America Box Set

Cheap Trick may no longer be playing the stadiums that the group's monumental talent surely warrants, but they do have one of the most loyal cult followings in all rock & roll. Thus, when Epic Records decided to release a four-disc box set celebrating the quartet's 20th anniversary with the label, someone there was smart enough to let the band put together a collection for the collectors. Which means 32 of the 64 tracks here are previously unreleased, including many live cover tunes (Beatles, Velvet Underground), demo takes, and a few things only a fan would want. Some hits are here (including "Surrender"), but, as a good example, there's no "He's a Whore," which Cheap Trick probably figured their fans should already own.

A practical, no-frills clamshell box set celebrating the soft rock/folk-pop hitmakers' '70s heyday, the Warner Bros. Years 1971-1977 rounds up seven complete studio albums and one live LP. Comprised of America (1971), Homecoming (1972), Hat Trick (1973), Holiday (1974), Hearts (1975), Hideaway (1976), Harbor (1977), and America Live (1977), all of which were remastered in 2014, the collection is aimed squarely at completists…

This five-disc, U.K.-only box set from summery, "alligator lizards in the air"-loving English folk-rock outfit America includes five of the group's biggest albums, including their 1971 eponymous debut, 1972 sophomore outing Homecoming, 1973's Hat Trick, 1974's Holiday, and 1975's Hearts, in their entireties.

Pure… America collects 68 original hits featuring Boston ("More Than a Feeling"), Boz Scaggs ("Lido Shuffle”), REO Speedwagon ("Keep on Loving You”), America ("Ventura Highway”), Steve Perry ("Oh Sherrie”), and Cheap Trick ("I Want You to Want Me”). Tracks by Blue Öyster Cult, Cyndi Lauper, Poco, and Kenny Loggins are also included on this four-disc compilation.

Legacy’s The Classic Albums Collection 1974-1983 should provide endless hours of arena/prog/AOR-pop bliss for fans of Kansas, as it features ten of the band’s career-defining albums, including an expanded edition of the live album Two for the Show. Each studio album (Kansas, Song for America, Masque, Leftoverture, Point of Know Return, Monolith, Audio Visions, Vinyl Confessions, and Drastic Measures) has been remastered and peppered with bonus cuts, and all of the original album artwork has been lovingly reproduced. Best of all, the box set is priced to move.

This deluxe 9 CD set contains three studio albums (Bigger Than America, Before After, Naked As Advertised), a previously unreleased album (Space Age Space Music), the remix albums Retox/Detox, the concert album How Live Is, plus 48 bonus tracks (remixes, tribute tracks, non-album singles) and an illustrated 28 page 12x12 book with credits and annotation based on brand new interviews with the band…

Only John Mellencamp, whose career began with a series of wrong turns, raw determination, and the audaciousness to demand he be taken seriously could create a box set as strange, representative, and labyrinthine as On the Rural Route 7609. In the era of the “track,” Mellencamp has issued a massive, beautifully packaged, and exhaustively annotated four-disc career retrospective that doesn’t lean on his hits (many aren’t here), but rather on more obscure album cuts, outtakes, rarities (17 selections make their debuts here), and more recent material – numerous selections come from 2007’s Freedom’s Road and 2008’s Life Love Death and Freedom. In Anthony DeCurtis' excellent liner essay/interview, Mellencamp claims he isn’t “trying to prove anything. . . it was a way for them to discover songs of mine that perhaps were overlooked because of the songs that were so popular on the radio.” Given his choice of material, he may not feel that his career-long demand has been met yet.

"What You Need" had taken INXS from college radio into the American Top Five, but there was little indication that the group would follow it with a multi-platinum blockbuster like Kick. Where the follow-ups to "What You Need" made barely a ripple on the pop charts, Kick spun off four Top Ten singles, including the band's only American number one, "Need You Tonight." Kick crystallized all of the band's influences – Stones-y rock & roll, pop, funk, contemporary dance-pop – into a cool, stylish dance/rock hybrid. It was perfectly suited to lead singer Michael Hutchence's feline sexuality, which certainly didn't hurt the band's already inventive videos. But it wasn't just image that provided their breakthrough.

The most comprehensive Simon & Garfunkel library anthology ever assembled, The Complete Albums Collection includes the duo's five studio masterpieces (first released between 1964 and 1970), newly remastered from first generation analog sources, and first-time remasters of The Graduate (the groundbreaking motion picture soundtrack album released in 1968) and the long out-of-print The Concert in Central Park (recorded in 1981).