Bring in the noise

Musical offerings for the season

by Michael Endelman

It's the time of year when music lovers begin asking a ritual litany of questions: will [insert name of favorite musician here] release a boxed set? Will it be stuffed with rarities and remixes? Will someone please buy it for me? Knowing that these questions will multiply as December unwinds, we provide this short guide to the season's most attractive collections and music-related books. To make sure that something musical and wonderful winds up in your hands this holiday season, just read the following -- then commence dropping hints until your loved ones cave in.

Multi-disc collections

Two prolific songwriters, Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Wonder, are the subjects of new four-disc sets that span their respective careers. The Linda Ronstadt Box Set (Elektra, $79.97) is a treasure trove of hit singles, remastered album tracks, and rare cuts. The first two discs are the best of Ronstadt's work, picked by the artist herself. Disc three contains duets she's recorded over the years with Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Aaron Neville, Frank Sinatra, and others. The fourth disc is strictly for fanatics: rarities and odds and ends including a duet with Kermit the Frog, a Philip Glass collaboration, and Ronstadt's only recorded fiddle credit.

Unfortunately, Stevie Wonder's first boxed set, At the Close of a Century (Universal/Motown, $59.97), is not so complete. A well-documented studio rat, Wonder reportedly has large stores of unreleased studio material from his seminal '70s era, but the new collection includes no unreleased work. What the four-disc set does offer is newly remastered sound, some slightly extended tracks, a 96-page booklet, and 70 cuts that range from his days as an electrifying child prodigy to the '80s and '90s, his era of schmaltzy soul. It's not what hard-core Stevie fans wanted this holiday season, but it's hard to gripe about a collection that is bursting with so much genius, talent, and flat-out soul from one of the greatest songwriters of the century.

It's surprising that the Grateful Dead, a group whose private collection of live recordings and outtakes is legendary (and highly bootlegged), have waited this long to release a boxed set. To please their fans -- who are notoriously exhaustive in their quest for rare Dead material -- the psychedelic warriors offer So Many Roads (1965-1995) (Arista, $79.97), five CDs of previously unreleased concert and studio recordings (including the last songs composed by Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter). It's a fascinating journey from their roots as a rowdy garage-blues band to their unlikely status as an arena-headlining pop-culture phenomenon, with stops along the way at jazz-funk fusion, atonal improvisation, and traditional folk.

I ordinarily wouldn't give space to the re-release of a seven-year-old boxed set, but the reissue of Bob Marley's long-out-of-print collection Songs of Freedom (Island/Def Jam, $59.97) deserves mention. Originally pressed in a limited-edition booklet, the initial production ran only one million copies and often fetches more than $100 on online auction sites. Now repackaged, the collection retains the same classic songs, alternate mixes, live recordings, and unreleased treasures, making it the definitive collection of reggae's most monumental figure.

Smaller in scope is the Beastie Boys' The Sounds of Science (Grand Royal, $24.97), two CDs of greatest hits from their five full-length albums. Also included is one brand-new track, B-sides, remixes, and some never-before-released material. If the track selection isn't to your liking, the Beasties are offering a "make-your-own anthology" through MusicMaker.com. Basically, choose 40 songs from more than 150 of the Beasties' tracks to include on a custom-made double-CD collection that can be shipped anywhere for $19.95. Check http://www.BeastieBoys.com for more information.

Probably just a year away from making one of VH1's "Where are They Now?" segments, Guns N' Roses have released their first recording in six years -- Live Era '87-'93 (Geffen, $24.97), a raw and rockin' live double disc of classic tunes with one unreleased track. The wait for new material will last until early next year, but with Axl and the boys estranged because of legal battles and musical differences (Axl is now recording with an entirely new band), this will probably be the last release to offer both Axl's piercing howl and Slash's righteous riffs.

The boutique jazz label Mosaic is offering a limited-edition set, The Complete Django Reinhardt and Quintet of the Hot Club of France Swing/HMV Sessions 1936-1948 (Mosaic, $96). This is a six-disc collection of the Paris recordings that made Reinhardt both the first European jazz star and one of the most important jazz guitarists of all time. Mosaic reissues are available only through mail order; call (203) 327-7111 or check http://www.mosaicrecords.com for more details.

The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions (Verve, $136.97) includes every recording "Pres" made for famed producer Norman Granz's various labels. Over the course of eight CDs, Young's feather-light saxophone collaborates with the musical stylings of Oscar Peterson, Roy Eldridge, Nat King Cole, and more.

Books for beatheads

Now that the recorded history of hip-hop has reached the 20-year mark, it's moving toward mainstream respectability in the form of coffee-table picture books. Move the Crowd: Voices and Faces of the Hip-Hop Nation (MTV Books, 141 pages, $16.95), by Gregor and Dimitri Ehrlich, is a sharply designed collection of photos and quotes by a who's who of rap artists; it would look nice on any table. More substantive is The Vibe History of Hip Hop (Three Rivers Press, 384 pages, $27.50), by the editors of Vibe magazine. The Vibe book takes a more comprehensive and historical approach, featuring short essays by 50 well-known writers (including Greg Tate, Neil Strauss, and Anthony deCurtis) on the eras, labels, personalities, and stylistic trends that have shaped what editor Alan Light calls, in the introduction, "the most significant and most innovative cultural force since the emergence of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s."

More irreverent, rambunctious, and funny than either of those is Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists (St. Martin's Press, 352 pages, $19.95), by Sacha Jenkins, Elliot Wilson, Chairman Mao, Gabriel Alvarez, and Brent Rollins -- editors of the hilarious hip-hop 'zine Ego Trip. Taking the form of easy-to-digest lists, the book mixes the editors' no-holds-barred opinions ("The Greatest MCs of All Time," "Who Is the Fourth Beastie Boy?") with entries from rap artists that run the gamut from the serious ("Chuck D's Five Reasons Why Radio Sucks More Than Ever") to the bizarre ("Kool Keith's Favorite Places To Pleasure Himself in Public").

Focusing on the visual expression of hip-hop culture is The Art of Getting Over: Graffiti at the Millennium (St. Martin's Press, 176 pages, $29.95), by graffiti artist and 'zine publisher Stephen J. Powers. Powers's book works as a scrapbook and a historical guide to the still-controversial art form, navigating the hidden and mostly undocumented world of graffiti. Plenty of color photos and personal anecdotes help make the trip a vivid one.