Musical Gigantism: Classic or Dud?

LESS ORDER!

Tom I thought you were a boxset demon.

Lovingly compiled box-sets with a history booklet and comprehensive production notes = a guilty displeasure.

8CDs "Best of the 70s" for eleven quid made up of anything a bunch of cash-happy Dutchmen can get their hands on = CLASSICEST OF ANYTHING!

I think Matos' example is exactly why a boxed set can be great. Star Time flows beautifully, highlights the highlights, cuts a lot to be sure, but it knows its subject and sticks to it. And its subject is James Brown's greatness.

On the other hand, the nine discs of the Stax/Volt boxed set have more great songs than Star Time does, but way way more not great songs. But they leave it to you to decide. I don't mind having a set that I don't really "get" until four years after I buy it, because it takes me that long to listen to all of it enough times to decide what I like and what I don't. That process feels natural to me. I mean, we're playing catch-up with these boxes, right? Why bitch about how long it takes to absorb? We're 30 years late as it is.

but to each their own.

I'm saying I get a *better* sense of wonder and achievement by learning slowly and perhaps in a haphazard way than I do by buying the guidebook. And I'm never very attracted by coherent statements (as I'm so amply proving).

Tim: of course, fair enough. My sensibilities are pretty informed by "coherent statements" but I'm also attracted to the haphazard as well. Which probably, haha, means I'm a rockist and a popist.

And what about the fun to be had actually locating those longed-for records? This is supposed to be hard work, you know! You kids have it too easy.

but i'm not necessarily against the 2-cds thing, as long as it makes aesthetic sense. i.e., it's my aim is true and this year's model, not my aim is true and imperial bedroom.

Less aesthetic sense please.

Tad I'm not talking about 2-for-1s which are fine as the Beach Boys reissues testify. I'm talking about the second CD full of demo shite tactic. It would be fine if it meant no extra cost but it doesn't.

(Well you do - it's called going to a 2nd hand shop and getting the single album old versions cheap. But basically no.)

i. full price albums are very expensive (10-15 pounds).
ii. after a while they go to mid-price and you can then get them discounted for 5 or 6 quid in a lot of places. Dylan and Beach Boys and Steely Dan and Nas etc etc albums are all like this, so is pretty much anything back catalogue other than the Beatles.
iii. But with a 2 Disc set this discounting very rarely happens - I've never seen the 2-disc PSB sets for less than a tenner anywhere, ditto Costello.

But then again, that's one album with b-sides and outtakes. With the Stax box (which seems as good an example of gigantism as any), no expense was spared, no single was too insignificant. And that's ok. They don't mislead you into thinking it's some boiled-down version of Stax. It says right on the box, Stax. Singles. Nine Discs. Buy it, or don't. Now how are the people who put this huge archival grammy-worthy thing together falling down on the job?

And this is about liking fun, right?

Like I said, it took me about four years to get around to all of it, bit by bit. I've listened to all of it, but I don't like all of it, and surely neither did the compilers. But goddamnit, there it is. Huge and... forgive me... important.

I'm not sure I agree with you re: the uniformity of Stax vs uniformity of Motown in terms of sound, MM, but now's not the time.

This thread has reinforced to me how much I value arbitrary, misinformed likes and dislikes, and productive misunderstandings. They're so much harder to come by with curators interfering. (I don't question your right to the Complete Proper Understanding though Kenan).

The first NOW released on CD goes for 200 quid on eBay!

(What is the biggest box set ever released? The Merzbox probably and I'm amazed I'm the first poster to mention that on this thread.)

I cannot comment on the new technological forms that M. Matos mentions. (I like his question, and its Joycean vocabulary.) Box sets or collections are perhaps another matter.

A problem with Box Sets is surely their failure to fit in with other musical formats. That is, they're big and bulky, they're hard to find a place for, they don't line up alongside other CDs. Opening The Box is a large ritualistic performance rather than a convenient one.

Those comments are somewhat conjectural, as I don't really have a Box Set proper - though even the wee Ride box is too big to keep alongside other CDs.

But what if you remove the Box aspect and get down to the basic idea of Many Tracks vs Few Tracks? In that case I would have to back the former. A thrifty attachment to 'Value For Money' is one major reason.

I am all in favour of contingency as a principle, or as a fact or force to be accepted or embraced - which I think is something that Hopkins is saying too. But perhaps contingency will happen anyway - 'that's what it does'. In terms of making deliberate decisions, rather than having life make them for me (which it presumably does), I can see the attractions of good-value, extensive-coverage gigantism.

BTW: I think those PSB reissues are exemplary in the thought and care that has gone into them. I think you should have the option to buy the mid-price stand alone though. I guess the analogy is with extras on DVDs - one edition is fine for the scholar or the obsessive, but not necessarily for the casual fan. I just wish that eg The Smiths back-catalogue was handled with the same imagination.

(I was also peeved that the one thing I really wanted - a glorious mix of Left To My Own Devices which was on the cassingle - appears to be missing.)

1. if they are compiled by someone really knowledgeable in a scene, then they're almost like getting a free college course on music
2. even if I don't like the music, big sets compiled by my friends are a good way of getting to know their tastes (for future trades). this is especially valuable when I'm not very familiar with the kind of music they like.
3. they are goldmines for other mixes (and often for playing at parties)

Obviously, I'm not going to have to time (or desire) to listen to 4 or 5 discs of material - often these things are more helpful/useful than really entertaining (though that's not a rule).

I like Ewing's line about p.120, though I don't know what it means.

It is a good thing that I have now read his previous book.

Unsurprisingly, I am a fan of box sets (and the Echo one is flat out amazing, so ner Tim ;-)), but I think the point about listening to them in bulk is well taken. I've found often that there's a perfect disc in a larger set which will be the one I'll want to listen to the most -- the second in the Echo set, the second in the Adam Ant set, the third in Star Time, etc. -- and whether it's due to chance or creativity or luck everything will perfectly align, a mix of the well-known and more obscure that really connects. I don't think you can plan this entirely, though, it probably comes down to the listener.

Having everything or near everything is one of those elements that makes the completist in me happy, and I'm pretty damn extreme on that point sometime (though Muslimgauze has long since defeated me, goddamn), so box sets can serve that purpose. On the flipside, they sometimes serve as being enough for my own range of interests at the present time, and sometimes knowing something 'obscure' or not as highly regarded as the canon equally well *as* the canon allows for a different sort of compare and contrast.

But that all said, box sets seem sorta wonderfully outdated these days thanks to mp3s -- you want rarities, you got 'em. The one disc alone I have of nothing but Cure obscurities -- and most of those are studio, don't get me started on the live stuff -- is an example of that, while the flipside is (as I was telling Anthony the other day when he said that a best-of of Liz Phair would be something he would purchase in a heartbeat) you can make your own greatest-hits comp in turn, or take the arrangement of one that already exists and play around with it or ask someone else to do that for ya or whatever.

When it comes to double-disc reissues as described, hell, I LURVE them Pet Shop Boys reissues but I take Tom's point about the casual buyer...though doesn't this go back a bit to the mp3 point and easy access?

Anyway.

I suppose this is great for the jazz researcher or historian, but it doesn't really work for me as listener, especially in some cases where they put two or three cuts of the same track in a row. I can understand this on boxed sets of live shows, but on studio recordings, I'd rather hear the original records and then the outtakes.

This has led me to burn up a few Cds with the original albums in their regular running order. I still like these particular collections, as if you want to get all or most of Coltrane or Ornette's Atlantic records, it is a better deal than buying them one at time.

What I thought was interesting in particular about the Atlantic collections is that they didn't put all of Mingus' Atlantic recordings into a single box set, they just put out a two CD collection. (Mind you...they may have done this in the past year or so, they didn't put out a big collection around the time that Coltrane and Ornette sets came out, as they originally released boxed collections on most of their major jazz/r&b artists around the same time.)

The Rolling Stones "London Years" is a good comprehensive box set other than the last CD gets weird as they released a single off of that outtake collection that sounds really out of place. For me, it is much more worthwhile than their early albums (until Between the Buttons), which seem to be thrown together. One thing I like about this box set is that you really can hear them develop from a raw kiddy sounding blues cover band to a weird pop outfit to a strong sounding blues influenced rock band.

Some of the popular rock boxed sets like The Velvet Underground, Joy Division etc., I never picked up because I already had the records. That Echo & the Bunnymen one has been very tempting, as I only have one of their lps and the one CD "Ballyoo" collection and the rest on tapes.

In general I have mixed feelings about the uberpricey festish-object box sets a la Revenant and now a gospel box on Dust-to-Digital coming out later this year. It's called Goodbye Babylon. IIRC four discs of American religious music--white and black--and a CD of classic recorded sermons. Housed in a giant cedar box and wrapped in raw cotton (!!).

God, I have so many thoughts on this and I'm at work so they'll have to come out in little spurts.

too much is never an option here. that's why the good lord made home taping and MP3 discs for self-compilations. one person's "dogwood tree" song is another's "knock on wood"--I've used them both on mixtapes and they've both worked completely.

I agree that if you have unlimited budget and time, and can find all the old original albums, you can do so to make your own history come together. I'm doing this with a lot of jazz and blues. but as far as a bargain, ain't nothing wrong with a Big Box Set unless it leaves out something crucial...which the Stax/Volt box does not. (when I'm rich I'll end up getting vols. 2 & 3 too--this is MY perfect music, most days.)

and yeah, star time is even better. but it only focuses on ONE PERSON, so it can afford to be both expansive and succinct.

Before I got hooked on MP3 searches via Audiogalaxy, Napster and the like some years ago (when they were still useable), I'd have agreed with you. However, I've found that tis the outtakes that are more interesting (despite a cough here, a slight drop in volume there). By the time a CD arrives in my hands, tis been spit-shined to death. Give me a curious B side over the popular A side, please. The live version of an artist's song (if used as an outtake) can bring reveal emotions that aren't necessarily seen in the studio version.

About the "Box Set" question: If I can get a box set, I'd love to. However, tis my budget that usually complains. Do I need it? Obviously not. Recently, I tried to listen to more than 2 discs of the Bowie box set I've got [Sound and Vision]. Couldn't make it past disc 2 without a rest---and this is someone I adore. Could well be that my attention span is shorter, but I'm not sure.

that's Wendy Rene;
"Bar-B-Q" is just pop froth
I think that it's fun

There is an Atlantic box of Mingus stuff; it's a 6-discer called Passions Of A Man (only the sixth disc is an interview, and they don't include his back-to-Atlantic albums from the 70s, only the stuff from the 50s and 60s).

I agree that the sequencing on jazz boxes is often annoying, as is the preponderance of extra takes directly after the master version. I have the 8-CD Charlie Parker Complete Savoy & Dial Studio Recordings set and wound up burning the master takes to two CDs. Did something similar with the Coleman box—made home copies of individual albums, and haven't actually played the actual box in, I think, about a half-dozen years at this point. But I'll never sell it, never.

Some of my favorite boxes are ones which document a single event or single period in obsessive detail, rather than the mammoth career-overview type. (I don't have any multi-artist boxes like the Stax and Motown ones, because those tend to only be done for soul/R&B, which I never listen to.) For example, my favorite Miles Davis box is the 8-CD Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel, and last year I bought a 10-CD Cecil Taylor box that documented a weeklong stand at some club in London, one set (which was generally one long piece) per CD. With sets like that, I'll spend a week listening to them—bring one or two CDs to the office every day, and work through it gradually. I've probably listened to the Cecil box ten times now, which considering it cost me about $165 including shipping from the UK is fair value.

I hope I never have another job where I can't listen to music at work.

As for the outtakes, I don't know. I can see where people who study jazz improvisers want to hear variations upon a theme, but in most cases the reason the one gets chosen is because it usually was the hottest cut.

I don't have any of those complete Miles Davis Columbia sessions, but I think hearing the raw material that made "In A Silent Way" or "Bitches Brew" would probably bring out the flaws more than the edits, which distilled it down to the best essence. I think I remember reading that he destroyed the original recordings before edits of some his records, because he didn't want people to go back and hear some of the solos and parts that in his mind didn't work.

Then again, Alfred Lion of Bluenote was a beliver in using sometimes a cut that might have somewehat inferior soloing if the head was much better and tighter, as he thought the head was the hook, not unlike a pop song.

At least Rhino put all of those Coltrane unfinished fragments of Giant Steps and others onto a separate disc, as I don't have to hear them if I don't want. (I've only listened to that disc a couple times, mostly bits and pieces as that is all it is...bits and pieces.)

Some of my most memorable personal experiences with music - feelings of really "getting" something - have come thanks to the total immersion that the box approach provides. Listening to Jimmie Rodgers The Singing Brakeman - a 6 disc set on Bear Family compiling everything he did - over the course of a week, while simultaneously reading Nolan Porterfield's biography, I really felt like I had entered his world. Some of the stuff that could be considered "bad" on there - the Dixieland experiments, the rerecorded versions of hits - only helped augment my picture of his career.

I had another great experience many years ago with the John Coltrane Complete Prestige Recordings set - a 16 disc set that a saner me would have passed over, but that I found for less than $100. The value proposition was simply too good to pass up. I just found the experience of moving through that set very satisfying. I confess I don't find much affinity with the metaphors of "history lesson" or "college class" used in a couple posts above. For me, it's really a joy to get that intimately acquainted with an artist - I don't view it as work. With that Coltrane set, I paced myself - listening to a disc every day or three. The effect was a kind of serialization, where I found myself eagerly anticipating the next "episode". Yeah, there was a lot of inconsequential stuff on that set, a lot of rote blowing sessions (being comprised entirely of hard bop stuff), but even a show as smartly written as The Sopranos has had a couple clunkers each season. Anyway, the sum total of the experience was to leave me feeling like I really knew Coltrane - could identify his tone, his quirks - and I think aided my appreciation of jazz in general.

If anything, I think some box sets are too short. Three discs each of Muddy Waters's and Howlin' Wolf's Chess recordings? That's it?! Heck I could have listened to that before lunch today. And at least one disc in each of those sets is partially taken up with post-prime material. At one point, there were larger import sets of the complete Chess recordings of both those artists, but they've since gone off the market (they were illegitimate Charly issues, I want to say). Really though, when you're talking about an artist as important as say Rodgers, is it really such a burden to wade through 6 discs of material? I mean, I'm sure some of the people who would come out against box sets probably own 6 or more individual records by completely inconsequential artists, so I don't see how compiling the work of a major one into a complete package represents a problem. It's a similar situation with that Ornette Atlantic set; anyone with any interest in that extraordinary quartet will eventually want all of that material. After all, it's only 6 discs' worth - might as well package them all together. Makes perfect sense to me.

Oh, and to answer Tom's query from above, I'm pretty sure this ungodly thing trumps the Merzbox as the biggest box set ever...

B-but my point is that *limited* budget is what enables my record buying: sure I could spend a lot of money on some big Stax box and sure I'd like it. In fact I'd probably love it beyond life itself. I just think my life's made more interesting my waiting and seeing what strangeness I can pick up for bargain prices. If I were going to operate a "buy it all" policy with unlimited funds then a box set would obviously be preferable, original pressing obsession sucks.

I can't live through those times in such a way as to understand how they happened so I might as well make the history of music happen to me. I'm absolutely convinced that I've had more thrills in more unexpected places by doing it this way.

Mr Diamond: LESS ORDER!

That's my problem with the "Complete Sessions" boxes thus far: they don't give you the raw material, they just compile album cuts (and, granted, a fair amount of previously unreleased tracks) in chronological order according to some quixotic notion of which tracks represented a run-up to which album. (The upcoming Complete Jack Johnson Sessions box doesn't do that, though; it actually does give you, for example, the five separate takes of "Go Ahead John" that were edited together to make the 28-minute version on Big Fun. For that reason, I think it's the first "Complete Sessions" Miles box to actually live up to that name.)

but you just can't find
all stax singles & LPs:
hence the NEED for set

I agree with the Pinefox that a single 7" can apprise you of this, too. Part of what I love about finding some great 7" by someone I've never heard before is imagining a world of music out there that sounds like it. I might be disappointed to actually hear it.

I prefer the serial approach to box sets, like the "Tiffany Transcriptions" set of ten individual discs by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. It's a bit more "try before you buy."

MM (and I know you're a good song-at-a-time lad): sure there's lots to be got from boxes: I've no doubt at all of that. I just get more from non-boxset behaviour.

Are any of these the bonus tracks on the reissued records? I have the old Columbia Cds on most of them except "Big Fun", "Get Up With It", both of which have a couple of bonus tracks.

There are no bonus tracks on the reissued "Get Up With It." The reissue of "Big Fun" has four extra tracks, all of which are on the "Complete Bitches Brew" box. The reissue of "Water Babies" has one extra track, from the "Complete In A Silent Way" box, and the reissued "Miles In The Sky" also has two tracks from the same "Silent Way" box.

I think I remember reading that when they did the "Bitches Brew" box, they couldn't find the masters, so had to take the original raw tapes and re-construct the album versions the way Macero originally did 'em. But I could be wrong.

And Matos is totally wrong; the "Jack Johnson" box is fantastic. Worth it just for the tracks on Disc 1 that have Sonny Sharrock in the band.

Same thing, in this case.

That being said, if someone could pull off a tight four CD best of Parliament/Funkadelic with a killer book, that could be just as tight.

I made a CDR comp a couple of weeks ago of 1993 for kicks.

A much better option these days, since there's this thing called ClearChannel = dump a huge random load of songs onto an iPod or whatever, completely randomize somehow, play them all through.

Shellac- Crow
GvsB- Cruise Your New Fly Self
The Grifters- Black Fuel Incinerator
Guided by Voices- Gold Star for Robot Boy
Sebadoh- Careful
Engine Kid- Windshield
Jesus Lizard- Fly on the Wall
JSBX- Bellbottoms
Mule- Hayride
Silkworm- The Cigarette Lighters
Pavement- Range Life
Superchunk- Driveway to Driveway
The Melvins- Road Bull
Jawbox- Savory
Swans- Mother/Father
Sonic Youth- Tokyo Eye
Tortoise- Spiderwebbed
Palace- No More Workhorse Blues

For the same road trip, I made a prepunk/punk/postpunk CDR that went like this one:

Pere Ubu- Heart of Darkness
The Damned- New Rose
The Dead Boys- All This and More
Wire- Ex Lion Tamer
Richard Hell- Love Comes in Spurts
Gary Numan- My Shadow in Vain
The Buzzcocks- I Don't Mind
Modern Lovers- She Cracked
The Ramones- Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
The Clash- Brand New Cadillac
Captain Beefheart- Ashtray Heart
Bauhaus- In A Flat Field
Patti Smith- Pissing in a River
Joy Division- Dead Souls
The Germs- Lexicon Devil
Gang of Four- Natural's Not In It
Television- Marquee Moon
PIL- Careering
Iggy Pop- The Passenger

and another CDR comp with just the idea that I wanted all long epic rock songs (7 to 10 minutes) of various makes from the late 60s to mid70s that I thought would go together well at 70mph.

Can- Pinch
The Doors- LA Woman
MC 5- Sister Anne
Rolling Stones- Can You Hear Me Knocking
The Stooges- 1970
Hawkwind- Master of the Universe
Black Sabbath- Wheels of Confusion
Led Zeppelin- Achilles Last Stand
Neil Young- Cortez the Killer

I like some NPR shows on the weekend, especially some of the blues shows. The one out of New Orleans called American Roots and another one made in Indy that they play around here are sometimes interesting listens if they have a good topic they base the show upon. There is another one that is on late night on Saturday out of Chicago that plays some real obscuro blues, some quite old from the 20s.

Blues Before Sunrise hosted by Steve Cushing! Yeah, it's fantastic. Changed my life as a wee lad when I heard it through syndication, totally got me hooked on old country blues stuff. I dunno if it's online now, but it should be.

I am imagining this and now I feel as though I am on the brink of catatonic bliss.

It's funny how the 1972 thing worked out for me. The 2002 thing stemmed from the fact that, this spring, I eventually learned that it was borderline-classic as music years go (though I could easily come to that same conclusion about 2000 and 2001 if I wanted to). The '72 thing followed because it seems to be a comparatively uncanonized year (compared to, say 1967, 1977, 1982 and 1991) and I wanted to see if I could patch together a context that filled in my own personal blanks.

I might actually get back to these shortly. I'm tempted to jump on 1993 just to bust out one of my favorite links ever -- "C.R.E.A.M." into "'93 'Til Infinity" into "Come Clean" -- which I enjoy in terms of both historical and musical-flow narrative, the cement being poured in underground hip-hop's foundation. (The bittersweet thing is, I only heard these songs last year. Shame, etc.)

And of course I'm going, "Holy shit--do I *really* wanna pay $45 for this thing? Is it worth it? Do I get a cookie? And most importantly, is it coming out as a physical box set? Am I jumping the gun to get this early?"

Help me decide!

-- M Matos (michaelangelomato...) (webmail), July 30th, 2003 11:24 AM. (M Matos) (link)

i'm guessing this has already been stated... but for me, exhaustive box sets like the Stax Singles box succeed because they let *me decide what's the great stuff, and what sucks. that's what i want from a box set - the stuff about an artist that the greatest hits (or even all the recorded output) doesn't tell you. some of my favourite supremes stuff is just weird oddball shit from their box set, like 'buttered popcorn' or 'bill when are you coming back' - outside of tracking down all their albums and seven inches i'd have never heard these absolutely marginal (according to the canon) songs, but the box set offers this access. they're not for everyone, true. but like someone already said, you don't have to buy them.