Bowie, Sinatra and Dylan among new box sets out for Christmas
From hip hop to power pop, jazz to soul, classic rock to classical minimalism – there are plenty of fresh box sets coming out in time for Christmas. Here are 12 you might want to consider for the music lover in your life
When it comes to gift-worthy box sets of music, we’re in the era of both less and more.
Less, in the sense that, at this point in the digital age, how many major artists have not already had their bodies of work excavated? More, in that labels have answered that question by packaging complete album collections on CD and vinyl while digging deeper for rarities and creating multidisc sets built around classic albums.
As a result, there are more boxes than ever to choose from. In addition to those reviewed here, there’s a 60-disc Elvis Presley The Album Collection; a five-CD set that expands upon The Who’s My Generation; the Miles Davis Quintet’s Freedom Jazz Dance, which tracks the trumpeter from 1966 to 1968; and Van Morrison’s It’s Too Late to Stop Now, Vol. II, III & IV, which goes deeper into a 1973 tour.
On then, to an alphabetical list of the best rock, pop, hip-hop, jazz, country, and classical box sets this holiday season. Many of these boxes can be sampled, in part, or whole, on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
Bad Boy Entertainment, 20 Years: The Box Set (Bad Boy/Rhino): whether branding himself as Diddy, P. Diddy, or plain-old Puffy, Sean Combs has kept his Bad Boy label going for two decades, lately having success with Janelle Monae and French Montana. But the Bad Boy brand is ultimately about the Notorious B.I.G., who dominates this five-CD box, which mixes in hits by Faith Evans, Ginuwine, Black Rob and Mase.