A dearth of music box sets greets the close of 2012 like a cold front ahead of the continued death knell of CDs. Entire catalogs materialize with or without accompanying bonuses or scholarship, while curatorial catalog overviews disappear altogether. If these are the format’s end-times, herein spin some final desert island survival troves.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.