Music » Dance & DJ Box Set Music

God bless punk and new wave. Without them, '80s pop music might well have ended up as vapid and ghettoized as, well, pop music of the '90s. Those late '70s movements were frankly reactionary at heart (seeking to counter what was perceived as the overwrought tendencies of rock's prog and hard-rock elite and calling for a return to the diverse energy of '60s Top 40), but their influences can be felt on nearly every cut of this triple-disc hits anthology, from the Buggles' all-too-prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" to the nouveau funk of Kool and the Gang, the Dazz Band, and the Gap Band, to the nascent big-hairdom of Night Ranger ("Sister Christian") and Whitesnake. If you're looking for the roots of alternative rock or obscure college playlist fodder, look elsewhere; this is prime-time '80s pop chart glory, as seen on MTV (over and over and over). Though the songs here cover a breadth of style and genre (if not necessarily substance), there's a remarkable unity of purpose and hook-laden musical accomplishment that's sorely missed. If this collection woefully shortchanges hip-hop, it still underscores a distinctly irony-free era where style admittedly triumphed over substance, as opposed to the '90s, where style caricatured substance. --Jerry McCulley

The second in the Hip-O imprint's series of '80s box sets, this three-CD compilation collects 42 hits from the decade of decadence. For those who want to shake their booty, they can get their freak on to Rick James, "Jump" for the Pointer Sisters, and do a little "Safety Dance" to Men Without Hats. Love new wave? Indulge in Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Devo, and Adam Ant. And for those who want to rock--although not too hard--there's Billy Idol, the Pretenders, Rick Springfield, and Scandal. Yes, many of these cuts are predictable, but there are some surprise entries, like Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me," Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy," Peter Schilling's "Major Tom," and Jan Hammer's "Miami Vice Theme"(!). Given this set's diverse artist roster, it's doubtful that you'll love every song; and, truthfully, the third disc is weaker than the others. But as a throwback for the music-video generation, Hit Me with Your '80s Box! makes a hip retro compilation that may finally get pop-culture snobs to admit that they liked many of these songs a lot more than they were willing to let on back in the day. --Bryan Reesman

Release Date: 1995-04-18, Audio CD, Polydor / Umgd

Release Date: 2002-10-01, Audio CD, Sony Cmg Mkt Group

UK box-set spans the height of the 80s icons career from their very first single 'Planet Earth' to their James Bond tune 'A View To A Kill'. 13 discs including all the original B-sides. The packaging is a flip top box with each single in a 'pouchette' reproduction of the original artwork. EMI. 2003.

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Four-CD set features four live albums, 'Debut Live', Post Live', 'Homogenic Live' & 'Vespertine Live', plus a bonus DVD with 5 bonus videos. Includes 36-page booklet. 60 tracks in all, housed in deluxe box with lid. One Little Indian Ltd. 2003.

Limited edition release featuring all 11 of the CD singles the CD singles the hit British trip hop trio has released so far. Each CD compiles all of the tracks found on the vinyl & previous CD single formats, which means most have more music...in some cases a lot! A total of 63 tracks. Singles include 'Daydreaming', 'Unfinished Sympathy', 'Safe From Harm', 'Be Thankful For What You've Got', 'Protection', 'Sly', 'Karmacoma', 'Risingson', 'Teardrop', 'Angel' and 'Inertia Creeps'. **Much cheaper than the UK pressing. Packaged in the same 'heat sensitive' box. ***No longer distributed by EMD in the U.S. 5' X 5' box with 11 paper sleeves. 1998 release.

Limited to just 500 copies, this 12 disc box is subtitled 'The Definitive Ambient Collection', and justly so, 122 tracks from such artists as Fluid, Hawkwind, Crystal Moon, Josh Abrahams, Carl Cox, The Orb, Loop Guru, Astralasia, Future Sound Of London, David Toop, Children Of Dub and manyothers. Contains the Dressed To Kill four CD compilations 'Future Sound Of Infinity' and both volumes of 'Amberdelic Space'. Costs half the price of what you'd pay for these three collections separately! Comes in a full color slipcasebox. 1998 Dressed To Kill

Opening with Clara Rockmore's reworking of Tchaikovsky with the theremin, and finishing with one of Brian Eno's ambient soundscapes, OHM artfully succeeds in its goal of giving a representative (as opposed to the impossible, comprehensive) overview of the first several decades of electronic music. Over 3 discs, 42 compositions, and 96 pages of notes and photos, OHM clearly illustrates the producers' and contributing writers' point that early electronic music is much of the foundation of contemporary music. Herein lies the connective tissue bridging musique concr?te, 20th-century classical, electronic experimentation, and the theoretical avant-garde to psychedelia, ambient, dub, techno, electro, and synthpop and the globalization of sound. The groundbreaking uses of loops, sampling, drones, remixes, and cut-and-paste technology are put fully into context. The diversity of music included makes any sort of summation impossible, but that is also the point: electronic music is not really a genre, but an open field of endless possibility. From John Cage's famous "William's Mix" of tape snippets to Karkheinz Stockhausen's electronic orchestral compositions, from David Tudor and Holger Czukay's experiments in unrelated blendings of audio elements to David Behrman's supremely peaceful duet between computers and musicians, the aural renegades on OHM tread where none (save a few of their contemporaries) had gone before. The liner notes convey the incredible amount of hard work and experimentation it took to stitch together many of these pieces in the predigital era. Putting aside the inevitable quibbles about what's missing (much of it due to legal and/or logistical issues), a more complete collection of musical eggheads, eccentrics, and visionaries is hard to imagine. --Carl Hanni