Box sets that didn't disappoint

Are you talking about the Small Faces? Didn't think the Faces had a mono box set. Or is it something that has nothing to do with the Faces?

 

The Monkees sets are definitely up there!

And I'm sure at the time, the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" box was momentous, especially for the wealth of Smile material.

 

Agreed, nice Simple Minds collection. I think it's long out of print so probably not a bargain price anymore.

 

I was saying that the 4 disc, 81 song Reprise set from 1990 isn't bad for the casual fan.

 

An interesting mix!!

Oh Yes We Can Love: The History Of Glam Rock...
Disc: 1
1. Mad Dogs And Englishmen - Noël Coward
2. Around And Around - Chuck Berry
3. Ooh My Soul - Little Richard
4. Brand New Cadillac - Vince Taylor & Ses Play-Boys
5. Gurney Slade - Max Harris
6. Bee-Bom - Anthony Newley
7. Jealousy - Billy Fury
8. You'll Be Mine - Howlin' Wolf
9. Amsterdam - Jacques Brel
10. I'm Waiting For The Man - The Velvet Underground, Nico
11. London, Bye, Ta Ta - David Bowie
12. 1969 - The Stooges
13. Lola - The Kinks
14. Neanderthal Man - Hotlegs
15. Burundi Black - Burundi Black
16. Back Street Luv - Curved Air
17. Charity Ball - Fanny
18. Magpie - The Murgatroyd Band
19. Son Of My Father - Chicory Tip
20. Hot Love - T. Rex
21. Coz I Luv You - Slade

Disc: 2
1. All The Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople
2. Walk On The Wild Side - Lou Reed
3. Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
4. Metal Guru - T. Rex
5. Crazy Horses - The Osmonds
6. Andy Warhol - Dana Gillespie
7. Can The Can - Suzi Quatro
8. Looking For A Kiss - The New York Dolls
9. This Flight Tonight - Nazareth
10. Ballroom Blitz - Sweet
11. Dance With The Devil - Cozy Powell
12. Rock On - David Essex
13. Angel Fingers (A Teen Ballad) - Wizzard
14. Bennie And The Jets - Elton John
15. Dancin' (On a Saturday Night) - Barry Blue
16. My Coo Ca Choo - Alvin Stardust
17. The Man Who Sold The World - Lulu
18. Growing Up And I'm Fine - Mick Ronson
19. Judy Teen - Cockney Rebel

Disc: 3
1. This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us - Sparks
2. Tell Him - Hello
3. Tiger Feet - Mud
4. Bish Bash Bosh - The Jook
5. The 'In' Crowd - Bryan Ferry
6. Piss Factory - Patti Smith
7. Tumbling Down - Cockney Rebel
8. Angel Face - Glitter Band
9. The Bump - Kenny
10. Sugar Baby Love - The Rubettes
11. Only You Can - Fox
12. Rock And Roll All Nite - Kiss
13. A Glass Of Champagne - Sailor
14. Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Album Version) - Ian Hunter
15. I Love Rock 'N' Roll - The Arrows
16. Saturday Night - Bay City Rollers, Bill Martin, Phil Coulter

Disc: 4
1. Rip Her To Shreds - Blondie
2. Ships In The Night - Be-Bop Deluxe
3. Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
4. Rockaria! - Jeff Lynne
5. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - Ramones
6. The Crunch - Rah Band
7. OK? - Rock Follies
8. Rockwrok - Ultravox!
9. New York Groove - Ace Frehley
10. Take On The World - Judas Priest
11. Rasputin - Boney M.
12. Valley Of The Dolls - Generation X
13. Rock 'N' Roll / Night Clubbing - The Human League
14. The Light Pours Out Of Me - Magazine
15. Antmusic - Adam & The Ants
16. Solid Gold Easy Action - Department S
17. Ziggy Stardust - Bauhaus
18. That's The Way (I Like It) - Dead Or Alive

Disc: 5
1. Love Missile F1-11 - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
2. Up Around The Bend - Hanoi Rocks
3. Emma - The Sisters Of Mercy
4. Glamorous Glue - Morrissey
5. Metal Mickey - Suede
6. Glam-Racket - The Fall
7. Glam Rock Cops - Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
8. Everybody Up! - The Glam Metal Detectives
9. Star - Saint Etienne
10. The S.A.S. And The Glam That Goes With It - Earl Brutus
11. To Earth With Love - Gay Dad
12. The Dope Show - Marilyn Manson
13. We Are The Boys - Pulp
14. Growing On Me - The Darkness
15. Strict Machine - Goldfrapp
16. Clamour For Glamour - The Ark
17. Unstoppable - Foxy Shazam

 

Another one of those 'politically correct' anthologies that leaves out Gary Glitter. It's lucky Thomas Edison was such a clean skin or we'd all be walking around in darkness

 

The Columbia/Legacy series of Miles Davis Complete Sessions CD metal box sets, particularly Bitches Brew, Silent Way, Miles & Coltrane, Jack Johnson and On the Corner.

Also, these 1970s collections of 1962 von Karajan recordings. $5 each box at Half Price Books, not a pop or a skip on any of them. Somebody's loss. I felt guilty.

 

Just shelled out for Elvis That's The Way It Is Deluxe 8 CD 2 DVD box, it's a great set, the sound quality is astonishing, haven't done a side by side with all the other versions I own (there's a lot) but it really is first-rate as a stand alone. Nice book too with some great pics, the discs are housed in easy in/out pockets and the whole thing fits into a neat slip case. Picked it up from Amazon for a shade over £70 which I thought was fairly reasonable.

 

Didn't!
Both highlighted:
Original quad mix D5
&
original pre-Christmas '72 album mix D6.

Should have a thread on Alan!!

 

The Fall - Peel Sessions
Cinerama - Peel Sessions
The Wedding Present - Peel Sessions
Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks

 

Jean-Luc Ponty - "The Atlantic Years" Wonderful sound

 

Yeah, I checked on Discogs, and the median was about times three the original prize...

 

Do the Zep super deluxe editions count? Page treated each album like a work of art.

King Crimson Starless and Road to Red sets are the gold standard for box sets imo.

I have the Pink Floyd Early Years set and I'm very pleased with it. Loads of great content, and you can tell that a lot of love went into it.

 

Hi is Clapton's Crossroads box on vinyl worthy? I mean soundwise. Thanks, Adam

 

This one: Amazon.com: 1970-1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything...: Faces: MP3 Downloads

And you are correct, I don't think it's mono, sounds great though.

 

Okay thanks. I do have that one but like you say, I don't think it's mono. Still a great set though!

 

goes great with the 5 guys box

 

I don't know if the releases in the XTC Surround Series officially count as box sets, but so far each one of them is everything a box set should be [I'm looking at you, The Who]. Demos, outtakes, rehearsals, alternate mixes, 5.1 mixes from Steven Wilson. All on two discs [one a bluray, admittedly]. No unnecessary bloatware. Sensibly priced.
As far as I'm concerned, the XTC releases are at the very top of the tree.

Otherwise:

Small Faces: The Immediate Years
- It was ridiculously expensive, and it was ridiculously hard to obtain if you lived in the UK. There isn't much to it in terms of musical content either, but what there is, is sublime. Since I got it, I haven't regretted it one bit and I return to it often. The session notes in the book alone are a goldmine of information for an info-freak like me [such a shame the associated reissues didn't include this kind of detail].
Faces: Five Guys Walk Into A Bar...
- It should more correctly have been titled Five Blokes Stagger Out Of A Pub, but this little beauty has set the gold standard for box sets since it's release. It has everything: live cuts, BBC sessions, rehearsals and rarities, and to top that off it also serves as a 'best of' album sampler. And yet for all that, it never outstays it's welcome. For all it's expanse it's still concise, and it's sensitively [and sensibly] compiled by the late great [and sorely-missed] Ian McLagan.
Faces: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything
- Coupled with the above, this is all the Faces you need [until they finally release some vintage Ronnie Lane-era live material].
The Pretty Things: Bouquets From A Cloudy Sky
- You'll probably get the most out of this set if you don't already own their back catalogue on CD [Myself I only had the 1967-70 period albums, so buying this box was a no-brainer for me], but even so, the documentary, the rarities CDs and the very handsome book are pretty much worth the price of admission on their own. It's a shame they didn't include the full live 1969 broadcast from Amsterdam instead of just a couple of songs, but you can't have everything. Apparently.
The Kinks: The Anthology 1964-1971
- Again, this set works as a greatest hits package while containing enough rare and new material to be of interest beyond. In fact many of the unique mixes here aren't even listed as such!
The Velvet Underground: The Complete Matrix Tapes
- Do I need to explain?
Siouxsie And The Banshees: At The BBC
Siouxsie And The Banshees: Downside Up
- I don't know if this is a controversial opinion or not, but to my mind many of The Banshees' best moments happened on the flipside of whatever single they had out at the time. 'Downside Up', a treasure trove of all these B-sides, is what I consider to be the true 'Best of' Banshees compilation. To this day though, I don't own a physical copy of this set. At the time it was released I was in dire financial straits and by the time I was solvent again it was deleted. I had to procure a virtual copy and was fortunate enough to find a FLAC version that also included decent scans of the booklet. Even so, if the actual physical object was made available again tomorrow, I'd snap it up in a nanosecond. The 'forthcoming' 'definitive' Banshees box set may or may not contain any or all of the material on 'Downside Up', but I'm not holding my breath. Quite why all the B-sides never found their way onto the recent reissues of their respective albums I don't know - it's not like there wasn't enough room for them...
Robyn Hitchcock: I Wanna Go Backwards: BlackSnakeDiamondRole/I Often Dream Of Trains/Eye/While Thatcher Mauled Britain [rare, live & unreleased]
Robyn Hitchcock: Luminous Groove: Fegmania/Gotta Let This Hen Out/Element Of Light/A Bad Case Of History [rare, live & unreleased]
- Two retrospective five-CD sets from the former leader of The Soft Boys, each including three expanded reissues of classic LPs coupled with two exclusive rarities CDs. I Wanna Go Backwards covers Hitchcock's post-Soft Boys solo output from 1981 to 1990, while Luminous Groove covers the output of his band The Egyptians between 1985-1994 [with a bit of a major label gap in the middle].
A couple of significant omissions that make both sets less than complete overviews: 'Backwards' contains no trace of 1982's Groovy Decay LP [not surprising as Hitchcock himself has all but disowned it] while 'Luminous' understandably skips over the Egyptians' run of A&M releases from 1988-93. Both sets are indispensible however, as some of Hitchcock's finest songs are hidden away on those exclusive rarities CDs. And having had it on tape since 1988, I really, really wish Robyn would release the full gig that the live version of 'Dr Sticky' on 'Thatcher' has been lifted from. As for the A&M releases, there's easily enough material there for another set of comparable size and scope to these two. Just saying, A&M [or whoever owns you this week].


There are plenty of other box sets I've enjoyed, but I've probably bored you enough for now.

P.S: Oh, and for the sake of completeness, the Pink Floyd Early Years box. There's a lot wrong with it [such as 'Seabirds'-Gate], but there's also a great deal about it that's right.

 

Always nice to discover a Vandermark/DKV fan here. I need to ask you how your boxed set discs showed up. I was so disappointed with this I wanted to just toss the thing, after being very excited to dig into this set. The inner sleeves have interior glued flaps that deposited glue on all 7 discs to varying degrees, some very bad. We worked on them for an hour trying to clean them and finally, after nothing mild worked we had to turn to alcohol pads and even then it was difficult to remove the glue. Did your set have this problem? Maybe check them out if you have not. I want to contact the label about it.

 

The Police: Message in a Box. Every album plus outtakes.
Citizen Steely Dan. Every album, 1972-1980, plus outtakes.

Disappointing box sets:
ELO: Afterglow...nothing from Xanadu
Steve Winwood: The Finer Things...no "GO" studio tracks, limited material from Roll with It

 

I thought this was a really good one; a fantastic overview of British psychedelia with some obscure names as well as some bigger-names like The Who, The Animals, Traffic, Small Faces, etc.

 

As a huge Glam fan since the beginning I would say this is probably one of the worst box sets ever released.
I could have knocked up a better track listing than this pile of rubbish in 10 minutes, and I suspect so could most glam fans.

 

So you're saying Noel Coward, Bauhaus, Magazine and Lulu....aren't glam?? But....surely, you can't argue about Anthony Newley and Jacques Brel??

Joking aside, that is just a very, very random collection of tracks....