Rock 'n' roll re-issued 'n' repackaged for your 'njoyment. Tony Clayton-Lea on the best of the box-sets
The biggie, the one we've been waiting for all year (indeed, for the past few years) is Nirvana's With The Lights Out (Geffen ). In 2002, Kurt Cobain's widow Courtney Love announced to the world at large that she had in her possession "the holy grail of rock 'n' roll". And yes, while this three-CD/one-DVD set does contain some of the most long-awaited "lost" rock music of the past 10 years, there is a sense that there could have been so much more. (It's widely rumoured, for instance, that Love has much more Cobain material; material that wasn't even considered for inclusion here, and music that could quite possibly surface on a separate solo Cobain collection.) That said, there is much here that more than compensates: unreleased performances, various sessions, solo versions, cover versions and rehearsals. All capture Nirvana at varying stages of their lifespan. A 60-page booklet (including an essay by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore) rounds out this set as being quite likely the most essential rock music purchase of the year.
Running a close second is the 10th anniversary edition of Manic Street Preachers' The Holy Bible (Sony ). Two CDs and an 80-minute DVD (which includes a 30-minute band interview, live footage from Reading and Glastonbury and, best of all, a totally cracked performance on Top of the Pops) confirm what we have always known but have probably forgotten: this band was once the best. Before the epic screen sheen of Everything Must Go, and long before the excellent but isn't-there-something-missing-here? aural scenarios of new album, Lifeblood, The Holy Bible proves that for intelligent, articulate bile there was no one who could touch them.
Goth band Siouxsie & the Banshees have been around from Punk's Year Zero and have rarely been afforded the kind of box set treatment that lesser acts have.Yet, while Downside Up (Polydor ) has its good points, the fact that it comprises B-sides is never going to bring it to the attention of the casual fan. The real surprise is that most of these tracks are very, very good, with the Banshees welding punk/goth tunes to the base metal of varying strands of pressure-free musical experiments.
The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys: Deluxe Edition (Fiction ) isn't a box set, but an enhanced two-CD edition of the king goth band's début album, and as such is worthy of your attention, especially if you're the type of person who still wears smudged lipstick, all black gear and white make-up. Outside the bona fide fanbase, though, this is probably as useful to you as a wheel clamp.
If it's pure and unadulterated pop you're after, then it has to be The Beatles: The Capitol Albums Vol 1 (EMI/Capitol ). It's a tale of two countries here as four early Beatles albums (The Beatles, The Beatles' Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65) were issued in the US (on Capitol, owned by EMI, the UK owners of the group) with different tracklistings from the UK releases. It's somewhat redundant to go into the complex whys and wherefores of the background to this (basically, Capitol didn't have the same strength of belief in the band that EMI had until the obvious hit them in the face: these boys could make them a lot of money), but suffice to say that the music contained across these four records is the soundtrack to a genuine revolution in pop music. Somewhat superfluously, the tracks come in both mono and stereo mixes (hey, the music is great pop but enough is enough), yet the packaging is cool and compact, the accompanying booklet is something to treasure, and the four CDs come in replica sleeves, one of which rightly proclaims The Beatles to be "England's phenomenal pop combo".
Something completely different is the four CD/one DVD set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong (Universal ). Cheekily styling its title and design on the famous gold lamé Elvis Presley album, Jon Bon Jovi and friends get the Greatest Hits treatment alongside the usual hook-the-fans accessories of unreleased tracks (38 - oh, what joy?), rarities (a dozen), DVD-related footage, interviews and archive material. As commercial pop/rock goes, there are far worse than Bon Jovi, but let's be honest - you could do a lot better, too.
We don't really want to mention this, but in the notion of fairness we should - Simple Minds: Silver Box (Virgin ). There are, apparently, still some Simple Minds fans out there. For these alone, then, we recommend this five-CD set that consists of all previously unreleased tracks: live material culled from Rotterdam, London and Glasgow shows, sessions from John Peel and David "Kid" Jensen BBC radio shows, Steve Hillage and John Leckie-produced demos and - something of a rare archaeological find for the diehard fan - the "lost" album, Our Secrets are the Same. Hint for fulsome enjoyment: the early stuff ('79-'82) is by far the best.
You could also say the same for Michael Jackson; has there ever been a genuine pop star that started off so wonderfully only to end up such a laughing stock? The Ultimate Collection (Epic ) offers whatever Jacko fans there are left a tantalising dozen-plus unreleased tracks. Aside from these we have the usual display of some of the best pop/dance/soul of the past 30 years. You'd have to wonder, though, exactly who is going to buy this and who would want it when the truly essential stuff is gathered on Best Ofs and Greatest Hits collections. How much Jacko does anyone really need?
Finally, we have the jazz box-set of the year: Miles Davis's Seven Steps (Columbia Legacy ) is a seven-CD set that oversees the trumpeter's transitional years of 1963-'64. This was a period when Davis was on the road with an exceptional group of musicians (Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, George Coleman and Sam Rivers) whose sense of interconnective dynamism brought jazz into a different and higher realm. Nice, baby, nice . . .
