By Rashod D. Ollison , rashod.ollison@baltsun.com|November 11, 2008
As musical products move more toward intangible digital consumption and away from tactile sources these days, box sets remain one of the only ways fans can immerse themselves in an artist's work. It's one of the few hands-on musical experiences left over from the LP era, when the package's artwork served as a gateway to the music.
Box sets have always been specialty items because only a stone fan of the artist would spend up to $100 or more on a collection of greatest hits, B-sides and outtakes. But when they're well-done, they can be enriching trips. Devotees can fill several hours rediscovering the classics and absorbing previously unreleased songs, all in gloriously remastered sound, while perusing the accompanying booklet of liner notes and rare photos.
Now, to entice an increasingly fragmented pop audience in a spiraling economy, major labels are enhancing box sets with much more than just hours of music and a few extras. They are offering more and higher-quality visual additions and memorabilia. And to keep up with the feverish demands for all things digital, some companies are also starting to test the market with entirely downloadable versions of box sets.
"The challenges for us begin with the diversity of media we compete with that didn't exist even five years ago," says Adam Block, senior vice president and general manager of Legacy Recordings, the reissue arm of Sony-BMG. "But if you're not creating as whole of an experience as you can, you're not doing yourself justice."
The company has recently released three box sets on musically mercurial legends in jazz, pop and soul. The collections of Miles Davis, Billy Joel and Nina Simone respectively offer fans a DVD of rare performance footage in addition to the music. Excluding the one on Simone, the other sets include a wealth of keepsake items: reproductions of lyric notebooks, posters and glossy photos.
Where the Simone set is a sleekly packaged retrospective on three discs plus the DVD, the Joel and Davis collections center on a single album. Joel's box set commemorates the 30 years since The Stranger, the artist's commercial breakthrough, hit the streets. The collection was released to coincide with his hugely popular Shea Stadium concerts this summer. It has since sold more that 15,000 copies, according to Legacy, an impressive number for a box set selling for $44.99.
