Why So Many Box Sets?

Made this two years ago

 

I buy NEW CD box sets of unreleased newly recorded improvised music. I’m thrilled a few labels are still producing CD’s & wonderful boxes - Not Two Records is my favorite jazz/free jazz label and the 7-8 boxes I have from them (usually 4-8 discs) are all great.

fwiw I’ve actually listened to all of my CD’s but I’ve skipped a few tracks like Looks Like Rain & Mexacali many times when I’m listening to my many Grateful Dead CD boxes

except I couldn’t make it through the 6/16/91 Dead show from the Giants Stadium box set.

 

They're interesting because they're the opposite approach to the big expensive boxes - taking moderately successful to near-forgotten artists and putting most or all of their old albums together in a fairly cheap but attractive package.

 

They make the box sets because they know I won’t rest until I own outtake #40, which is indistinguishable from outtake #39, which I already have on a bootleg.

 

Why so many boxsets? It’s easier to sell 10 or less CDs to 1 person for £100 or more than it is to to sell 10 CDs to 10 people for £10 each.

I’m someone who practically lives in streaming via Apple Music, I’m still an eager customer (or easy mark, depending on your view) for a well produced box set. From the ‘superior versions’ of the Beatles In Mono sets, the 5.1 mixes from the Floyd boxes, the incredible invocations of an era/album’s production in the books in the McCartney Archive boxes, I’m happy to spend on a well produced set.

The Divine Comedy’s recent Cupid, Folly, Venus & Time set collected their career discography with many unreleased tracks, all presented in a physical set that is truly a work of art. I was only familiar with Prince’s work from his singles. Listening to the Sign o’The Times set on Apple Music convinced me to buy the super deluxe set, the music, DVD and book in the box giving me an appreciation that I simply didn’t have before. I’m, still agog at the sheer qualities of music he recorded in that era but didn’t release - he made the workaholics like McCartney look like work shy fops.

Neither of those sets would have been viable 20 years ago. The Divine Comedy box is a career collection that wouldn’t yet be complete then. The Sign O’The Times box would likely not have flown at the price it was, and maybe not even if the price were viable given Prince’s reticence to release the music on the set during his lifetime.

Even sets that haven’;t been universally acclaimed have been worth my while. The book & the music in the GnR Appete for Destruction set took me right back to my youth in the late 80s/early 90s when music was the only thing that truly mattered to me in life.

On this basis, I’m happy to be stiffed for 10CDs or less for £100. As long as the artists & the industry keep producing titles I’m interested in, I’ll keep buying. My individual CD purchases have dropped of hugely (not completely though) with my streaming service subscription.

 

The two things haunting this thread: Death and dairy cows.

Keep it up with the mesmerizing tight linkage between the production of music box sets and the specter of impending cultural death plus the bovine passivity of being milked for your pre-corpse disposable income.

This is all so weird! Who are you people?!?

 

To desperately squeeze the pockets of an aging generation's of CD buyers until they can.

 

That’s half of the fun.

 

THIS.

 

No, it's a cultural thing. There are populations on earth still living primitive lifestyles and they usually don't even know the concept of private property.
They are most likely a snapshot of what we were ages ago.
So it's not nature. It's society.

Millennials grew up in hard economic conditions; most of them came of age post 2008, a climate of general economic instability. Therefore, they grew up treasuring "experience" more than "possession". Zers are on the same page (plus they have more environmental concerns).
It's a cultural perspective so that if you spend money (and if you have it to spend) you do it to travel (for example), possibly streaming all the music you want from Spotify while you're around.
There's nothing to "grow up" from: it's a different take entirely.

If ever, there are many ways to get a better sounding experience than Spotify or Youtube that don't involve physical supports anymore.
IF one ever wants to. But most of them seem to be even more indifferent to sound quality that even my generation (Xers) has ever been.

 

The ones waiting for us to die, lol.

 

The best question is… why not?

So many endless possibilities, so little money

 

That's a deep dark rabbit hole you've gone down.

 

so will this forum probably.

eta: if box sets are such unwanted industry cash cows as this thread claims, why are there so many other threads on here demanding more releases & obsessing over buying them?

 

Let me give optimist’s view: with classical music when the big and not so big music labels or combinations opened up their vaults and started to put together label, artist, composer, conductor, orchestra, etc boxes it was a way for a lot of fans to amass the huge collections of wonderful recordings comparatively dirt cheap. The target market loves physical media -Lp, CD, etc. The labels can mix and match a vast number of recordings which they have paid for a long time ago. When box sets were snatched up and went OOP rapidly in some cases they knew there was a demand and they continue to fulfill it. Certainly limited issues help fuel demand-if you snooze you lose. I am a happy collector of such. With legacy rock acts-pretty much the same deal. The bigger the vault-the more to be curated, tarted up, packaged creatively and sold. They monetize and we physical media fans acquire amour grails-whether we knew they were grails all along or just figured out

 

Yes, but what a hole!

 

I love these box sets in general. Most are quite well done. I used to upgrade components on a regular basis. I reached a point where I truly love my system so I’m done with that carousel. To upgrade amps, speakers, preamps, turntables, digital playback, even power cords or cables could cost tens of thousands.

These sets are dirt cheap in comparison and they also represent what this hobby is really all about, the music and paraphernalia.

 

answer- money
the question I ask myself is why do I keep buying them? Still have some I haven't even played yet.

 

Glad you mentioned these! I have several and enjoy them a great deal. When I was reading the booklet with the Deniece Williams set, the booklet had a few duplicate pages and was missing others. I sent Cherry Red an email about it. They asked me to provide proof of purchase, which I did. I received a new booklet in about a week. I hope they keep these sets coming.

 

Us Gen X Members still buy Box Sets, as the 1990s was a great time to start collecting them from a lot of Music Artists. I cannot believe it has been 22 years since the Bunnymen ‘Crystal Days’ Box Set. I think my first Box Set bought was from The Police.

 

In today’s world of occasionally disposable items and stimulation overload, a box set or deluxe edition provides an immersive and attractive experience. You can choose to sit there and bask in the music and the time with a nice little book and enter another world and peel back the creative process with demos, live cuts etc. Afterwards you can put the attractive little box back on the shelf and choose to revisit when you like. This sort of experience is what music fans like me treasure.. entering another world with the artist.

Some may mock my romanticized language on this subject as hyperbole and fantasy but it is also a fantasy to dismiss the market for box sets as a dwindling group of doddering old fools with one foot in the grave and it’s also honestly remarkably shortsighted. People like to collect, and people will always love music and want to learn more so the current onslaught of deluxe physical editions may morph and dip and evolve over time but will continue in some form as long as there are those of us who want to dive deeper.

To each their own and long live the deluxe box set.

 

I don’t think it’s just boomers buying these sets. A lot of younger people are also. Collectors come in all ages and I suspect they are the majority of people purchasing these sets. Most average listeners of any age are not going to spend that kind of money on a remastered album that comes with 10 discs of demos, live tracks recorded poorly, bonus tracks that are not good enough to be put on the original album, and a surround sound disc that they don’t have the equipment to play.

Furthermore, had these sets come out in the 80s they would have sold very well. I personally believe they would have sold a lot more then they are today because people like collecting stuff. The more money they have, the more money they will spend.

That’s just my opinion anyway.

 

they were always the biggest cash cow in the catalog...I have a bunch and I'm glad to have them.

 

one can never go wrong with a Bear family Box! I have a bunch...I love them all.