As the holiday shopping season hits full stride, finding a special gift for music fans can be a challenge, considering the music industry always makes sure there will be an ample selection of box sets and other special collections. This column focuses on anthology to help you find some of the best of these special releases.
Joni Mitchell: “Archives Vol. 3 – The Asylum Years 1972-1975”
This third installment of a box set series that has gone deep into Mitchell’s artistry moves forward into one of her most musically rich periods, covering the albums “For the Roses,” “Court And Spark” and “The Hissing Of Summer Lawns.”
The original albums are available separately, but this five-CD, 128-track set showcases demos and alternate takes of songs from these albums, plus two full concerts. There are plenty of treasures for fans to discover (such as a session with Graham Nash and David Crosby and versions of “You Turn Me On I’m a Radio” and “Raised On Robbery” with Neil Young & the Stray Gators) as Mitchell continues to pull from her extensive vault of unreleased material.
Van Halen: “The Collection II”
This set could be nicknamed “The Van Hagar Years,” as it includes the five albums the band recorded with singer Sammy Hagar after he replaced David Lee Roth. This version of Van Halen produced consistently solid melodic hard rock, and this set also includes eight outtakes/unreleased songs, several of which — “Humans Being,” “It’s About Time” and “Up for Breakfast” — are keepers.
Devo: “50 Years of De-Evolution 1973-2023” / “Art Devo 1973-1977”
Devo’s history as one of the catchiest synth-pop/rock acts ever (with an affinity for offbeat experimentalism and subversive, sometimes wacky, lyricism) are chronicled in these two box sets. The “50 Years of De-Evolution” collects the band’s hits and best album tracks. For fans of songs such as “Jocko Homo” or “Shrivel Up,” there’s “Art Devo,” which collects a wealth of unreleased early tracks that trace the band’s development and highlights the quirkier side of Devo.
The Spinners: “The Complete
Atlantic Singles: The Thom Bell
Productions 1972-79”
This 43-song set collects the hits and another two-dozen notable tracks from the peak years of The Spinners’ career, when the group worked with songwriter/producer Thom Bell and helped define the ’70s soul sound. Another set, “Ain’t No Price on Happiness: The Thom Bell Studio Recordings 1972-79,” packages expanded versions of the eight Spinners albums released during this period.
Dionne Warwick: “The Complete Scepter Singles 1962-1973” / “Sure Thing – The Warner Bros.
Recordings 1972-1977”
The Scepter set chronicles Warwick’s rise to stardom as one of pop’s finest vocalists and song stylists, while the Warner Bros. set is devoted to a less successful — and underappreciated — next phase of her career.
Aretha Franklin: “A Portrait of the Queen 1970-1974”
Franklin’s 1960s output established her as the “Queen of Soul.” But the five early 1970s albums included here (including “Spirit in the Dark” and “Young Gifted and Black”) ranged from solid to strong. A sixth disc of rare tracks from the period rounds out this set.
Helen Love: “Yeah Yeah We’re Helen Love”
The band Helen Love conjures thoughts of the Archies meet the Ramones. But under the hyper tempos, sugary pop hooks, buzzsaw guitars and playful keyboards, the band sprinkles in some very adult themes to go with plenty of humor. This set collects 33 of the best songs from a career that stretches back to the 1990s.
Howard Jones: “Celebrate It
Together – The Very Best of Howard Jones 1983-2023”
This career-spanning set does a good job assembling most of the prime songs from this pioneering synth-pop (and more) artist.
Superchunk: “Misfits and Mistakes – Singles, B-sides and Strays
2007-2023”
The long-running punkish rock band compiles 50 songs left off of their albums, including cover songs, internet-only cuts. There may be a few misfit songs in this collection, but no mistakes. It’s just more top-shelf music from one of alt-rock’s best bands of the past three decades.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: “Fyfty”
This set collects 25 songs from the original era of Lynyrd Skynyrd and 25 songs from the second edition of the band that regrouped in the 1980s.
Pet Shop Boys: “SMASH: The Singles 1985-2020”
Nearly all of the synth-pop (sometimes with orchestration) group’s singles are compiled on this 55-track set, showing a consistency in quality and style that has kept Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe relevant and successful for 35 years and counting.
