At the dawn of the CD-box-set age more than two decades ago, Dylan, Clapton, and the Allmans led with multidisc retrospectives that soon became the industry standard at three or four compact discs. The ensuing Digital Age promised so much more, like 1998’s 10-CD The Complete Hank Williams. Complete artist catalogs are now de rigueur, from last year’s Beatles boxes to 2010’s The Complete Elvis Presley Masters (Sony/Legacy), a 30-CD box set containing all 711 master recordings cut by the King, plus 103 additional, rare tracks. Problem is, its initial run of 1,000 individually numbered boxes – so low thanks to the astronomical price tag, $749 – sold out on preorders alone. A second pressing scheduled for shipment on Jan. 17 could well do the same. Instead, the new paradigm, led this fall by boutique collections from Bruce Springsteen, Iggy Pop’s Stooges, and David Bowie – reviewed long-form herein – trends toward the many-CD/DVD/LP expansion of single albums. Six hours of Boss video, 26 consecutive takes of “Loose,” bootleg Bowie LPs finally gone commercial: The modern box set now lives on in the single LP (and its runoff), currently believed dead by download standards. Not so fast, iTunes.
This article appears in December 17 • 2010.
