I can't stand Biograph, which might have been the first box set I ever bought. It was a mish-mash of rarities and unreleased stuff with material every Dylan fan had. So, half your money was essentially wasted. Box sets are not for newbies, but for real fans. What real Dylan fan didn't have "Lay Lady Lay," "Like A Rolling Stone," "Blowin' In The Wind" and other such songs on multiple releases already?
RE: Fleetwood Mac The Hi Res downloads are half the price of the physical box because of the vinyl. I'll be purchasing the live box the same way. I bought the Hi Res of the Goat Head's Soup box because it was less than a third of the price of the physical.
“There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.” ― Woody Allen, Annie Hall: Screenplay
I gave BIOGRAPH as a gateway gift for friends that weren't already Dylan affiocionados -- win/win, I see no problem. And no Dylan fans had ever read those Bob comments exclusive to that release.
When that box set was released, box sets like that were a fairly new idea and it was in the beginning of the CD era. It was released on CD and vinyl and I think they wanted the expensive CD box to sell well. So that might explain the common hit tracks in the box, to maximize sales. Eric Clapton released a 4 CD box not long after and I believe it just a career retrospective and it sold very well.
My comment is regarding the cheap packaging of the Capitol boxes not the music contained there-in although as some can see by my sig, I'm not a fan of the stereo versions of a few of those albums.
I believe you but players were uncommon and I do not believe it was produced with that tiny audience in mind.
I agree with the above and the other gripe I had was the lousy design of the booklet and the CD insert papers. I haven’t looked at it in awhile but my memory of it is that some of the pictures were made red and/or blue and the booklet itself wasn’t much and I think the ink would smear or smudge also . Also the images on the individual CD insert sheets were really cheesy and cheap looking . I flipped them around to the pictures of the band . The individual CD titles .. We have ignition, full throttle, etc., seemed odd to me. I’m not sure which variety of “Byrd” attains .. full throttle. The second Byrds set is a better package all the way around IMO.
Maybe, but if don't give them any reason to buy one, nobody would be in any hurry to purchase a CD player.
Well they stopped producing vinyl for awhile so that became a non-issue. I certainly didn't buy a CD player to hear BIOGRAPH.
Beefs: Where is the definitive Nilsson vinyl box? I'm still listening to my 1970's dynaflex pressings for goodness sakes... What the heck is this Replacements compressed mud? The original CD of Pleased To Meet Me is soooo much better.. Um, why can't I have 96/24 mastering that isn't compressed? I'm still waiting for Sgt Pepper 50th, the Audiophile edition. Jeez the vinyl sounds so much better than any of the digital... How's that?
Here's a beef with certain box sets, especially ones that started out as 'larger physical boxes' and on re-release were in a more compact edition (same number of cds, same music, etc, but smaller box.. the problem--- the liner notes are so tiny they are unreadable unless you have a microfilm reader handy! ALso, text printed on a colored background that is almost the same shade, so its even harder to read This is somewhat of a problem for the 'smaller versions' of 'miles davis complete b- brew, miles davis complete jack johnson, and 'on the corner but really comically bad for the elvis 'walk a mile in my shoes' set- I mean, who here can read those liner notes without a microscope?!
XTC - A Coat Of Many Cupboards. This is one of only two boxsets where I don't necessarily mind having hits/album tracks scattered in amongst the rarities, since it actually does manage to tell an interesting and enjoyable story - and that's arguably because of the familiar tracks (Elvis Presley's Platinum is the other boxset where this approach works, imo). Unfortunately, the sound on the XTC box is absolutely atrocious. Even more unfortunately, quite a few brilliant XTC performances are still exclusive to this set. Content-wise, Biograph is a mess, and it's even worse when you look at the dodgy "themed" sequencing. I get almost no enjoyment out of listening to it, and I say that as a die-hard Dylan fan. They should have just put out the 18 rarities/unreleased tracks as a single album and called it a day.
