Holiday Gift Guide 2005	Thinking Inside the Box by Mark Norris

Just when you thought it was safe to throw your CD player in the fireplace...it’s back: the holiday season. While the digital revolution has radically changed both the music industry and the way people hear about new artists, it has yet to truly alter the way people buy music gifts during the holidays. An iPod is a pricey proposition for a casual friend and while there are digital accoutrements and accessories available for a reasonable price (armbands, cases, pre-paid gift cards, etc.), they aren’t really the most personal of gift options. Which leaves us with the old format of individual CDs for stocking stuffers and box sets when you’re hoping to add a little heft to the stack of gifts in your music lover’s stash. This year, we’ve moved on from the overly familiar “best sellers” list and instead offer some alternative suggestions for music gift options.

Genre: Country

Like This? Johnny Cash, alt country, pop country, rock

Try This: Hank Williams - Turn Back the Years: Essential Hank Williams Collection (Mercury Nashville) 3 CD Set

List Price: $39.99

What’s the Deal? The recent media attention given to Johnny Cash will ensure that the “Man In Black’s” back catalog experiences skyrocketing sales this holiday season. While this phenomenon is deserved to be sure, it underscores our continued devotion to the concept of a happy ending. While Cash’s hell-raising years were redeemed by the love of a good woman, the tale of country music pioneer Hank Williams never found such a blissful resolution (and has yet to be fully celebrated in recent pop culture). Put simply, Williams’ life and music changed all of the country music that came afterwards and left a staggering body of work to explore. Williams’ catalog has been mined before with countless compilations and extensive box sets. What makes Turn Back the Years different is its presentation of Hank’s music on three themed discs and juxtaposition of classic songs of the country genre with lesser-heard material. Songs of good times, heartbreak, hellfire and praise are all here for listeners both new and old.

Genre: Folk

Like This? Devendra Banhart, Bob Dylan, New Weird Folk Movement

Try This: - Donovan - Try for the Sun: The Journey of Donovan (Epic/Legacy) 3 CD/1 DVD Set

List Price: $49.99

What’s the Deal? Putting Donovan in the folk category may ruffle a few feathers of fans of that genre. Of course, that’s a fitting tribute to a man whose music has always raised a deal of debate and confusion. While the songwriter is primarily known for the swirling psychedelic hits recorded in the mid-to-late sixties, Donovan started out his career as a die-hard folkie whose devotion to the sound and style of Bob Dylan earned a fair degree of suspect derision. Like Dylan, Donovan managed to turn the tables on the conventional thinking about folk music; going electric, psychedelic and beyond all in a few short years. Try For the Sun, offers remastered recordings of each phase of the songwriter’s journey—all served up in a faux crushed velvet, purple box just to enforce the “groovy vibes.” Again, listeners are presented with both the hits and misses of the Scottish songwriter’s expansive discography and a previously unreleased DVD documentary to boot.

Genre: Hip-Hop

Like This? All rap music from 1984 on, especially rappers that aren’t full of it.

Try This! Expanded editions of Run-DMC’s first four albums: Run-DMC, King Of Rock, Raising Hell and Tougher Than Leather (Arista)

List Price: $11.99--$18.99 (Each, make your own box!)

What’s the Deal? There’s absolutely no doubt about it: Run-DMC is to hip-hop what The Beatles are to pop. The leather- and Adidas-clad trio from Hollis, Queens, marked the beginning of America’s obsession with the art form, in a decidedly non-commercial fashion. If you’re a fan of the genre, then these four records are essentials. All of them capture hip-hop’s exhilarating energy in a way that’s never been duplicated, probably because the formula was so simple: two turntables, two microphones and a New York attitude. The fact that this was happening at the height of Reaganomics and over-indulgent, coke-addled pop records just added fuel to the fire. Run-DMC had rock star flair, but they never took themselves too seriously, something that is the downfall of so many rap superstars these days. (Are you listening Marshall Mathers?) These expanded editions all feature several bonus tracks, including demos, live performances, b-sides, remixes and radio spots. The extra stuff just adds to the experience, giving the listener even more insight into how Run-DMC started it all.

—joe sweeney

Genre: Jazz

Like This? Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea

Try This: Bill Evans - The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (Riverside)

3 CD Set

List Price: $39.99

What’s the Deal? Worshipped by jazz devotees and virtually unheard by non-music obssessives, the work and lasting influence of pianist Bill Evans has finally received some overdue consideration in recent years. Evans’ contributions to Miles Davis’ landmark recording Kind of Blue have often been cited by critics as some of the most inventive, introspective and delicately restrained playing ever heard on record. After his stint with Miles, Evans headed out on his own, forming his now legendary trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Recorded at New York City’s revered jazz venue the Village Vanguard in 1961, the recordings in this box set prove something of a Holy Grail for fans and an eye-opening listen for the uninitiated. The level of unspoken communication and interplay between the musicians is simply breathtaking. The passion and sadness inherent in this music is heightened by the hindsight knowledge that this would be the trio’s final recording before LaFaro’s death just a few days after this recording was made. While much of the material presented here has been previously released, the ability to hear these sets in their entirety, without edits, is a marvel.

Genre: Reggae

Like This? Bob Marley, Damien Marley, Ska.

Try This: Toots and the Maytals - Roots Reggae The Early Jamaican Albums (Sanctuary) 6 CD Set

List Price: $49.99

What’s the Deal? To this day, most people’s definition of reggae music begins and ends with Bob Marley. If you’ve worn out your copy of Legend and are ready to go swimming into some deeper waters, plunge headfirst into the music of Toots and the Maytals. With their late-sixties hit “Do the Reggay,” vocalist Toots Hibbert and company virtually invented the sound and name of what we now know as reggae. Those who instantly connect this music with the laid-back stoner-groove presented in countless movies and “As Seen on TV/Best of compilations,” will be shocked at the fierce rocking and sweaty soul shouting presented by this set. Reproducing the cover art and track listings of six out of seven of the group’s original LPs, Roots Reggae presents The Maytals’ golden years and contains all of their best-known hits. If your party needs an instant soundtrack, this is the place to find it!

Genre: Rock

Like This? R.E.M., The White Stripes, The Strokes

Try This: Children Of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The Second Psychedelic Era 1976-1995 (Rhino) 4 CD Set

List Price: $64.99

What’s the Deal? The first two Nuggets box sets gathered one-off tracks from the 1960s’ greatest “also-ran” groups. Boasting names likes The Count Five, The Electric Prunes and Cuby & The Blizzards, those sets helped to introduce (or re-introduce) lost artists to a new audience. As its title implies, Children of Nuggets presents a long list of groups that were directly influenced by those very same undergrond bands of yore. With over 100 songs spread out over five hours, Children of Nuggets mainly focuses on the new-psychedelic, new-romantic and roots-revival groups of the 1980s but certainly isn’t exclusionary. There’s plenty of jingle-jangle, raw garage and neo-pysche to go around, and the influence of this music upon the current crop of guitar-based popsters can be clearly heard. An extensively-researched, glossy-paged booklet accompanies this set and answers virtually every question one might ever have on this set of forgotten heroes from a past generation.

Genre: Soul

Like This? Barry White, The Blues Brothers, “South Park”

Try This: Isaac Hayes - Ultimate Isaac Hayes: Can You Dig It? (Stax) 2 CD Set

List Price: $19.99

What’s the Deal? Had Isaac Hayes never recorded a single note as a solo artist (or been re-discovered by television watchers as the character of Chef on “South Park,”), his legend would have already been confirmed. As a songwriter, producer and arranger, Hayes’ name was stamped all over this history of soul and rock music long before he released an album under his own name. By the time that Hayes came into his own as a performer, the world had been served with one of the most soulful, forceful and convincing baritones ever heard. Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft” was a massive hit and paved the way for future soundtrack recordings to present exciting and innovative original music as a powerful sales force. Yet Hayes’ oeuvre doesn’t begin and end with the familiar strains of the wah-wah guitar and incessant high-hat playing on “Shaft.” Instead, Hayes’ striking reworkings of songs from the mainstream, country and rock genres would go on to mark the musician as an arranger with few rivals. Spanning two discs and a bonus DVD of Hayes’ sensational 1972 performance from Wattstax and a video for his animated alter-ego’s hilarious single “Chocolate Salty Balls,” Can You Dig It? proves that Hayes’ soul music comes in many sights, sounds and colors.