As 2024 draws to a close SDE takes its customary look back at some of the best box sets of the year. What follows are nine boxes, singled out for special praise, but listed in no particularly order, and then at the very end SDE’s overall Box Set of the Year for 2024.
David Bowie: Rock ’n’ Roll Star! (Parlophone)
The David Bowie Estate and Parlophone took years to finally get DB archive releases right. The ‘era’ box sets (which started with Five Years while Bowie was still with us, in 2015) mostly served up audio that fans had already bought many times over and what with the ‘random’ vinyl editions (where you might get black or a coloured vinyl pressing, depending on your luck), the Brilliant Live Adventures fiasco and putting the brakes on the anniversary seven-inch picture discs before Scary Monsters (with no apology or explanation) there was always a feeling that what fans actually wanted was secondary to what the label (or the Estate) wanted to serve up. The change came in 2019 with the Conversation Piece box (reviewed here), an excellent 5CD set which documented the road to Bowie’s 1969 David Bowie/Space Oddity album. This was followed by Width of a Circle (for The Man Who Sold The World, also reviewed on SDE) and 2022’s Divine Symmetry (Hunky Dory). A bit more like it, even if the label still put out ridiculously overpriced vinyl product at the same time, such as the single LP Mercury Demos box which was £100, the series of seven-inch vinyl boxes that preceded Conversation Piece and a ludicrously overblown approach to the Toy album (6×10-inch box set anyone?). Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! is, in essence, a Ziggy Stardust super deluxe edition. Five CDs and a blu-ray, it’s hard to argue with the content – or the excellent packaging. The only grumble was the decision to omit the brand new Dolby Atmos mix, although that was at least made available separately.
Dream Academy: Religion, Revolution & Railways (Cherry Red)
Often, the artist being ‘closely involved’ in a box set or reissue can cast the hand of doom over the project as their own personal tastes and predilections inform what is and isn’t included. For example, they might dislike a certain B-side so it gets omitted, or it turns out that they always despised some remix, so that gets the chop, and/or they simple can’t understand why anyone would want to hear early demos, so they are not considered. Thankfully, none of that was true with February’s alliterative Religion, Revolution & Railways Dream Academy 7CD set which delivered all manner of delights, including all three studio albums. Nick Laird-Clowes was very hands on and worked closely with mastering engineer Tony Dixon to make sure the sound was exactly how he wanted it to be (no brickwalling here) and personally helped search the Warners archive for unreleased rarities.
Ultravox: Lament (Chrysalis)
Chrysalis have been delivering superb Ultravox box sets on both vinyl and CD for a few years now and this year’s 40th anniversary reissue of 1984’s Lament is arguably their best yet. Beautifully packaged with spot varnishing on virtually every element (respecting the original design), the 7CD+DVD edition delivered almost everything you could possibly want. It included the original 1984 stereo mix, a new Steven Wilson remix, two discs of remixes and rarities, a further CD of brand new extended mixes (many by Steven Wilson) and then two CDs of a live concert from Hammersmith in ’84. On top of that was a DVD with album and B-sides in 5.1 Surround Sound and hi-res stereo. All this with a price tag between £50 and £60 left most SDE readers asking, if Chrysalis can do this, why can’t other labels?
John Lennon: Mind Games (UMR)
The Grammy-nominated £1350 super deluxe of John Lennon’s Mind Games was a fantastic art piece but is ruled out of SDE’s best box sets of the year simply because it’s far too expensive to come recommended. However the 6CD + 2 x blu-ray ‘deluxe’ edition was still a superb product, with six kinds of mixes of the album available (Ultimate, Elemental, Elements, Evolution Documentary, Raw Studio and Outtakes) in stereo, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. 72 tracks in total, with a few hidden tracks to boot (all the audio in the massive box). The book (complete with invisible ink, in places) was amazing and the only thing fans were left to ponder was whether a middling album such as Mind Games was worthy of such treatment, but it’s surely churlish to complain about ‘too much’ content, even if the price tag of these Lennon packages are creeping up.
Thin Lizzy / 1976 (Decca)
Since they were both released in 1976, what are probably Thin Lizzy’s two best albums (Jailbreak and Johnny The Fox) were brought together in this 5CD+blu-ray box set, called simply 1976. With the albums short enough to squeeze onto one CD there’s masses of content with original mixes on CD 1, new stereo mixes on CD 2 and then outtakes for both records on CDs 3 & 4. The CD audio is completed by Live in Cleveland, a radio Broadcast from 1976 and the included blu-ray offered Atmos, 5.1 and both stereo mixes of the two albums. Like the Ultravox Lament set, 1976 was very well priced and you were getting two album’s worth of content, not one. Both Lament and 1976 are now out-of-print, which shows that great box sets, well-priced, do sell!
Rusty Egan presents Blitzed! (Demon Music)
Demon Music are the kings of the themed compilation these days and there were some good ones this year, including Katie Puckrik’s Yacht Rock Odyssesy. That was fantastic but ultimately we preferred Rusty Egan presents Blitzed! Curated by Egan himself, the DJ at London’s celebrated Blitz Club in the late 1970s/early 80s, this goes well beyond the generic 80s compilations and offers a brilliant selection of tracks from the likes of the Tubeway Army, Fad Gadget, Magazine, Iggy Pop, Pretenders, John Foxx, Sparks, Kraftwerk, Japan, Blondie, Visage, The Cure and more. The only negative is the glaring omission of David Bowie songs, due to pesky licensing restrictions.
Lindsey Buckingham / 20th Century Lindsey (Rhino)
The Solo Anthology of 2018 was a real treat but Lindsey Buckingham’s health issues and then the COVID-19 pandemic delayed actual album reissues, remasters of which had been in the can for some time. These finally saw the light of day this year with the 20th Century Lindsey box set, available on vinyl and CD. The three albums included were Law and Order (1981), Go Insane (1984), and Out of the Cradle (1992) and they are all well worth owning. As a bonus disc is included with rare extended mixes and non-album tracks. How Lindsey Buckingham didn’t have enjoy more commercial success as a solo artist remains one of life’s great mysteries.
Retrospective / Bryan Ferry (BMG)
Over the years, Bryan Ferry compilations have mostly also included music from Roxy Music which admittedly makes sense commercially, but creatively meant that toes were only dipped in the shallow waters of Ferry’s solo oeuvre. In its 5CD form, this year’s Retrospective turns all that on it’s head with a deep dive into Bryan’s output starting with tracks from 1973’s These Foolish Things and bringing the story right up to date with a new track, ‘Star’, recorded with Amelia Baratt. The well-structured package starts off with a 20-track ‘best of’ before individual themed discs cover ‘Compositions’, ‘Interpretations’, tracks from the Bryan Ferry Orchestra and so on. The final CD features rarities and the whole thing is a near-perfect appreciation of the songwriter and musician’s 50-year output away from Roxy Music. The one much remarked upon negative was the £130 price point, but whole thing was beautifully presented and a bit of indulgence for Ferry doesn’t seem as foolish as the sigh of midnight trains in empty stations.
Bob Dylan and The Band / The 1974 Live Recordings (Sony)
An unbelievable 417 previously unreleased live performances were included in this Bob Dylan and The Band 27CD box set. This offering is what the compact disc was made for and at around £100 it seemed like an utter bargain. A mix of “every single surviving” soundboard recording and (later in the tour) multi-track recordings, this kind of forensic examination of a tour that used to be the domain of the bootleggers, but is now being officially released by Sony. It’s an amazing time to be a Bob Dylan fan.
Box set of the Year, 2024: The Police / Synchronicity (UMR)
With close to zero meaningful archival activity since The Police’s original albums were released over 40 years ago, fans were starting to give up. Finally, this year a Police long-player got the box set it deserved and the album in question is 1983’s Synchronicity. The content across six CDs was remarkable: a CD which rounded up every B-side, instrumental, edit and live tracks (content which originally peppered the various single releases back in the day); two discs of unreleased recordings including Sting’s original demos recorded in late Autumn 1982; and then a complete unreleased live concert. Fans could be forgiven for thinking they’d died and gone to heaven. At £80, it felt perhaps a tad more expensive than it should have been, although the large format hardcover book was nicely done. Disappointingly, there was close to zero promotion for this set. Having finally opened up his archive, Sting didn’t do any press and the other two musicians – Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers – wouldn’t talk to SDE despite the fact that we’d interviewed them for various personal projects in the past. With no companion Netflix documentary, no Sting on The One Show to talk about the box set (like he often does for his solo projects) the Synchronicity reissue didn’t get the spotlight it deserved. As a result, one suspects the super deluxe edition of rather underperformed, which, if true, is a massive shame. Those that did buy it will undoubtedly treasure it for years to come and hope that the other Police albums will get the same treatment.
We hope you enjoyed our selection. What were yours? Leave a comment below.
