After last year’s modest crop of boxed sets, holiday shoppers this year will find store shelves devoted to some of the biggest names in rock, pop, country and jazz.
Beatlemaniacs will want to search out Capitol Records’ “The John Lennon Anthology.” The four-disc collection covers Lennon’s solo career from 1969 through his death in 1980. It’s a companion piece of sorts to the three “Beatles Anthology” discs, as most of the tracks are alternate takes or demos of songs that appeared on Lennon’s solo albums.
Columbia Records weighs in with “Bob Dylan Live 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert.” Not a boxed set but a two-disc package, it marks the first official release of a legendary, half-acoustic, half-electric show that has been bootlegged more times than Dylan has reinvented himself.
One of the most talked-about holiday music projects, however, is the four-CD, 66-song collection from Bruce Springsteen. The boxed set covers Springsteen’s music from his first demos for Columbia Records to a new song, “Give It a Name,” recorded earlier this year. The collection features 56 previously unreleased songs, along with 10 hard-to-find B-sides. There is even the original acoustic version of “Born in the U.S.A.” Another big rock name, U2, has a single disc retrospective covering 1980-90, which for a limited time will include a second disc of B-sides. The Dave Matthews Band turns out another two-disc live collection.
As for country music, serious fans of icon Hank Williams Sr. can delve into a gargantuan 10-disc package. And the four-disc “Ray Charles: The Complete Country & Western Recordings” serves to remind that the soul legend has triumphed with country material as well.
Judy Garland, meanwhile, is the subject of a four-CD package that includes concert recordings and duets with Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli, plus a half-hour video. And pop songwriter Burt Bacharach has produced a three-disc set called “The Look of Love,” featuring Bacharach compositions and the artists who scored hits with them.
Those less impressed by name recognition will find some priceless music created by faceless bands on “Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968.” Rock’s original punks bash out garage rock classics such as “Dirty Water” and “Nobody But Me.”
Exceptionally bright, occasionally caustic songwriters also tend to cruise below our pop culture radar: Rhino’s four-disc Randy Newman package covers choice studio cuts, some live and unreleased songs, and his soundtrack work; TVT’s four-disc XTC collection rounds up material from the BBC Radio vaults and plenty of live songs from those reclusive Brits.
From “Planet Rock” to “Gangsta’s Paradise,” the venerable Tommy Boy label has spanned the hip-hop era, and the label’s four-disc “Greatest Beats” anthology rounds up 56 tracks from artists on its roster.
Folk and blues master Taj Mahal and soul legends the Isley Brothers have mastered several styles in decades-long careers. A pair of three-disc boxed sets focus on their work.
Jazz fans, meanwhile, can savor a mammoth 14-disc history of Blue Note Records, released to mark the label’s 60th anniversary. Completists can pick up the six-disc set of Herbie Hancock’s complete ’60s Blue Note recordings, or the four-disc Miles Davis package containing the entire “Bitches Brew” recordings.
Also expected are a three-disc live set from Rush and two-disc anthologies from the Gang of Four.
