This year hasn’t been quite as prolific for box sets and other special deluxe reissues, especially compared to last year’s bounty of such sets. But for anyone who’s still looking for holiday gifts to delight a music fan, 2024 produced several good options. Here are the sets that stood out.
Elvis Costello: King of America & Other Realms—This six-CD set documents Costello’s fruitful long-running partnership with producer T Bone Burnett, anchored by his masterful venture into Americana with the 1986 album King of America. The set includes unreleased solo demos, a full 1987 concert with his all-star backing band, the Confederates, while three more discs compile songs—both released and unreleased—that come from later Costello projects that fit stylistically with King of America. It’s an enlightening look into the rootsier side of Costello’s music.
Talking Heads: 77—This three-disc reissue of the Talking Heads’ debut album goes well beyond the 2005 reissue, adding a disc of alternative versions of songs (many of which debuted on previous packages) and this set’s highlight, a punchy previously unreleased 1977 concert at CBGBs. This is a good document of the album that introduced this influential band to the rock world.
Green Day: American Idiot 20th Anniversary Edition—Green Day’s best and most ambitious album is celebrated over four discs with this deluxe edition. In addition to the original opus, it includes a concert on the American Idiot tour, 14 previously released outtakes, bonus songs and b-sides and 15 American Idiot full-band demos (some of which, such as alternative versions of the song “American Idiot” and “Homecoming,” are quite different from the album versions).
The Tragically Hip: Up To Here—The 1989 debut album that introduced the Hip’s taut straight-ahead rock sound and launched the group’s rise to become one of Canada’s biggest bands gets quite the expanded reissue. The outtakes and demos yield a half-dozen solid unreleased songs, while the concert, “Live at the Misty Moon,” shows that even early on, the Hip were a formidable live band.
David Bowie: Rock ’N’ Roll Star!—This five-CD/1 Blu-Ray set explores Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era. The set is bookended by a disc of demos and a disc of alternate versions and outtakes from various recording sessions, most of which had been unreleased. Three other discs compile various radio, TV and concert performances and contain some shining moments. For fans of the Ziggy era, this is a deep dive they’ll want to take.
Joni Mitchell: Archives Vol. 4: The Asylum Years 1976-1980—Mitchell continues her unpacking of unreleased material from her vault. This set covers the period during which the studio albums Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Mingus—on which Mitchell explored a fusion of jazz and her established folk sound—were released. Archives Vol. 4 has a healthy number of solo demos and studio outtakes and is heavy on live material. It all makes for another excellent collection from Mitchell’s back pages.
Faces: Faces at the BBC—One of the greatest bands of the 1970s, the Faces made themselves a regular presence on BBC radio broadcasts. This eight-disc set collects all of the various BBC appearances from 1970 to 1975, providing ample evidence of the Faces’ songcraft and live swagger.
Miles Davis: Miles in France 1963 & 1964—The Bootleg Series Vol. 8—The latest installment in Davis’ Bootleg Series showcases the trumpeter’s newly formed “second great quintet”—saxophonist George Coleman, bassist Ron Carter, keyboardist Herbie Hancock and drummer Tony Williams—at three concerts in 1963 and two more concerts in 1964 in Paris after Wayne Shorter had replaced Coleman. The ensemble shows dazzling musicianship and a melodic jazz sound that both entertained and challenged audiences.
The Police: Synchronicity (Super Deluxe Edition)—This six-CD set includes the original hit album and 1983 concert. But the meat of this set are three discs of unreleased demos, alternate versions of the ‘Synchronicity” songs, outtakes and bonus tracks.
Weezer: Weezer 30 (Anniversary Super Deluxe)—This band’s breakthrough release, known as the “Blue Album,” gets expanded to a three-disc box set. Additions include a disc of full-band demos with several songs that didn’t make the album and a slew of live cuts.
John Lennon: Mind Games (The Ultimate Collection)—This immersive six-CD set follows similar treatments of Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums, with multiple mixes of the songs, alternate takes and more.
Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (‘) 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe—Zappa’s first album to hit the top 10 in the U.S. gets the deluxe treatment with session outtakes and two concerts from 1974.
The Rascals: It’s Wonderful: The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings—This seven-disc package includes all of the albums the Rascals released on Atlantic Records between 1966 and 1971—the peak years of this underrated band’s career—plus a handful of outtakes.
The Yardbirds: The Ultimate Live at the BBC—This set compiles three discs of performances from the Jeff Beck lineup, while a fourth features Beck’s replacement, Jimmy Page. It serves as a pretty comprehensive alternate anthology of the Yardbirds’ output from 1965 to 1967.
