With gross earnings topping an astronomical $105 million, to say that it’s been a good year for AC/DC is a bit of an understatement. With a third generation discovering the band’s music, they’re now more popular than they’ve ever been, there’s no venue too small for them to play, exorbitantly-priced shows are selling out left and right, and to top it off, their spirited 15th album Black Ice did not disappoint when it came out a year ago. And typical of a huge act, they know how to sell their brand.
Which leads us to Backtracks, a monstrous new collection cunningly timed for the holiday season. With an eye-popping price tag of $225 (US), the Deluxe Collectors Edition is designed to whet the appetites of the die-hard fans. It’s an ingeniously designed multimedia package that relies heavily on the “wow” factor. And wow, indeed: three CDs packed to the gills with rarities, two loaded DVDs, a lavish 180 gram LP, a 164 page coffee table book, a host of reproduced memorabilia, and the capper, the whole shebang fitting into a fully functional one watt amplifier. Just how good the amp sounds or how durable it is (there’s no volume control, if that’s any indication), is beside the point. This package is just too damn cool. But amplifier, book, replica buttons, picks, and posters aside, what about the real meat ‘n’ potatoes of this set? How does the actual music measure up?
Overall, Backtracks is not quite the treasure trove that fans might have been craving all these years, and it might have been a better idea to offer complete remastered CDs of AC/DC’s first four Australian albums instead of the single-CD mishmash, or even dig a little deeper into the live/studio vaults. That said, in spite of some bumps along the way, it’s still a very fun seven or eight hour trip, one that comes closer to giving the fans bang for their buck than some might think.
A man’s life lived out of a suitcase, Woody Guthrie’s My Dusty Road, inaugurates the new Woody Guthrie Legacy Series on Rounder Records. This four-CD boxed set is literally packaged in a suitcase and vital remnants of Guthrie’s vagabond life: unpublished photos, lyric sheets, a business card, a post card to his wife and a booking card from the 1940s. These are also the cleanest recordings of Guthrie’s work yet to date. His unrivaled folk, full of emotional nuance impresses you upon first listen to My Dusty Road and these songs timelessly revel in the wayward traveler’s experience of America. No wonder Guthrie was Bob Dylan’s signature musical influence. This collection is for those who love Bob Dylan and want to trace the origins of his genius to Guthrie’s masterly crafted and treasured music, as well as anyone interested in American roots music and popular song.
slotMusic Player and slotMusic cards [player: $19.99 / cards: $14.99]
These nearly microscopic cards hold 1GB of music, liner art, photos, videos and whatever other little extras artists may want to include with their albums. The players are very inexpensive at only $19.99 ($34.99 for the artist editions like the nifty Abba one I have) and make quite affordable gifts. They also don’t require a computer to either buy the music or play it. None of this would matter if you could only use these mini music cards on the player itself. The music needs to be transferable, and it is. The card contains unrestricted MP3s with very good sound quality that you can put on your phone if it has a slot or easily transfer to a computer with a USB adapter that comes with the player. I had those Abba tracks from the card blasting from my stereo speakers mere moments after popping the card in my computer. So, you can make playlists with the music you purchase this way and unlike music bought from iTunes or eMusic, you get host of extras with releases even beyond what appears on most CDs.
The buzz on Barack Obama is that he’s a great speaker. Well, you haven’t listened to Winston Churchill lately, have you? You can compare these two notables while pondering the significance of their historical era, as well as other politicians, activists, newscasters, sportscasters, celebrities and more from this 5-CD set (so that’s 500 greatest, total) from the reputable Shout! Factory, whose catalogs includes Grammy®-nominated box sets. I’m listening to a radio announcement that the Russians are in Berlin, right now (100 Greatest News Stories), and it feels right now. These audible excerpts, the highlights of stories from modern history, are chilling, inspiring, funny and tragic. They’re historical earworms that wriggle right into your head and settle in your heart. This is stuff you never forget. Your history buff, your pop culture collector, the teacher in your family, the audio sampler (who will appreciate the alphabetical, rather than chronological organization) will want this, too.
These headphones are not new. Koss created the PortraPro Stereophones in the mid-1980s, and from an aesthetic standpoint they are distinctly of their time. (They look like rejected Tron props.) But those who can stomach (or even embrace?) the unique look will discover why the PortaPros continue to sell: they’re comfortable, sound great, and—here’s the kicker—they’re cheap, too. There simply are no other cans in the under-$50 market that deliver sound like this: crisp, rich, detailed. A friend contends that they lean a little on the bass, but I think he’s just being nitpicky. And Koss offers a lifetime no-questions-asked warranty, so if you happen to trod on them on a late-night bathroom run (as I did), you can get them replaced for only the cost of shipping. Bottom line: If you’re looking for a gift for the discriminating listener, but don’t feel like stretching your wallet, you can’t go wrong with these.
Queen + Paul Rodgers - The Cosmos Rocks Collectors Edition Vinyl Box Set [$119.99]
Queen returned this year with their first album of all-new material since the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991. PopMatters found the results pretty satisfying, slapping a 7 on the new record. But those hard-core Queen fans who rushed out to buy The Cosmos Rocks are going to have to pony up again for this deluxe vinyl set as they’ll be able to score the LP of the record, along with the CD and a DVD of a recent live show. Even better though, are the included vinyl editions of Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Day at the Races and the best Queen album of them all, A Night at the Opera. An essential addition to any Queen fan’s collection as well as an ideal gift for any classic rock vinylphile.
