Boxed Sets

[LaosLover]

I am surprised to read about a new 10 CD box set of the album Who's Next? It's full of demo's alt. cuts and other useless debris.

 

https://www.salon.com/2023/09/15/in-the-whos-massive-and-majestic-whos-next-box-set-pete-townshends-full-vision-finally-emerges/

 

This is the ultimate example of useless boomer bloat, but:

 

Have you ever purchased a cd/dvd box set? Were the extra features worth it?

 

I've picked up a few jazz ones, like for Coletrane's Impulse albums or Art Ensemble of Chicago or Sun Ra, since their music is (or was) hard to find. I bought a Willie Nelson in a booklet that looked like it had 4 cd's in it, but the forth cd holder slot just had a picture of a Texas Star. 'Turned me off of Willie a bit.

 

And:

 

Who would you listen to a selective, multi-hour overview of?

[CharlieKo]

1 hour ago, LaosLover said:

I am surprised to read about a new 10 CD box set of the album Who's Next? It's full of demo's alt. cuts and other useless debris.

What you call cuts and useless debris shows how the band constructed their songs. To real fans it is of interest how the WHO did this. So no it is not useless it is a record of a bands progress!

[Jelli]

1 hour ago, LaosLover said:

Who would you listen to a selective, multi-hour overview of?

Genesis with Peter Gabriel

 

Robert Fripp, Eno

 

David Bowie Ziggy Stardust to Station to Station era.

 

Possibly Lana del Rey

 

Sufjan Stevens

[LaosLover]

14 minutes ago, CharlieKo said:

What you call cuts and useless debris shows 

Yeah, but TEN cd's for one album. That's some serious barrel scraping.

 

On Jazz sets, I've been known to skip alternate versions. They picked the one they picked for a reason.

 

I bought the Bruce Springsteen box of his unreleased stuff and even Saint Bruce had a lot of chuff in his mix. Those 4 CD's could have easily been 2. 

[Jelli]

1 minute ago, LaosLover said:

but TEN cd's for one album. That's some serious barrel scraping.

That was my exact thought when I read the first bit of the post. The actual album is what 40 minutes? I also realize it is a popular album but Who not my fave band of that era but it's hardly an epic album as well. Never get a vote for best album of decade. Nevertheless, 10 CDs in support of this. Seems a cynical attempt to cash in.

 

CDs lol

[LaosLover]

3 minutes ago, Jelli said:

 

 

CDs lol

Boomers still want the equivalent of a coffee table book. Future generations will be mystified.

 

If you have the orig record pretend-"remastered", toss in a blurry dvd of a period-show, and pad it out with another disc of outakes and demo's, then beyond that it's new money for not even old rope.

[RayWright]

To be fair, the 10 CD box set is Pete Townshend's final attempt to lay out what would have become "Lifehouse", his concept of a new Rock Opera to follow Tommy, where a sort of "nirvana" could be reached be instilling the personalities of a Who's concert audience into a "Universal Chord".

He was forced to drop the concept after suffering a near fatal mental breakdown. In order to move on, Kit Lambert ( The Who's manager) involved Glyn Johns the record producer to salvage the various recordings and try and put together another double album.

The result was "Who's Next", a single album that captured the essence of what Townshend was trying to achieve. While not a concept album per-se, you can begin to understand how 'Baba O'Riley' and 'Won't Get Fooled Again' would have fitted in to his science fiction inspired Rock Opera.

 

I do agree Townshend is scraping the barrel on this one, as in 2000 he released "The Lifehouse Chronicles" a 6 CD collection of historical original material, or the single CD version called "Lifehouse Elements" for those that didn't have the stamina for the 6 CD version.

 

On a different note, then expanded DVD's I do find interesting, as you can get a better understand of what the Director is achieving. Ridley Scott does this a lot to great effect.

 

If you want to see a classic example of how a band develops a song, look at The Rolling Stones Sympathy for The Devil. The film is directed by Jean-Luc Godard in full politico mode who uses current / recent TV footage of the day (1968)  intercut with the band evolving the track. I do prefer the reggae version.