Boxed sets, how many do you own and which are your favorites?

My favorites are...

The Beatles - BC 13
The Beatles - 8 LP box "From Liverpool" also known as the "Crate Box"
The Beatles - CD and Singles boxes
The Stones - Mofi box
The Singles Collection - SACD version
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin, I have the vinyl to this set and it smokes.
Dylan's - Biography (all of them)
Zombies - Heaven
Rhino - Nuggets Vol 1 & 2
James Brown - Star Time
Henry Mancini - Days of Wine and Roses
Doors - Complete Studio Recordings
The Supremes - Motown
Cream - Those were the Days
The Who - 30 Years of Maximum R & B
Stevie Wonder - At The Close of the Century
Johnny Cash - The Essential Johnny cash
Motown - Hitsville U.S.A. (the first volume)

 

Seem to have accumulated a fair few over the years...a selection of my favourites:

Beatles - BC13, MFSL, Singles & EP Collections (have both of these on vinyl & CD)
Bob Marley - Songs Of Freedom
David Bowie - Sound+Vision
Echo & The Bunnymen - Crystal Days
Elvis Costello - 2 1/2 Years
Jam - Direction Reaction Creation
Pink Floyd - Shine On
Police - Message In A Box
Roxy Music - Thrill Of It All
Squeeze - Six Of One

 

I have the Beatles MFSL also, but lately have been leaning towards the BC 13 box for the individual albums.

 

Two Bobs:

Bob Marley "Songs of Freedom"--great collection, great sound, the definitive Marley boxset, though certainly not all-encompassing.

Bob Dylan "A Tree With Roots"--aka the latest, er, "grey market" remastering of the "complete basement tapes" (not the condensed, technically inferior, "screwed with" official release from Columbia).

 

Unfortunately I've never had the scratch to buy all the box sets I've always wanted, but here's what I have and you can't pull from my cold dead fingers.

Los Lobos- "Mas Y Mas"

The Police- "Message in a Box"

Ray Charles- "The Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Recordings"

Elvis Presley- "Platinum"

Billy Joel- "Complete Hits Collection: 1973-1997"

Artur Rubinstein- "Great Concertos" (an RCA LP box from the early 70s)

Wilhelm Furtwangler- "Beethoven War Recordings" on M&A

Dan C

 

I don't have many because I'm not very keen on compilations. My favorite ones are:

-Flashback - ELO
-Honky Tonk Girl - Loretta Lynn
-At the Close of the Century - Stevie Wonder
-In My Lifetime - Neil Diamond
-Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
-35th Anniversary Collection - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
-Hot Fives and Sevens - Louis Armstrong

 

Box sets I own:

The Doors-the complete studio recordings:superb set of all the albums in mini lp sleeves HDCD,great book!

The Grateful Dead-The Golden Road:Box of all the Warner albums+2 early discs,great book! a must for any Dead Head!

Elvis Costello-2 and a half years,great song and bonus tracks though the new Rhino remasters probably beat it on those two counts-only place you can get Live At The El Macambo in it's entirety

The Style Council-The Complete Adventures of(uk import)-Was really unformiliar with this bands out put.Mini lp sleeves has many of the 12'' mixes that made "the Singular Adventure of" so great,superb sound-the unrealesed album (last disc) should have stayed unreleased

The Jam-45 R.P.M. The Singles 1980-82 Passed on the first box 77-79.Bought it mainly for one single which had the excellent covers:"Move On Up","Stoned Out of My Mind"+Beat Surrender,Shopping.Shure wish instead just could get the Jam-Extras remastered.Everything else has been up to this point!

Mini Boxes (3cds)

The Clash-On Broadway great box and rarities originally released in '91.Now remastered and shrunk down without deleting any packageing (as far as I can tell)

The Hoodoo Gurus-Bite The Bullet (Director's Cut) Australian only 3disc of rarities and Live.Amazing covers-they cover everything -and I do mean EVERYTHING!

Boxes I wish For:

Neil Young-The Archives Vol1 (1963-72') For the love of god- Neil get this out!

Van Morrison- Warner box (untitled)Heard this one was I/p two years ago till Van pulled the Plug-too bad!

The Pretenders-Warner heard this was on it's way late last year-don't know why it didn't get released.Hope they stick to the original lineup releases only.The later lineup material is embarassingly bad compared to the bands work from 79'-82'

The Replacements-I hear from reliable sources they have a LOT of unreleased material while on Sire some of which made it onto the All For Nothing/Nothing For All comp.Personally, my favorite band of all time-PLEASE at least remaster the Sire catalog!

The Cure-not my favorite band but this band has a lot of 12'' mixes,b sides that have never made it to cd

The Smiths-Warner box on it's way in Sept this 4 cd box should be quite interesting- but the uk only The Very Best of is good to have till then (only place you can get most of the bands best songs remastered)

 

I spent around 1/2 hr. putting together my list very early this morning, before anyone had posted on page 2. I thought I clicked the "Submit Reply" button. Aparently I didn't.

My computer all of sudden rebooted itself about 4 times in a row around 7.00 am. I didn't think much of it at the time. Now I realize I lost some data. Maybe I'll re compile the list another time.

Highlights include:

Beatles - BC 13 blue box LP set
Beatles - EP Collection
Beach Boys - The Capitol Years (7 LPs)
Roxy Music - 1-7 the first 7 albums (7 LPs)
Who - Phases (9 albums) (limited editon German version)
Echo & The Bunnymen - Crystal Days
Atlantic Rhythm & Blues - 1947 - 1974 (8 CDs)
Stax Volt Singles Volume 1 (9 CDs)
Kate Bush - This Woman's Work Anthology (8 CDs)

 

...what Ron Stone said...

 

I'm jealous, been trying to find one of these for awhile now.

These are my various artist box sets that are out of print. If anything looks interesting then buy it now.

Beg, Scream & Shout! – The Big Ol’ Box Of 60’s Soul
The Brill Building Sound – Singers And Songwriters Who Rocked The 60’s
The Buddah Box
Chess Rhythm And Roll
The Cobra Records Story: Chicago Rock And Blues 1956-1958
The Curtom Story
Hi Times: The Hi Records R&B Years
The Jewel/Paula Records Story: The Rhythm & Blues And Soul Recordings
The Scepter Records Story
The Stiff Records Box Set
Supernatural Fairy Tales – The Progressive Rock Era
The Swing Time Records Story: R&B, Blues & Gospel 1946-1952
VeeJay – Celebrating Forty Years Of Classic Hits 1953-1993

 

Wow! Many of us own the same boxes...Figures, birds of a feather flock together...Quite a few birds flocking & nesting here...LOL!

 

my favorites are:

CSN - over 20 unreleased songs and alternate versions
led zep - every song in a really nice package
the police - every song, plus
steely dan - every song, but could have used a couple of rarities (dallas, sail the waterway)
stevie nicks - nice combination of hits and rarities/b-sides


could have been better:
allman bros. - very hit and miss
carly simon - too heavy on the orchestra material
chicago - should have put the bonus tracks on it that are popping up on the rhino reissues

 

Is this now out of print? I see nothing about it on Rhono's web site

 

I have:

Aerosmith - Box Of Fire
Aerosmith - Pandora's Box
The Beatles - EP Collection
Led Zeppelin - The Complete Studio Recordings
John Lennon - Anthology
Nirvana - Singles
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Playback
The Police - Message In A Box
The Rolling Stones - Singles Collection: The London Years

My favorite is the Nirvana "Singles" box, because it's the only place you can currently get the rare b-sides from the Geffen years.

 

Depending on how you define box sets (I think there are some questionable ones), I have around 160 of them.

I like them all in varying degrees because they spotlight different genres and artists, it's hard to pick a favorite.

The rare ones I love are the Bear Family types, especially The Beatles Bop box.

Someone mentioned the Rhino set called 'Beg Scream & Shout!'. It's funny but I just got through playing around with that one this week.

I'm glad to get much of Sinatra in the Capitol and Reprise sets.

Also, played 'Hitsville USA', the first one, this week. After watching the DVD of The Funk Brothers.

I don't think there is a box set I'm totally averse too, from America to Yoko, from Led Zeppelin to Richard Pryor, from Garth Brooks to Peter Sellers, from the Bee Gees to Ravi Shankar.

When I'm so inclined, they make great additions for the changer in the car.

 

I have very few boxed sets for CD's. All I have are:

• The Police - Message in a box
• Tangerine Dream - Tangents '73-'83
• Star Wars Trilogy (boxed set of the original recordings) only because of the tracks that were on the ESB 2-LP set that previously never made it to CD, plus additional music that previously never made it at all on any format.
• Cocteau Twins - EP Boxed set
• Led Zepplin - the first 4-disc Crop Circle set then the rest on the 2-disc Boxset 2

My wife bought the following:

• Rod Stewart - Storyteller Complete Anthology '64-'90
• Bee Gees - Tales from the Brothers Gibb '67-'90
• Elton John - "to be continued" Re-issued Limited Edition (No 48695)
• Hank Williams Jr. - The Bocephus Set '79-'99

Next up for me:
Duran Duran's '81-'85 Singles Boxed Set

Joel

 

Unfortunately, yes, this is now out-of-print. Even e-tailers seem to have exhausted their supplies. I do see one on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2524916546&category=1570

I'd get this before prices skyrocket. It really is an amazing set.

Edit: Wow, by coincidence that auction ended just as I posted it, with no bidders. Maybe someone here can contact the seller.

 

I'm on about 30 (and 10 of those are Elvis sets!).

Favourites not already mentioned are:

The Patsy Cline Collection

Nick Drake - Fruit Tree

Beach Boys - Single Collection
(a real beauty from Japan - Capitol TOCP-7771/2/3. Loaded with mono mixes )

The Look Of Love - The Burt Bacharach Collection is a real treasure trove as well.

Just remebered all the Sea Of Tunes boxes (I keep them separate from the rest of my collection as they're so precious!) - all really priceless as far as I'm concerned.

 

Re: Re: Boxed sets, how many do you own and which are your favorites?

Hey Malc S,

I see reference to the "Red" and "Silver" CD box sets, which are out-of-print. What exactly are these? What are the actual titles? Are they simple best-of comps, or unreleased tracks? Thanks for any input.

 

I have not heard the JSP set for the simple fact that I bought the Mosaic before the JSP was available. The Mosaic weighs in at 6 discs and it sounds very good and every track is wonderful as you would imagine given Mosaics track record. It retails for $96. You also get the detailed, well researched booklet in the box with the Mosaic. Big bonus!

The Complete Django Reinhardt and Quintet of the Hot Club of France Swing/HMV Sessions 1936-1948 (#190)

I have heard very good things about the JSP box and have been tempted to take advantage of the $25 price tag for 5 discs but feel that much or all of the material would be a repeat purchase for me. If I were buying now I would probably go with the JSP. Of the all JSP product that I have heard they pay very meticulous attention to the restoration and remastering process using the least amount of NR as possible.

Here's a link to Amazon:

The Classic Early Recordings in Chronological Order [BOX SET]

 

A wise person would back up thier boxed sets onto CD-R...

 

Re: Re: Boxed sets, how many do you own and which are your favorites?

Oh Yea! The SOT are the most important Cee Dee's I own...I'm thrilled wih them! Just go back in time and join the studio fun...Like we're hanging out in the control booth with Chuck and Brian! I'm still in awe over these...

 

I agree, and in my case that's a HUGE project...I should have done this long ago! I guess it's never too late.

 

Not to boast, but it'd be easier to list the box sets I don't have.

Here are just the 'A' box sets in the Jimbo Archives:

ABBA
AC/DC
Aerosmith
Alice in Chains
Allman Bros.
America
Laurie Anderson ("United States Live")
Adam Ant

Don't get me started on the 'B's... What can I tell ya, I'm just the music industry's dream "ultimate consumer."

 

Progressive boxed sets

This is a picture of some of my cd boxed sets
Also I like the King Crimson boxed sets.

About lps my favorites ones are:
Fred Frith-Live in Japan
Nick Drake - Fruit Tree
Genesis Collection Vol one and Two