Best box sets of 2024: Bryan Ferry steals show from Bowie and Motorhead in all-star list | Music | Entertainment
Bryan Ferry. Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023
Like most 70s teenagers, my introduction to Bryan Ferry came when Roxy Music debuted on Top Of The Pops with Virginia Plain in 1972. Part-prog, part-glam, the thrilling song broke pop’s golden rules – it had no chorus and Ferry didn’t even mention the title until the very end – but still went Top 5.
His distinctive voice – once likened to “an extraterrestrial Sinatra” – swept along propelled by psychedelic guitar, oboe, and Brian Eno’s synth.
This huge anthology packs in 81 tracks drawn from the parallel solo career Ferry launched in 1973, notching up a Top Ten hit straight off the bat when he applied his stylish, anguished croon to Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.
Apparent throughout is his broad love of popular music in all its many forms.
At the start, Ferry largely revamped blues and soul standards – Wilbert Harrison’s Let’s Stick Together, Billy Page’s The ‘In’ Crowd, Sam Cooke’s (What A) Wonderful World.
But he also tackled teeny-pop songs like It’s My Party and The Paris Sisters’ I Love How You Love Me.
By the mid-80s, the savvy farm labourer’s son from Tyne & Wear had reinvented himself as the melancholic nabob of pop sophistication.
Later, on 2012’s The Jazz Age, he reinterpreting his own songs in jazz band style with the Bryan Ferry Orchestra beathing new life into numbers like Do The Strand. Slave To Love manages to be simultaneously sad and swinging.
The deluxe comp comes with 16 rare and unreleased tracks including new song, Star, a slightly ominous post-techno outing featuring artist Amelia Barratt.
Many box sets are just an excuse to cash in and lazily recycle previous compilations. This lovingly assembled 5xCD collection explores the breadth of Ferry’s talent, as a writer, a performer, and an interpreter.
David Bowie. Rock ‘N’ Roll Star!
For Ziggy Stardust obsessives, this deep dive into the birth of Bowie’s most influential character packs in outtakes, folky demos, home rehearsals and more. The 5xCD and Blu-Ray set includes an alternative take on Lady Stardust, recordings with his Arnold Corns band and two versions of Sweet Head, the lively and gleefully vulgar song that RCA bosses axed from the iconic The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust LP.
Motorhead. We Take No Prisoners.
They were always louder, faster and harder than the rest, closer in spirit to punk than stadium rock. And to prove it, this 2xCD or 9 vinyl single box set, includes Lemmy’s version of the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen and R.A.M.O.N.E.S. The collection packs in their singles from 1995 and 2006 plus rare live takes and radio edits. Gems include the anthemic God Was Never On Your Side. ‘If God is wise, why is He still, when these false prophets call Him friend?’ asks Lemmy, a Chaplin’s son, adding ‘Why is He silent, is He blind? Are we abandoned in the end?’
The Orb. Orboretum – The Orb Collection.
Ambient house, trippy electronica, dub…This compilation charts The Orb’s growth from pioneering DJ sets of the late 80s to festival headlining status. The 32-track, 2CD/4LP set starts with their stunning 1991 debut single A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain (etc), ends with 2023’s H.O.M.E. and includes their collaborations with Dave Gilmour and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Still Barking.
Fans of the Bonzos – who include Pete Townsend and Stephen Fry – will adore this comprehensive 17CD/3DVD collection. The band mixed music hall with trad jazz, psychedelia, and surreal comedy to create gems like I’m The Urban Spaceman (a Top 5 hit in 1968). Led by the late Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes, who collaborated with Monty Python, the band went mainstream after appearing in the Beatles’ 1967 Magical Mystery Tour film and the 1968 ITV comedy series Do Not Adjust Your Set – a forerunner of Python. Their complete works are here, along with DVDs of their TV performances, a 148-page hardback book, BBC sessions, lives shows, demos, rehearsals, outtakes and more.
