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ShareFive pop-related gifts for the music lover in your life:
The Weezer Cruise. The new kids in the music-cruise business this year are the power-poppers of Weezer, who will be floating from Miami to Cozumel on Jan. 19-23. “I think, I sink, and I die,” Rivers Cuomo will sing in “Undone (The Sweater Song)” at some point during the four-day trip aboard the Carnival Destiny. Weezer aside, there’s an impressive 16-band alt-indie-rock bill, with ‘90s rockers Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh meeting the new ‘90s-obsessed band Yuck. ($799 for a double room, $499 for a quad; www.theweezercruise.com.)
“Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label.” It’s a coffee-table book nearly as big as a coffee table, befitting the ambitions of the most successful rap label of all time. Founded by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin, Def Jam’s artists included LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Slick Rick, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Foxy Brown, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Rihanna, and the Roots. Picture book and oral history, it has essays by hip-hop historian Dan Charnas and former label publicist Bill Adler. (Rizzoli, $60.)
“R. Crumb, The Complete Record Cover Collection.” This slim volume fits into a cardboard sleeve thick enough to hold a three-LP box set and gathers up album-cover art and music-related ephemera by the dazzlingly gifted alt-comic artist Robert Crumb. The most famous cover: Big Brother&the Holding Company’s 1968 LP “Cheap Thrills.” But there are plenty of other country, blues, and old-time music renderings — in, as always, questionable taste. A sketch titled “Musical Ecstasy at Age Four” shows Crumb listening to polka music on the radio in 1948 on the porch of the family home in West Philadelphia. (W.W. Norton & Co., $27.95.)
“Boddie Recording Company, Cleveland Ohio.” Chicago reissue label Numero Group specializes in the works of long defunct labels that captured the aspirations of should-have-been stars, or one-hit wonders. The label has outdone itself here, gathering up the life’s work of Thomas and Louise Boddie (pronounced BOH-dee), who released hundred of albums of homegrown funk, soul, vocal group R&B, and gospel for 35 years, starting in the late 1950s. (www.numerogroup.com; $50 for 3 CDs, $60 for 5 LPs).
“15 Minutes: Homage to Andy Warhol.” The season’s most unconventional boxed set is a beautifully packed “art and sound” collection curated by Warhol associate Jeff Gordon. It’s a 3-CD, 4-LP limited-edition set that includes sixteen 12-by-12-inch silk-screen lithographs by such notable artists as Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and Factory denizen Ultra Violet. Dylan contributed his Self Portrait album cover painting, plus a recording of “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” and Smith pitched in with a recording of “Edie,” her poem about Warhol glamour girl Edie Sedgwick, plus an accompanying lithograph. (Deluxe silk-wrapped edition $20,000; regular box $600; or for less you can visit the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and see the accompanying exhibition through Jan. 8. www.fifteenminutesonline.com.)
—Dan DeLuca
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Five classical music picks:
Pristine Classical (900 recordings). If there’s such a thing as a classical-music jackpot, this is it. Pristine Classical has long applied its sound-restoring wizardry to the greatest recordings ever made — Eugene Ormandy’s older Philadelphia recordings are well-represented — and now the entire collection is being sold on a variety of hard drives. They’re priceless, if pricey. But in separate offers, Pristine gives bulk discounts on its Wilhelm Furtwangler-conducted “Ring” cycle and the complete set of Beethoven piano sonatas by Artur Schnabel. (Hard drives, about $1,500 at www.pristineclassical.com)
“The Callas Effect” (EMI Classics, two CDs and one DVD). Artists of all stripes are having some sort of “effect” attributed to them, so why should the late Maria Callas be left out? Handsomely packaged with a 123-page booklet, this new EMI compilation from her 1950s heyday will be mostly redundant for Callas veterans, but everyone else should be prepared to be astonished — utterly astonished — by her musical precision and profound sense of dramatic truth. Even though the DVD feels like an infomercial, there’s enough performance footage from her “Tosca” for you to feel she’s alive and among us. Nobody since has even approached her. ($20.13 at Amazon.com)
“Leopold Stokowski” (BBC Legends, three CDs). Having made his name in Philadelphia, conductor Stokowski became a fixture in his native England during his final decades (the 1960s and ‘70s) with guest appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and New Philharmonia Orchestra. Although he recorded much of the repertoire elsewhere — including Mahler’s “Symphony No. 2,” Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” and Brahms’ “Symphony No. 4” — Stoky veterans know that every performance was a new adventure. And those who don’t know Stoky may hear things they didn’t know were possible. ($35.41 Amazon.com)
“Samuel Barber Historical Recordings 1935-1960” (Nine CDs, West Hill Radio Archives). Most of Barber’s great pieces are performed by the greatest musicians of his time in live performances, many of which have never been commercially released. Highlights include world premieres of the “Adagio for Strings” with Arturo Toscanini and the “Violin Concerto” with Albert Spalding in Philadelphia, both with surprisingly fast tempos. Knoxville: Summer of 1915 arrives in three performances by three of the most lustrous voices of the 20th century: Eleanor Steber, Leontyne Price, and Eileen Farrell. Due to copyright restrictions, it’s not formally released in the United States, but British mail is fast. ($93.25 at www.prestoclassical.co.uk)
“Hispania&Japan: Dialogues.” (AliaVox). Montserrat Figueras, Jordi Savall, La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Hesperion XXI. Known for cross-cultural fusions that easily rival Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Savall and his smoky-voiced wife, Figueras, have created a program around the revival of St. Francis Xavier’s 1549 arrival in Japan, the kind of music he brought there, and what he might’ve encountered. Much of it is beautiful and uncompromisingly exotic, perhaps equally appealing to those who love early music and to world music fans. ($18.12 at Amazon.com)
—David Patrick Stearns
