Even if the high-tech fortune tellers are correct and CDs will soon be
made extinct by the advent of iPods and downloaded music from the Internet,
I suspect we will never see the end of the CD box set.
At their best, these releases are ready-made and comprehensive
collections of great music, full of previously unreleased tracks and stuffed
with extras such as videos and illuminating booklets about the artists'
careers.
At their worst, they're a market-driven way to sell us stuff we already
own under the guise of a pretty new package.
The bumper crop of new boxes arriving in stores this holiday season
include examples of both, as well as indicating that the major record
companies will never tire of raiding their vaults.
As you ponder what to give the music lover on your Christmas list who
seemingly already has everything, the Sun-Times' music critics have taken a
look at the most notable of this year's box sets.
THE RAMONES, "WEIRD TALES OF THE RAMONES" (SIRE/RHINO) ***1/2
While the Ramones remain one of the most influential and beloved bands in
rock history, the idea of a box set seems out of keeping with their famously
stripped-down punk aesthetic: This was a band that valued short-sharp-shock
brevity above all else, and in that regard, the "Ramones Mania" collection
-- first released in 1988 and featuring 30 tracks, every one of them a pure,
unadulterated masterpiece -- remains the ultimate tribute, introduction and
greatest hits set.
That said, "Weird Tales of the Ramones" is one of the coolest boxes I've
ever seen. Sure, there's the music: Three discs with 82 tracks compiled by
Johnny Ramone before his death last September and charting three decades of
tuneful punk-rock exuberance. And there's the fourth disc, a DVD with 17 of
the group's videos and a live version of "Blitzkrieg Bop" (though videos
were never really their medium, and I'd much rather have had "Rock 'n' Roll
High School," the band's 1979 film with Roger Corman).
But the real treat is the booklet. Packaged as a 54-page color comic
book, it features 26 of the coolest underground artists ever -- from Zippy
the Pinhead creator Bill Griffin to Punk magazine founder John Holmstrom,
and from Jaime Hernandez of Love and Rockets to Sergio Aragones of Mad
magazine fame -- all paying homage to "da brudders from Queens." Short of
packing these discs with a pizza or a tube of glue, I can't imagine how
Rhino could have come up with a better addition to a Ramones box -- though
it's a shame the booklet isn't being sold separately so you could listen
while pogoing to "Ramones Mania" or any of the band's original albums from
the '70s.
TALKING HEADS, "BRICK" (RHINO)***1/2
One of the most consistent and creative bands to emerge from the New York
punk explosion of the late '70s, Talking Heads produced eight studio albums
in their relatively short lifespan, and six of those are absolute must-owns
for any fan of adventurous rock. "Talking Heads: 77," "More Songs About
Buildings and Food" (1978), "Fear of Music" (1979), "Remain in Light"
(1980), "Speaking in Tongues" (1983) and "Little Creatures" (1985) chart the
evolution of the group from stark minimalists to Brian Eno-produced
art-rockers to a big band incorporating elements of funk and world rhythms,
and then back to basics again.
Less essential are "True Stories (1986) and "Naked" (1988), the two
albums Talking Heads released before their bitter and seemingly permanent
break. (Former bandleader David Byrne maintains that he has no desire to
revisit the past, and recent attempts by the other musicians to continue
without him as the Heads were just pathetic.) "Brick" packages all of the
group's studio efforts in a sleek white plastic box embossed with the names
of every song included within, and even if some of the albums fall short of
the others, it's hard to argue with these entire-career-in-one-fell-swoop
collections. (The Led Zeppelin set remains the pinnacle in this category,
with the Black Sabbath following a close second.)
Keyboardist-turned-producer Jerry Harrison has remixed each original
album for 5.1 Surround Sound, which may excite the audiophiles out there,
but I for one don't have the system to judge whether he's done a good job.
Each CD includes the original disc plus assorted extras on one side, while
the Surround Sound remix plus a few relevant videos are featured on the flip
as part of the new and much-hyped Dual Disc format.
Some consumers have complained that Dual Discs can be rather finicky,
playing on some home stereos but not on others. For me, the plain old CDs
sounded great, and my only gripes are that I already owned all of these
albums, the new live tracks and album outtakes aren't enough to make me buy
them again, and there isn't a retrospective booklet accompanying the set to
illuminate the group's extraordinary development, just some rather skimpy
new liner notes and lyrics included with each disc.
JOHNNY CASH, "THE LEGEND" (COLUMBIA/LEGACY) ***
JOHNNY CASH, "THE COMPLETE SUN RECORDINGS, 1955-1958" (TIME-LIFE) ***
The Man in Black already has received the box set treatment several
times, including the themed "Love, God, Murder" collection; "Unearthed,"
which includes all of the recordings he did late in life with Rick Rubin,
and "The Essential Johnny Cash," which only extends up to 1983. Both of
these additions to his already considerable box set discography are,
therefore, rather transparent attempts to put some "new" product in the
stores just as the "Walk the Line" biopic arrives in movie theaters.
Since it is almost impossible to quibble with just about anything Cash
ever recorded, the shortcomings of these new sets aren't musical. "The
Complete Sun Recordings" is aimed, as the title indicates, at completists,
charting the development of a singular talent before he'd really found his
way, during a short and concentrated period recording for Sam Phillips. Over
the course of three discs with 61 tracks, the singer-songwriter's previously
released Sun material is fleshed out rarities and demos, and the set
includes a 40-page booklet full of previously unpublished photos. But by no
means is this a satisfying collection for someone looking for the best of
Cash in his many guises via convenient one-stop shopping.
"The Legend" comes closer to fulfilling that goal, with the 104 songs
divided into four themed discs: "Win, Place and Show -- The Hits" (and from
"I Walk the Line" on, most of the big ones are here, minus any of the Rubin
recordings), "Old Favorites and New" (more of a hodgepodge of undeniably
great tracks), "The Great American Songbook" (because Cash could even make a
tune like "Old Shep" or "I've Been Working on the Railroad" sound wonderful)
and "Family and Friends" (featuring collaborations with everyone from the
Carter Family to U2).
The hook for those of us who already own all or most of these recordings
is a number of tracks unearthed amid a mountain of tape in a back room at
the House of Cash after the artist's death in September 2003. These cuts
include the poignant "It Takes One to Know Me," which closes the set,
originally recorded in 1977, but previously unreleased. But there are only
five other tracks that come from these newly discovered tapes -- more will
no doubt show up down the line in yet another box set -- so these hardly
justify the $45 list price if you already own one or more Cash collections.
Even if you don't, you'd be better served buying a shorter and more focused
Cash best-of (there are several), along with a sampling of the American
Recordings.
VARIOUS ARTISTS, "CHILDREN OF NUGGETS: ORIGINAL ARTYFACTS FROM THE
SECOND PSYCHEDELIC ERA, 1976-1996" (RHINO) **
When Lenny Kaye compiled the original "Nuggets" collection in 1972, he
charted a particular psychedelic pop/garage punk aesthetic that had
flourished only a few years earlier, but which continues to inspire
countless rockers today. The soon-to-be Patti Smith Group guitarist also set
a high-water mark for all of the countless compilations that would follow,
and none of them have ever measured up.
Rhino's first attempt to expand the two vinyl albums that comprised the
original "Nuggets" into a box set was marred by the inclusion of quite a few
songs that just didn't belong there, and the exclusion of others that did
but were sadly missing because of rights issues. "Nuggets II: Original
Artyfacts from the British Empire & Beyond" was slightly more satisfying,
focusing on the British psychedelic scene from the same period, 1966-68. It
sometimes strayed from or fell short of its mission, too, but not to the
same degree as the series' third installment, "Children of Nuggets."
The 100 tracks included on these four discs are laid out with no logic I
could discern; they're neither chronological nor thematic, and they don't
flow particularly well musically, either. As is too often the case with
Rhino's boxes, there are too many tracks that just don't belong here (the
dB's, the Raybeats and That Petrol Emotion are all great bands -- they just
don't fit on this box), and too many other bands that are sorely missed or
which are represented by tracks that are far from their finest.
Couple these problems with a booklet that neither sheds much light on the
desire to resurrect the psychedelic era, nor tells us much about any of
these artists (many of whom will be obscure even to fans of the '80s
indie-rock scene), and you have a great idea and a worthy project that falls
far short of what it should have been.
VARIOUS ARTISTS, "GIRL GROUP SOUNDS, LOST & FOUND" (WARNER BROS.) *1/2
Just about anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the girl-group
sound of the early '60s will balk at the giant hole at the center of "Girl
Group Sounds, Lost & Found." Because of rights issues, there is nothing
included on these four discs from the ultimate architect of the genre, Phil
Spector.
Then again, this set does come packaged in a nifty fake hat box, with
faux compact mirrors in the cover art of each individual CD.
While there are certainly scattered pleasures here, the cumulative effect
of listening to 120 overly polished, hyper-produced and at times
unbelievably saccharine combos with names such as the Cookies, the
Cinderellas, the Honeys, the Honey Bees and the Goodies is the sort of
headache that might come from huffing an economy-size can of
fluorocarbon-laden hairspray. It's a case where less would have been much
more enjoyable.
Once again, the booklet adds little to one's knowledge of the individual
acts or understanding of the overall phenomenon. The plethora of girl groups
on the pop charts before Beatlemania was either (choose one), the last gasp
of '50s-style female subservience; a foreshadowing of the feminist movement
of the '60s and'70s, or a complete coincidence. I'm still trying to figure
that out, just like I'm still wondering how Twiggy, Mary Wells, Dolly Parton
and Cher, while undeniably "girls," could possibly be considered "groups."