Needless Box-Set Blitzkrieg

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With X-mas coming up: I'm sure someone's going to lambast me for repeating a thread (as so often seems the case), but having just recently acquired the Kiss DELUXE box set (five cd's and a hardcover book, sheathed in a handsome mock 'guitar case,' complete with lockable-latches -- thoroughly uneccessary [and not just because it's Kiss], but with lots of demos, rareities and the like -- as if you needed any of that), I was wondering what box sets people feel (a) are sorely unjustified, (b) are over the top and (c) what artists deserve a box set, yet still have not had one.

As silly as the Kiss box set is, I still vote for the Stooges' COMPLETE FUNHOUSE SESSIONS box set as the most ridiculous, needless, superfluous example -- seven cd's containing the entire recording session for what is essentially a half-hour-length album. The box set includes 28 CONSECUTIVE TAKES of "Loose." A great song it may be, but I don't think I need 28 consecutive takes of ANY song.

Let's hear'em:

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I first answered this question 4 years ago on a.m.a. and my answer's still the same. I want a Chic Organisation box set - Chic, Sister Sledge, Sheila and B Devotion, Donna Summer, etc - basically a collection and celebration of Rodgers and Edwards' production work and songwriting from 1976-1981.

Since we've been talking about them so much on ILE - The Smiths haven't had a box set. It would be a bit pointless though (I wouldnt buy it) since there arent that many outtakes around. Probably the best thing to do with that band would be to put the original albums out in a box set with a couple of nice DVDs collecting TV appearances, promos etc. But I still wouldn't buy it.

― Tom, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, given the woeful onslaught of Smiths compilations that are currently out there, I wouldn't count on it. But, one with proper rareities might be nice -- not just a singles re-hash.

The last few years have seen box sets from Gang of Four, XTC, Public Image Ltd., Devo, the Ramones, Joy Division.....I'm still waiting for proper box set treatment for Killing Joke (and THE INCOMPLETE COLLECTION of vinyl doesn't count, as it was just a repackaging of select albums with different colored vinyl), Robyn Hitchcock (surely he's got enough material to cover one) and Julian Cope (ditto).

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

With Robyn and Julian I think the amount of bonus tracks and things that have appeared on reissues would imply pretty clean vaults by now...

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know a couple of people who own the Fun House Sessions box, and they swear by it.

Greatest box ever, still: James Brown's _Star Time_. I've owned it for ten years and _still_ play it all the time. Esp. the flabbergastingly great Disc 3.

Most needed box: Sly and the Family Stone (inc. the Little Sister, Abaco Dream, etc. stuff). There are a TON of things in the archives, I'm told. Four or five years ago, there was going to be one for the holidays (I remember one detail: 10 minutes of "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin," which is probably my favorite song ever). Never happened.

And how about a Can box? There are supposedly hours and hours and hours of stuff in the archives from the Delay/Monster Movie/Tago Mago period, and Holger Czukay's just been ignoring them...

― Douglas, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Box sets would be really useful to collect material that is not available.

I would love it if there was a box set with all of the skullflower albums. Also similar ones for blue humans and borbetomagus, actually. It's a pity that when they were releasing records I was a child so when I got on to them there were only one or two albums from these bands.

And since Merzbow, with his small following, released a 50 CD set I'd like to think this dream may become reality.

― Julio Desouza, Wednesday, 28 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

let me first note that this thread has turned into "most dreamt-of box sets" rather than "what are the most superfluous?" and that the answer to the latter can be summed up with "most of Rhino's that recycle existing product"--e.g. '70s soul, disco, etc. not that it stops me from getting them, of course.

let me also double--TRIPLE--Tom's Chic Org. box idea. (Rhino's got the juice--let's have it!) and zero in on Douglas's Sly one: fuck Pet Sounds, what the world needs is a special, beautifully mastered (well, as much as you can, anyway), stuffed w/booklet & art etc. The Complete There's a Riot Goin' On Sessions. Riot is hands-down my favorite album ever, and one of the few of its era whose classic status has never been challenged--that music hasn't aged in 30 years. Legacy dropped the ball on doing something on its 30th anniversary this year, but nothing's stoppin' em after that. Right? RIGHT?!

and finally, two box ideas I've long harbored. One, Ultimate Breaks & Beats--the complete 25-LP sequence, remastered and in order, on CD, w/SCADS o' liners, original 7" and LP artwork from artists represented as well as Kev's great UBB graf-style cover art and as-complete-as-can-be lists of records that have sampled the stuff on hand. And two, a Watergate box--3 CDs of trial highlights, newscasts, attendant records ("You Can Have Watergate, Just Gimme Some Bucks and I'll Be Straight," "Impeach the President," "Bad Luck" ["He did RESIGN, y'all!"]), popcult references (movies, TV), etc. Rhino needs to do both yesterday.

― M. Matos, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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