Colored vinyls, memorabilia, photo books and numbered lithographs: when albums come to life as total works of art
In the era of everything and immediately, music has become a continuous flow. Just one click is enough to play a song, often relegated to the background while you do other things. Streaming, it is true, has democratized listening, but at the price of an increasingly superficial use, which tends to reduce music to a service, a detail, consumed without attention. It is listened to intermittently on streaming platforms, between notifications, automatic playlists and compulsive skips. And so the emotional experience thins and the relationship with the album or song becomes light. Light and inconsistent like much of the music of this time.
They are at the opposite extreme the deluxe box sets, physical objects that give music back its dignity as an art to be crossed, not scrolled through. More and more are coming out, and more and more often dedicated to historical albums, elevated to the rank of “classical” music. Unlike digital speed, the box set invites you to a ritual: you take off the case, you look at the graphics, you leaf through illustrated booklets, unpublished photographs, archive fragments that tell the story of the genesis of an album. Every detail, from the choice of paper to the typographical care, is part of the experience.
The deluxe boxes are not just a support: they are a narrative world, three-dimensional works of art, a multisensory journey through monographs with rare photos, carefully folded posters, reminiscent of old surprises in music magazines, faithful reproductions of memorabilia such as concert tickets, backstage passes, stamps, vintage postcards, colored vinyl or picture discs, small numbered lithographs, pins, patches, medals, plectrums and commemorative coins. All arranged inside the boxset with almost museum-like care. In short, a world apart for lovers of music and analogue beauty, as I am Pink Floyd fans who from December 12th have a rich deluxe edition available that celebrates 50 years of Wish You were herethe cult album that has become a symbol of criticism of the hypocrisy of the music industry, a concept expressed in the iconic cover in which two businessmen shake hands: one is impassive, while the other is engulfed in flames, a symbolic image of the “dangerous” relationships within the music business where people often “burn” each other. The new Wish You Were Here features unreleased versions of well-known songs, rarities and previously unreleased live material, as well as a 45 rpm single released only in Japan, a hardback book with exclusive photographs, and a tour comic.
A splendid collection of rare photos collected in a coffee table book, memorabilia and music never published before is also the box set that celebrates 50 years of The lamb lies down on Broadway by Genesis. Unpublished images, posters, backstage passes, unreleased live music and a vintage t-shirt identical to the original sold at concerts in 1975 are the ingredients of the Kiss boxset which celebrates five decades of Alive I, the live album that inspired the musicians of all the heavy metal bands of the Eighties.
Tracks II – The Lost Album instead it has the power to reveal the secret world of Bruce Springsteen: seven never-released records, kept in a drawer for years and which now allow a look “behind the scenes” and the discovery of the other Springsteen, also through the sounds and words of Faithless, the splendid soundtrack to a film never made. And then, the Beatles, with The Antholgy Collection and the monumental boxset dedicated to Let it be, and Bob Dylan with Through The Open Window, a collection of performances in small and remote American clubs in the early Sixties.
It is the magical world of box sets, time capsules that increasingly conquer fans, a bridge between past and present, between physicality and imagination, between the desire to collect and that of experiencing the art of music in a total way.
