Rock sets from Genesis to other Revelations

Let’s face reality: digital music is steadily gaining ground on CDs. A November report in the UK paper the Guardian suggests that sales for compact discs in the last quarter of 2008 look to have plummeted as much as 27 percent. That’s following the the previous record decline of 21 percent in the first quarter of 2007.

While it never had the intrinsic value of its grooved black circle brother, the vinyl LP—once thought an arcane relic, but making a surprising and joyous comeback for audiophiles and fans in the digital age—the CD helped usher in some advances for music lovers.

Take the box set: The often lavishly packaged, multi-disc, comprehensive collection found its heyday with the CD’s peak. With a box set, not only did you get a good chunk of an artist’s catalog or a specific genre but additional rarities, outtakes, and the back story courtesy of expansive books and liner material.

The box set remains a strong, worth-while competitor in this ever-changing marketplace. Aside from being a big-ticket cash cow for labels to milk—when done right—a box set can offer a complete and modern presentation never before possible.

A few newly released sets on groundbreaking artists of the past are proving that, in 2008, the box set has new life. And they still look great on a bookshelf.

Genesis
Genesis—1970-1975
(Rhino/Atlantic)

Here’s the best example of how, with technology and thoughtful detail, a box set can be done to perfection, implementing every piece of the past and updating it for a new generation. The lauded Peter Gabriel era of the pioneering English art rock outfit Genesis has been brought into the future. The band’s first five albums—Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway—are all here, fully remastered and presented with detail almost unseen in such a set before. Each album is here as a SACD/CD hybrid disc, as well as 5.1 DTS and Dolby Digital Surround audio DVDs. These boast a wealth of live and archival video footage, as well as newly recorded interviews with band members and producers. It’s rare that a set is so complete, offering not just unmatched sonic clarity and completely new mixes of these incredible, timeless albums, but also a step back to see things that might have been lost to memory. For example, one of the revelatory items has to be the DVD disc for the epic rock opera The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, which recreates the fabled slide show that accompanied the band’s live performance of the album. There’s also an extra discs of unreleased material—including a long-lost BBC soundtrack—and the obligatory book to fill in the rest. All in all, this could be one of the most complete and satisfying sets to come along in years. The old school black circle fans can rejoice, too. A limited edition Genesis 1970-1975 vinyl box set is due to be released on January 12, 2009.

Cheap Trick
Budokan! 30th Anniversary Edition
(Sony Legacy)

Fourteen thousand screaming Japanese girls can’t be wrong. Cheap Trick at Budokan was never even meant to be released as an album in the USA, but when it was, it not only made the band a household name but went on to become a benchmark, one of the most enduring live albums of all time. While the original two-sided record wore out needles all over the planet, the video document of the concert itself went virtually unseen for years—barring a one-time airing on Japanese TV—until now. See for yourself as Messrs. Zander, Petersson, Carlos, and Neilsen put their unmatched rock show into full throttle and whip the teenagers into a frenzy at the famed martial arts hall turned concert venue. The set includes the complete recordings culled from two nights, remastered and with bonus tracks. If the back-to-back pop blitzkrieg of “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender” doesn’t set your blood racing and your ass shaking, you just might be lacking a pulse.

Paul Weller
Weller at the BBC
(Yep Roc)

One of the greatest songwriters England ever produced, Paul Weller’s post Jam and Style Council sessions from the Beeb are collected here across four discs. It should be noted that the Modfather—an artist never keen on looking back—also has a new release in 2008. The double album 22 Dreams is his most boundless and experimental in two decades.