Similar with the LP box, pretty colors but little in the way of linear notes and my understanding is the original LPs sound much better. Still happy to have it since originals have been hard to find stateside I've never seen an original in person in all my time collecting. Also I believe it's the only LP pressing for Topolino but I listen to the shoegaze material a lot more often than the brit pop, but celebrate their whole catalog still.
It's interesting they canonized Topolino as a proper album but not the Split B-sides album "Cookie", maybe because half of it was remixes? Quite good ones, though. I would like to have seen that one in both boxes.
Odd too but made for a selling point for those who already had originals, moreso for the LP box than the CD. I'd have loved to see more content but it was a pretty cool set for the price at release and they hung around for a year or 2 below MSRP but have since started to go up in the secondhand market. I'm still frustrated they didn't do a better job on the SQ, and find it odd that individual reissues on black did not follow. 4AD has become so inconsistent with their reissues, sometimes they sound fantastic like the Pale Saints or This Mortal Coil and some like Cocteau Twins and this box are just really mediocre sounding or have wonky EQ choices like Heaven Or Las Vegas, they did a good job on Bluebell Knoll but most of the other Cocteau titles were a big miss and worth tracking down originals
One beef is boxes that spread one album across multiple CDs - Police Message in a Box. It’s just a data dump. Also, realize I might be in the minority here, but I’m not a fan of vinyl boxes where the music doesn’t have any particular reason to be on vinyl. I don’t need to pay lots of $ for the demos and alternate mixes I’ll just listen to a couple times. Save that stuff for CDs. I also don’t need live shows spread across 4 or 5 LPs. Crazy expensive and takes up too much space.
Actually with 8 billion people I think its likely some would have to agree, cause there arent 8 billion combinations of songs possible. Maybe i'm wrong, but i'm too lazy to calculate it my middle of the night silliness
There are quite a few box sets which left me puzzled as to whom they were targeting. Some are just downright disappointing. Some examples: Rainbow - Down To Earth Tour Box. First, I’m not even sure it is a legit release. The sound quality of the three 1979 US FM broadcasts are worse than the bootlegs of those shows that I had already found online. I suppose the iffy booklet, patch, pin and bottle opener make up for that! Not!! Uriah Heep - pick any of the recent handful of box sets. Awful. A 50 Years In Rock box with every album in mashed up, cheaply reproduced artwork, a booklet with poorly imaged tour program content and my “favorite” violation: several CDs that consisted entirely of key band members choices! Lots of repetition there. How many times do the same original classic versions of “Easy Livin’” or “July Morning” appear? Then their record company doubled down on that ridiculous concept with the ‘Choices’ box set where it’s entirely band member choices! They could have covered the favorites of every single surviving band member (current and former) in a list taking up a few pages of the booklet and offered SOMETHING previously unreleased on the discs. Needless to say, I refused to buy any of this garbage and Heep are my very favorite band. Those Pink Floyd Immersion Box sets were more “flatter to deceive” but the curse of the collector grabbed me so I had to have them. A scarf and a pouch of marbles!!
I recall buying the Grateful Dead "So Many Roads" box then wondering why all the roads led to 1990s era Dead live jams. I should have looked at the track listing more closely, I'm more of a 60s-70s fan.
I can't understand the balls up they made of Irmin Schmidt's Filmmusik vol 1 and 2 LPs inclusion in the Electro Violet box set. Nonsensical ordering of tracks and, even worse, the total omission of Verfolgung and No.5 from the Vol 1 tracks, by far the best two tracks on the LP IMHO. I just cannot understand why they omitted those two tracks.
Same mastering. All bastardized by Nick. Thee only reason I keep it is for the nice flip box and forum member James supplied the 12 inch art for it
Turns out I was wrong. Proof here lol. I assumed 1000 songs to choose from and need to choose 60. n choose k calculator: n=1000, k=60 Of course that also assumes all songs have the same chance which is not remotely the case But even if we disqualify 700 songs right away and choose 60 out of 300 there are 9.04×10^63 ways to do it. Isn't this better than arguing about cables
Oh yeah, the live version of Isis absolutely smokes the original. Bob's voice is full of passion and triumph and bite (She said you gonna stay / I said if you want me to ... YES!!!). That LP side has another two of my favorite obscure / unreleased Dylan songs: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window and the gorgeous Up To Me. Technically the live Isis wasn't unreleased; it appeared on the B-side of the US Jokerman single in 1984 (just found that out a few years ago).
Vinyl's my bag. What bothers me is stretching the number of discs. I don't my extra discs to fit everything for maximum sound, but 45rpm 12" with 3 songs/side is silly. The last side being etched is ...an irritant.
After two perfectly organized decade based sets for Elvis in the 90s: The Essential 50s Masters, containing everything he recorded in the 50s and presented in chronological order, and The Essential 60s Masters, presented in chronological order, all non soundtrack/gospel recordings, they come out with the Essential 70s Masters. This set breaks the mold by not being in chronological order which was unfortunate, and the first two discs are singles. What was worse was the the remaining selections were missing some really quality songs from the '70s albums, yet included some really head scratching tracks, not to mention an entire disc of live recordings from various dates.
One word: Made in California by The Beach Boys. Grrrrrrrr!!!!! Please don't even ask. By far, this is the BIGGEST let down of any box set. The music on it is so good. Fans didn't deserve this treatment. Now all we have are box sets that have half the cds that are complemented by cd-rs just so that it may be complete. Given the rabid fandom of all things Brian Wilson, it's a no brainer that this should be reissued--ideally on MOFI wax but not in 45 rpm. Yes, I'd spend the pretty sous for this. This would be a 12-lp set.
I think they should have added a reproduction of the original inner paper sleeve of Goat's Head Soup as a page in the book. The credit listings (like who is playing keyboards on what tracks) contain vital information that could have been easily included with that hefty box.