The Smile Sessions
(Capitol/EMI)
Musicians just don't talk about "teenage symphonies to God" any more. It's probably for fear of a fate like that of Brian Wilson, who tried to capture the music of the American spheres on a notorious album called Smile. As his mental health deteriorated from the strain (and LSD), Smile languished unfinished for decades, bootlegged and mythologised until, finally, Wilson's re-recorded version of pop's holy grail came out in 2004. This set takes that album and explodes it, by including umpteen tape miles of raw recordings and salvaged out-takes. The lavish five-CD box includes a double vinyl LP, 7in singles and a 3D shop cover, and sees songs such as "Good Vibrations" twist and turn im embryo for 79 minutes. The good news for the loved ones of Wilson obsessives? A two-CD version gives a flavour of the whole without the need to remortgage
Buy online at amazon.co.uk
Photograph: GAB Archive/Redferns
Live at the Royal Albert Hall DVD
(XL Recordings)
No, this isn’t a box set, but a DVD/CD package of one gig, Adele’s sell-out night at London’s Royal Albert Hall last September. The biggest star of the year cancelled tour after tour this year because of ongoing problems with her voice. Her voice certainly doesn’t show any strain here; “Someone Like You” sounds just as bunny-boiling as ever. And even if you find Adele wearyingly omnipresent, her cackling, foul-mouthed banter between songs is a masterclass in shrinking a room
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: PR
Complete
(Rhino)
Even the most dedicated record collectors grow weary of the hype that accompanies each new reissue or compilation from their favourite old band. The concept here is simple: all four studio albums by the Smiths, peerless bards of melodious disaffection, plus the three core compilations, and the live Rank, remastered by guitarist and national treasure Johnny Marr, on CD, in a box. There’s a limited run of 3,000 deluxe editions (RRP £250) that includes vinyl, but the basic Complete is gloriously replete. Meat is Murder in particular is sonically transformed, but everything here zings anew
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: Andre Csillag/Rex Features
Nevermind (20th anniversary edition)
(Geffen)
There was a grim inevitability about the fuss surrounding the 20th anniversary reissue of the album that turned Kurt Cobain into the last truly global rock star, but little to be gleaned from documentaries about his suicide in 1994, let alone old footage of other bands from Seattle. Yet none of it dimmed the potency of the record itself, its songs a tussle between rage and vulnerability that’s more compelling than any nostalgia trip. And it’s always good to be reminded that Cobain’s appeal resided as much in the rough beauty of his vocal as the myth-making that followed his death. So it’s the demos and early “Devonshire” mixes that make this re-release worthwhile as, helped by the arrival of a brutal new drummer named Dave Grohl, everything appears to be falling exactly into place in the studio
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: Stephen Sweet/Rex Features
Screamadelica (20th anniversary collector’s edition)
(Sony)
Screamadelica is so powerfully linked to the hedonistic British music scene of the early 90s that newcomers picking up the re-release might think it almost singlehandedly taught Britain to dance. The truth is more prosaic: it’s a brilliant example of “record collection rock”, a tribute to the omnivorous good taste of the band themselves who, alive to the impact of ecstasy on music fans at the time, connected the spirit of the age to equally mind-expanding moments from previous decades. So there’s plenty of 60s psychedelia and 70s dub in the mix, as well as the guiding hand of producers Andrew Weatherall and the Orb. But aside from a live album and some replica bits and bobs, the package contains little that’s new and is, essentially, a beautiful memento of other people’s parties
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: Bleddyn Butcher/Rex Features
Psychocandy
(Edsel)
One of the defining albums of the 1980s, Psychocandy – originally released in 1985 and now given the deluxe reissue treatment – is a breathtaking amalgam of nihilism and melody. Opener “Just Like Honey” sets the tone, its “Be My Baby” drumbeat giving way to a wash of fuzzed guitar and Jim Reid’s gently crooned vocals, before the motorbikes-speed-and-death-themed “The Living End” showcases a darker side. It’s this disjunction between the Reid brothers’ primary influences – the pretty pop of the Beach Boys and Phil Spector versus feedback-laced Velvet Underground-isms – that makes Psychocandy still sound thrilling. This reissue features a bonus CD of Peel Sessions, early demos and some less essential B-sides, as well as a DVD of promo videos and riot footage
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: Ilpo Musto/Rex Features
Achtung Baby – Anniversary edition
(Island)
The "Uber Deluxe" version of U2's seventh album is the strongest evidence yet that box sets are a tithe on fandom, a way of proving loyalty by handing over piles of cash. At £350, the most extravagant version of the album's 20th anniversary reissue includes a pair of Bono's signature bug-eyed sunglasses alongside a hideously self-serving "making of" documentary, as well as the usual excess of remixes. Cheaper options are also available and the songs themselves are worth revisiting. For once, the band's contradictory mission statement – to be the most popular and yet take risks – works so well that you can see why it's become the default setting for ambitious young bands everywhere. Plus Achtung Baby sounds less dated than every U2 album that followed, like ever more futile attempts to recapture this golden moment
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: Eugene Adebari/Rex Features
The Armstrong Box
(Storyville)
Between his blazing youth and his last years as a kind of international teddy bear, Louis Armstrong led his touring band, the All-Stars. This terrific package of seven CDs and a DVD follows them on their travels over 20 years, from 1948 to 1967. The cast of the All-Stars changed quite often, but Louis just kept going. The astonishing part is the energy and creativity he could summon up, night after night, although he did play less trumpet as the years took their toll. These are mostly live recordings from his show, so we hear rather a lot of his signature tune, “Sleepy Time Down South”, but there’s a wealth of wonderful music here, particularly from the first 10 years. As for the DVD of extracts from his late-50s Timex TV show, it’s priceless
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: David Redfern/Redferns
The Fame Studios Story 1961-73
(Kent/Ace)
Muscle Shoals, Alabama was on no one’s Music USA map when Rick Hall set up Fame Studios in an old tobacco warehouse at the dawn of the 1960s. A few years later “the Muscle Shoals Sound” supplied Aretha Franklin (above) with her breakthrough, “I Ain’t Never Loved a Man”, and was delivering era-defining hits such as Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music” and Clarence Carter’s “Patches”. This handsome three-CD set deconstructs the studio synergy behind nuggets such as Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On” (covered by the Stones) and acts such as Joe Tex, Percy Sledge and Candi Staton, who still represent southern soul at its finest
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: NBC/Rex Features
Ensemble Plus Ultra, His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts/Schola Antiqua/Noone (Archiv) (10CDs)
Liszt has had a good anniversary year. Much less attention has been given to the 400th anniversary of the death of Spanish priest-composer Tomás Luis de Victoria. Michael Noone's superb 10-CD set redresses the balance, but even such a large collection doesn't include some of the greatest music such as the six-part Requiem setting. The virtues of Noone's Ensemble Plus Ultra are perfect blending and shaping, and lovely warm control of the flowing lines in the motet "O quam gloriosum". Is the vocal style a little cool? The Tenebrae Responsories in particular pale beside the intense Westminster Cathedral Choir recording, and more items should surely have been performed with instruments: the multi-choral works on CD7 spring to vivid life
Buy online at amazon.co.uk Photograph: PR
