Gorgeous Gift Boxes For 2016 Holidays – December 6, 2016

Another year almost in the books and a fine crop of holiday box sets has emerged.   These creatively and lovingly packaged collections are anchored by knob turning prowess that has this timeless music sounding better than ever. 

The Bad Boy box, curated by label head Harve Pierre, is comparatively bare bones.  Its makers eschewed oversized packaging and souvenirs while delivering a definitive history of the influential label founded by Sean Puff Daddy Combs.  You get five discs and a good little book that tells you crucial information on the eighty tracks presented and an essay by Michael Gonzalez.  The set leaves no doubt to Bad Boy’s hip hop legacy while making a case for the R&B artists on the roster as well.

How did the Badmotorfinger album swell to a seven disc collection!  It’s overkill of course but, with a box fronted by a battery powered spinning logo, it’s hard not to be endeared to this kind of indulgence.  As with the Soundgarden, the Temple Of The Dog 25th anniversary is being celebrated with various formats and levels of frivolity.  Regardless of how nuts you want to go, a pair of outstanding albums worthy of the attention.

Entombed in some kind of super sexy case that if pleasing to the touch, you can choose between sixteen Lou Reed CDs or six albums.  The CD set covers 1972 to 1986 beginning with his first self-titled effort after leaving The Velvet Underground album and ending with Mistrial.  This period includes some of the material Reed is best known for as well as some that will be of interest only to hard core fans.  Exhibit A in the latter category being Metal Machine Music.  However, when considering an artist of Lou Reed’s stature, I’m thrilled to have copies of relatively lesser titles like Growing Up In Public and Legendary Hearts that were meticulously remastered by the man himself.  On the vinyl front, arguably the most essential half dozen albums of the Aritsta/RCA era are offered in a box encouragingly titled Volume One: Transformer, Berlin, The Blue Mask, Coney Island Baby, Street Hassle, and Rock n Roll Animal.

Lastly, one can only marvel at the tremendous trove that is Pink Floyd: The Early Years 1965-1972.  It sets a new standard for luxury in a box set while offering a fascinating, multi-dimensional experience that shows the pre Dark Side evolution of Roger Waters and pals.  It’s glorious!

Bad Boy Concerts Celebrate The Notorious B.I.G. May 20th & 21st at Barclays Center

About as big a hip hop hootenanny as could possibly occur happened on Friday and Saturday nights at The Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was the start of the Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour that sees Diddy on the road with the artists that made Bad Boy Records one of the most important labels on the nineties: Lil’ Kim, The Lox, Biggie’s widow Faith Evans, Total, and Mase as well as relatively recent signees like Carl Thomas (whose debuted was released in 2000) and French Montana (who first album came just three years ago). Those artists will reconvene in late August and begin a U.S. tour that includes dates at MSG as well as in Newark’s Prudential Center in September.

Somewhere along the line someone had the happy idea to schedule the show on what would have been The Notorious B.I.G.’s 44th birthday and what was already a massive event became an epic one…and then two. Junior M.A.F.I.A., Mary J Blige, Jay Z (even though he sold his stake in the building), Usher, Busta Rhymes, DMX, and Nas all turned up as special guests. It was an embarrassment of riches for fans and a love fest for Biggie who grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. As the story goes, in 1992 a certain Sean Combs who had a gig doing A&R for Uptown Records, heard Smalls’ demo and it wasn’t long before Bad Boy was born with Ready To Die leading the charge in ’94.

Bigs knew how to handle success and he invited his talented friends like Lil’ Cease and Lil’ Kim to share in it. As Lil’ Cease said to me, shortly before crushing my head like an empty beer can in a killer lock, “He put his homeboys on and got them record deals.” Junior M.A.F.I.A. – featuring Kim and Cease as well as Biggie himself on four tracks – released their first disc Conspiracy in 95. Cease continued, “He meant a lot not just to Brooklyn and New York but the whole East Coast…” Almost two decades after his death, it’s easy to see how much he meant and still means to hip hop worldwide.