3 Favorite Box Sets of 2024

Sometimes the best new music is old music.

Writing in his newsletter The Honest Broker, music historian Ted Gioia noted in 2022 that old songs made up 70% of the U.S. music market. Now, each generation, mired in nostalgia, claims to have the best music. However, with the rise of AI-generated songs, such wistful thinking may soon become empirical.

Nonetheless, this year, the music biz released some amazing box sets. For fans of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Weezer, Beastie Boys, and Miles Davis, among others, 2024 delivered stocking stuffers so massive they’ll have to go under the tree.

Here’s a look at three favorite box sets from 2024.

Somebody’s Heine
Is crowding my icebox
Somebody’s cold one
Is giving me chills

Bob Dylan and The Band: The 1974 Live Recordings

Embarking on his first tour in eight years, Bob Dylan reunited with The Band for 39 shows in 21 cities in January and February of 1974. For a generational folk singer turned blasphemous plugged-in rocker, Dylan, for the first time, toured arenas. But the tour began to wear on his voice through long sets and hard living on the road. Elizabeth Nelson, who wrote the box set’s liner notes, points to this period when Dylan’s voice began to deteriorate. The sprawling 27-disc collection chronicles Tour ’74, with Dylan and The Band’s legendary rock and roll road show.

Weezer: Weezer 30 (Anniversary Super Deluxe)

Weezer’s 30th-anniversary box set of their Blue debut comes wrapped in a sweater. A piece of yarn dangles from the band’s “W” logo, and once pulled, well … you probably already know what happens next. An unraveling, of course! Rock history often unfolds in ways akin to mythology. The fact that Weezer’s debut arrived one month after Kurt Cobain’s suicide gave pop culture a staggering chapter flip. In this new collection, you see how this groundbreaking album unfolded. Through early demos and garage rehearsals, Rivers Cuomo’s work of genius comes into focus. The 1992 Kitchen Tape demos were used to land gigs. Imagine a band sending you demos of “Say It Ain’t So” and “Undone – The Sweater Song.”

Neil Young: Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976-1987)

For Neil Young’s third collection of Archives, a press release states: “With over 28 hours of total content, you could drive from New York to Denver, listening the entire time, and still have hours left to enjoy when you arrive!” This behemoth collection contains 198 tracks recorded between 1976 and 1987. The new set includes 15 previously unreleased songs, 121 unreleased versions, and unreleased albums: Oceanside Countryside, Johnny’s Island, and Summer Songs. If that’s too much to digest, you can stream a streamlined 74-minute version called Takes.

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