CDs or books shelf.

The three CDs compile all of the expected Talking Heads hits and signature tracks ("Psycho Killer," "Take Me to the River," "And She Was"), plus a rather meager handful of outtakes, live tracks and alternate versions. The real treat (in addition to the well-illustrated and annotated booklet) is the DVD, which includes all of the group's justly renowned and often groundbreaking videos.

* **1/2

VARIOUS ARTISTS, "NO THANKS! THE '70S PUNK REBELLION" (RHINO)

From its original explosion in New York and London in 1976's "Summer of Hate" through the West Coast hardcore boom of 1980, the initial flowering of punk was fueled by great singles: Richard Hell and the Voidoids' "Blank Generation," Wire's "12XU," the Ramones' "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker," the Dead Kennedys' "California Uber Alles" and on and on.

This four-disc, 100-song set rounds up all of those tunes and just about every other punk-rock anthem that you can name, with the notable exception of anything by the Sex Pistols. (In any given Rhino genre box, there's always one or two key bands that wouldn't grant the rights.)

All right, so no genre box is ideal, and the liner notes here are pretty much useless (as are most attempts to make any sense out of a musical movement based on attitude and adrenaline). But this compilation stands as a punk-era jukebox that's just waiting for you to load it into your multi-disc CD player and pogo the night away. Hey, ho, let's go!

* *1/2

VARIOUS ARTISTS, "THE FOLK YEARS: A SINGERS AND SONGWRITERS COLLECTION" (TIME-LIFE MUSIC)

To jaded Gen X ears such as this reviewer's, most pre-Dylan folk music was pretty hokey, even before the Spinal Tap veterans satirized it in "A Mighty Wind."

But even the most unapologetic rockist can't dismiss all of that music; there's a big difference between the Kingston Trio playing "Tom Dooley" and the Sandpipers crooning "Kumbaya" or the New Christy Minstrels doing just about anything, and this box set helps chart the distinctions.

With eight discs divided into four thematic sets ("Blowin' in the Wind," Reason to Believe," and so on) and a total of 120 songs, this is a whole helluva lot of pluckin', strummin' and harmonizing, probably too much for the casual listener.

But the box does offer a fairly comprehensive overview of how the folk scene evolved from the post-Beat coffee houses to the electrified Summer of Love, with plenty of examples of moments sublime (the Band's "I Shall Be Released") and ridiculous (Norma Tanega's "Walkin' My Cat Named Dog").

* **1/2

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, "THE ESSENTIAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" (COLUMBIA)

Even as a Springsteen skeptic (i.e., someone who does not consider the Boss on equal footing with Bob Dylan and who's never had a religious experience at one of his concerts), I'll grant that there's a need for a good best-of in any serious rock collection, and all we've had to date is the Boss' inferior single-disc "Greatest Hits," released in 1995.

This new three-disc set gives us two CDs rounding up just about every Springsteen classic that you'd expect to hear, while having the exceptional good taste to keep the tracks from the bloated "Born in the U.S.A." to a minimum.

It throws in a bonus disc with some interesting rarities (among them a "Nebraska"-era home recording, a live Jimmy Cliff cover, assorted soundtrack work, and a version of "Viva Las Vegas" recorded for an NME benefit album).

* **

MOTORHEAD, "STONE DEAF FOREVER!" (SANCTUARY)

Can there be too much of a good thing, even if that good thing is very good indeed? But of course, and this five-disc, 99-track Motorhead box is ample evidence.

Given that the band has only ever had one idea (albeit a great one), something akin to "The Essential Bruce Springsteen" might have served it better; this is way more Motorhead than all but the most devoted rivetheads will want.

Still, the group is one of the cornerstone bands of the punk-metal merger, as well as the vehicle for one of rock's all-time great frontmen in Lemmy Kilmister, and these four chronologically ordered discs (plus a fifth CD of live tracks) chart its story from Lemmy's split with Hawkwind to his current ongoing status as one of rock's most tireless road warriors.

*

MOTLEY CRUE, "MUSIC TO CRASH YOUR CAR TO, VOL. 1" (HIP-0)

A number of otherwise cool rockers from the alternative era onward continue to celebrate Motley Crue as a surprisingly non-guilty pleasure, but despite scattered moments of tunefulness, I've never been able to treat these obnoxiously cross-dressing, sexist, bombastic, wannabe metal clowns as anything but a pathetic joke, and this four-disc, 70-song, faux-leather-bound box set (complete with a track titled "Tommy's Drum Piece from Cherokee Studios") only confirms my worst prejudices.

* **

ZZ TOP, "CHROME SMOKE & BBQ: THE ZZ TOP BOX" (WARNER BROS.)

On the other hand, this chooglin' Texas trio is long overdue for a reassessment, at least by anyone who's only familiar with its glossy MTV hits. As is often the case, there is an embarrassment of riches; 80 tracks is a whole lot of Southern-fried boogie, and I don't know if anybody really needs the cardboard cut-outs of the Bearded Ones (though the box, shaped like a tin-roofed shack, is pretty darn cool). However, the sampling of Billy Gibbons' pre-ZZ Top garage band, the Moving Sidewalks, is a very nice touch.

* *1/2

BJORK, "BJORK: LIVE 1993-2002" (ONE LITTLE INDIAN U.S.)

This is another attractive package, but it's really aimed at the hardcore fan of the quirky Icelandic art-rocker rather than the casual listener.

This five-disc set contains four live CDs chronicling concerts from throughout her solo career, plus a DVD with a similarly career-spanning overview of her ever-evolving stage show. It's a good way to head off those bootleggers, but as captivating as Bjork can be, many people will find themselves making a swan dive for the "forward" button before any of these discs is finished.

* **

THE ROLLING STONES, "FOUR FLICKS" (TGA ENTERTAINMENT)

For decades now, the Stones haven't let a single world tour go by without an accompanying concert film, so you know there'd be one from the 2002/2003 "Licks" jaunt. The result is as unique (and mildly controversial) as those shows were.

The band tried to perform three different types of concerts at three different sized venues in each city where it stopped, and the misnamed "Four Flicks" captures three good gigs from the Olympia Theatre in Paris, Madison Square Garden in New York, and Twickenham Stadium in London, with the band members alternating their set lists and challenging each other onstage more than they have at any point since the early '70s.

The controversy comes from the fact that this five-hours-plus, 50-song, three-DVD box is only being sold at Best Buy electronics stores. The ever-greedy Stones cut some sort of exclusive deal, thereby alienating the record stores that have kept them afloat for four decades (including the Virgin Megastores, the merchandising arm of the corporate empire whose label they now call home). Many stores have responded by boycotting their music, just in time for the holidays. Mick Jagger, meet the Grinch Who Stole Christmas: He couldn't get no satisfaction, either.

* *1/2

DORA LOEWENSTEIN, PHILIP DODD, ACCORDING TO THE ROLLING STONES (CHRONICLE BOOKS, $40)

Accompanying "Four Flicks" and further cashing in on the "Licks" tour is this massive 400-page lavishly illustrated coffee-table "history" of the Stones, though it's really just four long (and only occasionally illuminating) first-person interviews with Mssrs. Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood, with earlier, key band members such as Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor nowhere to be found. On the long list of superior Stones books, it's pretty far down, Stanley Booth's brilliant The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, Wyman's Stone Alone, and Stephen Davis' Old Gods Almost Dead all come first, but as I said, there sure are a lot of purty pictures.

* *

LUKE CRAMPTON, DAFYDD REES, ROCK 'N' ROLL: YEAR BY YEAR (DK PUBLISHING, $50)

This thorough, gloriously trivial, day-by-day account of the history of rock 'n' roll has been around in different forms for years, but this revised, bigger and better than ever edition is being published under the imprimatur of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, so you know it must be -- um, official.

At 600 pages, it's heavy enough to prop up your car while you change a tire, but it's useful in other ways, too, for all of those times when just have to know that, say, it was April 10, 1962, when Beatles pal Stu Sutcliffe died in Germany, or March 3, 1994, when the Smashing Pumpkins were banned from appearing on the BBC's "Top of the Pops" because of objections to the lyrics of "Disarm." Of course, you also could learn the same things for free on the Net.

* 1/2

M.C. STRONG, THE GREAT INDIE DISCO-GRAPHY (CANONGATE BOOKS, $32)

The Net also makes this whopping, 1088-page encyclopedia/catalog of independent rock recordings not only more or less irrelevant, but instantly out of date. I put it to the test by looking up half a dozen obscure but significant indie-rock bands. Four were present with thorough, knowledgeable and passionately written entries, and the other two were missing entirely. Unless you're a record-store owner or the kind of vinyl junkie who'd enjoy the next book (which follows), I can't imagine why you'd need this.

* **1/2

BRETT MILANO, VINYL JUNKIES: ADVENTURES IN RECORD COLLECTING (ST. MARTIN'S GRIFFIN, $13.95)

If you're not a music fan, reading about people who are obsessed with finding an obscure 45 cut by a German band in 1962 may seem as pointless and geeky as reading about model railroaders or stamp collectors, but true music obsessives will find Boston journalist Brett Milano's quirky homage to vinyl addicts one of the most entertaining and loving music books since Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, and they will no doubt recognize themselves in its pages as he charts the passions of devoted collectors such as R. Crumb, R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and Jeff "Monoman" Connolly of garage-rockers the Lyres. For some of us, fandom has no bounds. Thankfully, the rest of us have lives.

* **

CLINTON HEYLIN, VAN MORRISON: CAN YOU FEEL THE SILENCE? (CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS, $28)

If you're the sort of music lover who can't abide by knowing that beautiful music is sometimes made by ugly people, you'll want to skip Clinton Heylin's fascinating, exhaustively researched but unauthorized biography of the curmudgeonly natural mystic. If you can separate the art from the artist, however, you will find the sad and turbulent tale of Morrison's troubled and rather miserable life a fascinating contrast to his complex and brilliant musical legacy.

* *

ANDY FYFE, WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS: THE MAKING OF 'LED ZEPPELIN IV' (CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS, $14.95)

* **

CHARLES L. GRANATA, WOULDN'T IT BE NICE: BRIAN WILSON AND THE MAKING OF THE BEACH BOYS' 'PET SOUNDS' (CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS, $15.95)

Chicago Review Press' Vinyl Frontier series sure beats VH1's "Behind the Music." In this series, British authors dig deep to offer a track-by-track analysis and an extensive history (often based on firsthand interviews) of the making of a classic album, focusing on the music and the context in which it was made rather than the hype and the tawdry personal trivia.

Of these offerings, Fyfe's Zeppelin book is less intriguing than Granata's Beach Boys tome, but that may be because he's a less gripping writer and it's a less intriguing album. (I'd rather have read about "Houses of the Holy" or "Physical Grafitti.") Other books in the series include Revolution: The Making of the Beatles' White Album and Jimi Hendrix and the Making of Are You Experienced?

* *

JIM IRVIN, PAT GILBERT, THE MOJO COLLECTION: THE ULTIMATE MUSIC COMPANION (CANONGATE, $25)

Those Brits do love their rock history. While many music fans swear by Mojo, and I applaud the magazine in its archeological/historical features mode, I've always found its record reviews to be bland and overly reverent. The third edition of this 868-page collection of chronologically ordered reviews ranging from Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee to Sigur Ros and the White Stripes bears that out. It's not quite dismissible, but it's certainly not "the ultimate."

* **

NEAL POLLACK, NEVER MIND THE POLLACKS: A ROCK 'N' ROLL NOVEL (HARPER COLLINS, $23.95)

Always good for both a gut-busting laugh and an enraged aneurysm, the latest novel by former Chicago Reader scribe and McSweeney's literary hipster Neal Pollack finds him taking his "Greatest Living American Writer" shtick and using it to parody the small and incestuous world of rock criticism. Granted, this self-important subculture is certainly in need of a "Spinal Tap"-like lampooning, and Pollack is just the man for the job. But as a rock critic myself (and one who often sneers at the fraternity of my peers), I'm hardly in the position to judge whether Pollack's uniquely hyperbolic brand of humor will translate outside of my world. And even I got tired of his braggadocio after a while.