List your favorite box sets of all time
 

So I have recently rediscovered the beauty of collecting boxsets thanks to amazon.coms amazing boxset sale (ends tomorrow I believe). A couple I picked up are:


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Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971

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Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground

So what are your favorites?

My faves are the first Nuggets box set (but all are fantastic) and the Velvet Underground box. The Tom Petty box set is one of the best deals I believe. Oh, and that Motown box you mention is super duper as well.

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Tom Petty-Playback
Faces-Five Guys Walk into A Bar
Cream-Those Were The Days
Loud, Fast and Out of Control-Rhino
Rockin' Bones-Rhino
Rock Rhythm and Doo Wop Vol. 2-Rhino
Cameo Parkway 1957-67
Hot Rods and Custom Classics-Rhino
Rock The Joint-Castle/Pulse
We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll-Proper Box
Flower Power-Time Life

They are not necessarily my favorite band, but the Lynyrd Skynyrd box set is absolutely fantasttic. The acoustic demo tracks are gems, and some of the live songs feature the best slide guitar you will ever hear.

A Piano: The Tori Amos Collection
Weird Tales of the Ramones

Mike Oldfield - Boxed

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Taking a look at my current collection, the sets that I "value" the most are:

Led Zeppelin - Complete Studio Recordings (the best & most simple way to get everything. extras or not.)

Talking Heads Brick (Awesome remastered sound, with some pretty killer bonus tracks & the entire albums in 5.1.)

Faces - Five Guys Walk Into A Bar (all the jams are here, and there isn't a dud in the set. just nonstop dirty rock n roll)

Joy Division - heartandsoul (it's all there & more)

The Zombies - Zombie Heaven (see above)

The Ramones - Weird Tales of the Ramones (man, this has some awesome packaging, and a pretty sweet anthology as well)

The Beatles - LP Box Set (so far, this is by far the most awesome beatles set available. even when they finally remaster & reissue the albums, this vinyl set of the UK albums won't be leaving my collection)

The Rolling Stones - Singles Box Sets (all 3 are just cool. faithfully reproduced mini-vinyl, even down to the grooves in the cd top to replicate)

The Clash on Broadway is the only one I've ever owned. And I owned all their albums before buying that. On Broadway is worth it just for the extended version of Straight to Hell.

A couple of my favs were mentioned already (Nuggets, Misfits), so I'll throw these out there...

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Miles at his peak, in my opinion.

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As much as I love The Clash, I think The Jam were the best band to come out of the British punk scene.

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If all you've got is "Singles Going Steady", you should upgrade to this.

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Dylan throws away songs others would kill to have. Maybe that makes him an idiot, but there you go.

Aerosmith - Box of Fire & Pandora's Box
Alabama - Livin' Lovin' Rockin' Rollin': The 25th Anniversary Collection
Garth Brooks - The Ultimate Hits & The Limited Series 1998 & 2005 sets
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (4 disc) & Led Zeppelin II
Elvis Presley - The King of Rock 'N' Roll: The Complete 50s Masters
Elvis Presley - From Nashville To Memphis: The Essential 60's Masters
Elvis Presley - Command Performances: The Essential 60's Masters II
Elvis Presley - Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential 70's Masters
Elvis Presley - Amazing Grace: His Greatest Sacred Performances

Clash on Broadway really annoys me---for a band that didn't have that many albums, they really could have included everything. Instead, they left off a couple songs from every album, so if you want to hear Cheapskate or Car Jamming (which I most certainly do) then you have to go back and get all the albums again.

Other boxsets that I enjoy are The Police--Message in a Box, and Echo and the Bunnymen--Crystal Days.

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Come on - this is the coolest box set ever!

The freaking thing comes in a mini hard shell guitar case for cryin' out loud! It also comes with a hardcover companion book! It's got demos, unreleased tracks, pre-KISS material, just tons of great stuff. This is one hell of a 5-Disc set!

The Cure - Join The Dots

Out of the ones I own, this one is the best.

Can someone pls tell us more about that Joy Division set?

As rw2516 and Hallowgen stated one of my favorites has to be right now ...

Faces - Five Guys Walk Into A Bar (although I think Hallow must have bought a bootleg ;) .... Four guys ... )

It's got pretty much every scrap of studio recording ever done by the band including b-sides, demos, early Warsaw stuff and both Peel sessions. It's also got a full disc of live material. The collection is roughly chronological. The first disc is early Warsaw singles and Unknown Pleasures supplimented with various b-sides and rarities. The second disc is the same but for Closer-era stuff. The third disc is mostly alternative takes, some extremely rare stuff, demos and other esoterica. The last disc is all live material.

The box set is exhaustive, which is both good and bad, IMO. Some of the raraties are simply nowhere near as good as the core album stuff. In fact, to me they somewhat diminish a band legendary for having very few releases but essential flawless quality. Never the less, if you're a JD fan, it's basically required. Lots of the material here is extremely hard to find elsewhere. Also, the booklet has some very cool photos and essays.

One other thing: if anyone wants it, New Order's "Item" two-disc DVD set has a fair amount of live JD footage. For a band renowned as one of the most intense live acts of its time, it's surprisingly hard to find video of them performing.

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Product Description
1997 release, a four disc set on London packaged in a 6 x 10in gatefold digibook with an 80 page illustrated book. 80 tracks total, including all cuts from the albums 'Unknown Pleasures', 'Closer' & 'Substance', seven of the nine studiorecordings on 'Still', plus Peel session versions of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', 'Exercise One' & 'Colony', the version of 'As You Said' that appeared as the uncredited track on New Order's 'Video 586' 12 single and last --but certainly not least-- 35 previously unreleased gems comprised of live & rare versions of their absolute finest. Utterly brilliant.

The one I've certainly got the most mileage out of is the Blur 10th Anniversary singles box.

And outside of the pointless DVD - and that they later reissued the albums separately - the Bjork Livebox is fantastic. Still waiting for her singles box, though not exactly holding my breath at this point.

Metallica - Live Shit Binge and Purge

Alice in Chains - Music Bank

haha fixed :)

Jimmy Buffett - Beaches, Boats, Ballads, Bars (or whatever it is).

Great collection, and divided up interestingly.