Oh Mr Amazon, with this cheap box set / bargain item, etc...

There's a lot of artists in the CBS "The real..." series, and they are often in HMV's "Two for £10" offer. There's a Johnny Cash set which compiles 6 of his early 60s LPs, a Miles Davis that includes 5 late 50s / early 60s LPs, the Dylan one is slightly different as it's a good overview of his career rather than a compilation of existing albums. There are similar sets for RCA acts too, I picked up a 3 CD Elvis set which concentrated on his 50s output for £3 in Sainsburys last year.

Any notable classical boxes worth buying on the cheap?

Almost certainly. What periods/composers are you interested in?

Interested in anything baroque or impressionist.

The huge Debussy Edition released by DG/Universal not long ago is full of good stuff, very good choices taken from the DG/Decca/Philips catalogues.

Last year's giant EMI box of Delius is a great deal too.

On the 'impressionist' tip.

Harmonia Mundi UK is flogging this great box for a mere 15 quids: http://www.amazon.co.uk/La-Musique-Lumières-Music-Enlightenment/dp/B005BZBY1I/

Includes the full recording of Rene Jacobs' great Figaro amongst others.

I make knowing these box bargains my business. Craftily watching the listings on various sites has netted me the incredible Scarlatti Scott Ross box for 30 notes or so amongst other deals. A very good tool for this is the excellently-named pricenoia.com

Oh and that Debussy Edition Jon mentioned really is worth every penny.

If you need to be sold on the Mozart (which was 30 quid retail on its own when released): http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/09/figaro_netrebko.html

Sorry to geek out over pricing but the Debussy is now 32 quids on Amazon UK - cheapest I've ever seen it.

Thanks for the tip, I ordered the Debussy comp. Love everything by him that I've heard, and that's a ridiculous price.

Tuomas, you should post your thoughts on one of the classical threads as you work your way through it!

I dunno, coming from a dance/electronic music background, I don't think I'm well versed to talk about classical music. I only own a handful of classical records, and I've only seen a few concerts (plus a few operas)... All I know is that I've really liked every Debussy recording I've heard; to me, there's something airy and beautifully simple in that stuff that I've not heard in earlier, more "complex" and frilly classical music I heard (which I do also appreciate, but not probably enough to get buy an 18 CD box set).

Heard, heard, heard, I should find new words!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Debussy-Edition-Claude-Achille/dp/B00742LLKU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359673052&sr=8-1&keywords=debussy+box

Hope this is the same. Just ordered it! Thanks for the tip.

the so called "classic" 10cc albums ..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Album-Selection-Ten-Cc/dp/B009GWHUS8/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1359675088&sr=1-3

brilliant stuff ..

xpost yes that's the same set.

Pretty excited!

all i want is a killing joke boxset ...
is that really too much to ask for ...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Albums-Dances-Night-Boxed/dp/B0093LKOGM/

;-)

not good enough.

want a nice boxset with all the classic emi/virgin era albums in replica cardboard sleeves a la elo/byrds/simple minds etc ..

its surely only a matter of time ..

Thanks for the heads-up on the enlightenment box CtC - seems insanely good value + is just the sort of thing I feel like I want to spend some time with now, find out something new.

This Stravinsky box is definitely worth a look: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Works-Igor-Stravinsky/dp/B000PTYUQG/

Anyway, I thought we were all meant to be boycotting Amazon.

Why?

In Britain, a lot of anger lately over their tax-dodging:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/03/amazon-google-starbucks-tax-avoidance

Plus the usual more general issues - squeeze on smaller merchants, emerging monopoly, bad terms offered to affiliates, publishers, authors etc

Not worth trying the "we" thing here.

Tax issues may be one reason to feel slightly peeved at Amazon (I don't myself but understand why others might) but the rest of it appears to be the usual denial routine.

None of the "smaller merchants" will admit to themselves that they are rubbish; it makes them feel better to bleat about an "emerging monopoly" rather than get off their backsides and restructure their business and their attitude (the latter especially important) so that they can offer decent competition to Amazon, rather than waiting for someone to come and drop a succession of fifty-quid notes through their front door.

i'm all for crushing capitalists of any size but i think economies of scale might make it not v. straightforward to "compete" with hulking sales behemoths? i dunno, economics is shit to me

xp Not sure how those smaller merchants are supposed to compete with the combination of Amazon's relentless squeezing of suppliers and shall we say "favourable" tax arrangements. I think it's perfectly legitimate to expect a more level playing field, and Amazon are becoming a monopoly provider if not de jure then certainly de facto. How would you suggest small providers "restructure their businesses" to be able to compete in these circumstances? Redundancies all round?

The book industry should maybe look at what happened to HMV and how all the indie record shops in London have survived, which seems a complete inversion of the David/Goliath competition set-up. Doing it on an unequal playing field is possible, even if sometimes you have to wait for Goliath to trip up.

I would say that small providers need to stop being lazy and complacent, learn about running a business and stop regarding their little independent shop as a display of their own collection.

The EMI Mahler box is pretty good. The complete works on 16 CDs for only £18, all good recordings and conducted by Klemperer, Rattle, Barbirolli etc. Packaging is minimal but attractive nonetheless:

www.amazon.co.uk/Gustav-Mahler-Complete-Works-Anniversary/dp/B003D0ZNWY/

woof: You are very welcome and I'm sure you will enjoy it.

xxp Can you provide examples of this complacency? Or is it just a question of Amazon's prices being consistently lower? Because if it's the latter then there are structural reasons for this that can't simply be blamed on laziness or complacency.

oh wow if i had £18 that i wasnae going to waste on rum :\

I have lots of sympathy for small record stores, but in here Internet distribution had sadly already done its damage before I even started ordering stuff from Amazon. Most of the records I order from there are the sort of stuff no record store in Helsinki has sold in years, so I feel no guilt over that. The local and more obscure stuff I still get from local stores, as well as used records.

Another Mahler bargain on Amazon is the Tennstedt box. 16 CDs for 16 squids as of right now and rumoured to be one of the best cycles.

Here it is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Klaus-Tennstedt-Complete-Mahler-Recordings/dp/B004OGDW4M/

fuggit i am treating myself to the Mahler next payday if it's still that price. also it will be good to give a shoeing to lazy complacent independent retailers.

stickin' it to that lazy old man

they should get on their bikes and look for customers

Noted independent record store devotee Norman Tebbit

Mary Portas vs ILM up in here!

Looks like that Tennstedt box sticks to the symphonies, so if you want yr Kindertotenlieder etc then go for the EMI box instead.

Can anyone recommend one of the Sibelius Symphonies boxes? I have a couple of Rattle discs but wouldn't mind a complete set.

I was kinda wondering: why are these classical box sets selling for so much lower price than box sets in most other genres? Is it because they don't have to pay royalties for the composers? On the other hand, many/most of them feature a lot more players than your typical pop/rock record... Do these performers get any royalties from records sold?

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk looks half decent although no doubt they are struggling to compete with Amazon prices.

This is the Sibelius bargain of the minute: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sibelius-Complete-Symphonies-Tapiola-Finlandia/dp/B0091JQH2Q/

look at that lazy website tho, they shd get rid of all that content nonsense and concentrate on bunging me tax-exempt CDs from the Channel Islands hand-packaged by children

Presto is great. Fast delivery and often cheaper than Amazon. One of the better examples of a well-curated online shop.

Cheers OG - looks like promising.

ShariVari xp: agree, that's where the competition needs to be. Constructive answer in amongst mounds of misplaced student union sarcasm.

personally I wasn't being sarcastic, but thanks.

For a Sibelius box (and yay we are talking about my other favorite composer now) I would give the slight edge to this older EMI set. The symphonies here are with the Helsinki SO and recorded in the 80s rather than the 70s (but the digital sound picture is not bad in the way a lot of early-digital stuff can be, and the Helsinki are great and there are no dud interpretations) plus you get 4 and a half discs of the equally important tone poems, theatrical incidental music, and myth-based cantatas:

http://www.amazon.com/Sibelius-Complete-Symphonies-Tone-Poems/dp/B00005MIZT/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1359736483&sr=8-5&keywords=sibelius+berglund

More compact, beautifully recorded in 70s analog, and brought off with tons of personality is this set of the symphonies and a few tone poems with Colin Davis and the Boston SO. Davis' later Sibelius recordings with the London SO are not near this level:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sibelius-Symphonies-Boston-Symphony-Orchestra/dp/B007CW2FFM/ref=sr_1_39?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1359736428&sr=1-39

For the two Mahler sets discussed above, I would DEFINITELY opt for the mixed-conductor Klemperer/Barbirolli/Rattle set rather than the all-Tennstedt one. I know the idea of a whole cycle in one conductor's interpretations is seductive but with Mahler's symphonies there simply is no one conductor who's gotten all nine (or ten) right.

I was thankfully able to order it when sales were first announced last fall

Me too, ordered it as soon as it was announced and had no problems receiving it.

Yes well done but you weren’t trying to get it for twenty quid on Amazon

Bingo

https://www.classicselectworld.com/products/bach-cantatas-the-harmonia-mundi-years-philippe-herreweghe-17-cds

17 CDs of Herreweghe Bach cantatas for $27 + $5 shipping.

I have to admit I don't own it, but there's an early electronic music compilation on Amazon.co.uk, Electronic Music: It Started Here..., which has two CDs and costs £13.52. It has fifty tracks and runs for almost two and a half hours. It could be a pile of cack. It seems to have been assembled by this chap, who specialises in reissue compilations:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/2081670-Oli-Hemingway

Clicking through the recommendations brings me to Soul Jazz Records' multi-volume Deutsche Elektronische Musik series, which frustratingly seems to be mostly out of print on CD. It strikes me that CD is the ideal format for bulk-buying a lot of diverse music because of course a vinyl enthusiast would prefer the original albums.

the Electronic Music cd is the usual suspects, lots of overlap with things like the Ohm box or the two double Forbidden Planets cds (both of which were < a tenner when i bought them, 2012ish)

Yes, it's good but not exactly a bargain.

Neil Young: Citizen Kane Jr. Blues Bootleg Series CD for $3.91 US.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T1ZQHFV?psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp

Thanks!

FOPP used to sell that Electronic Music: It Started Here comp for well under a fiver.

I was delighted to find the archival 'Blue' Gene Tyranny six CD set Degrees Of Freedom Found at £5.95 including postage but that went back up after I purchased. Pricing is quite erratic for some items so it may come down again.

Now that is a bargain!

There are a couple of really cheap Jane Birkin sets, one live, one of albums, twenty-odd CDs in each, around £30-40 on Amazon France.

The 5CD deluxe edition of Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol.16: Springtime In New York (1980–1985) is 66% off at $47.88.

xp no disrespect to the divine miss B, but one has to imagine that it’s the last hurrah of sufficiently wide appeal for such collections

I occasionally check in on the Hoffman forums thread dedicated to that massive (44 cds) Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons box just to see how they're doing with such a glut of stuff.

Working my way through the Nilsson RCA box.

The Jane Birkin box set is a thing of beauty but the shipping period really does give you a lot of time to question whether you need quite so many Jane Birkin CDs.

The list price on this is already pretty low, but right now the US site is offer Neil Young's Somewhere Under The Rainbow bootleg series double CD for $4.99.

Oh I bagged that Birkin deal (ho ho), £29 all told, and still haven't unwrapped it. But, one day.