With holiday season kicking off, right around now is when that familiar procrastinator’s indulgence sets in, where we put off the inevitable gift buying hustle until it’s far too late. Then, at the last minute, when stocks are depleted and prices are skyward, the indecisiveness can be brutal, a horrific art of self-torturous inactivity. Don’t let it take you down this time! Don’t sabotage your own peace of mind during the most stressful time of year!
Just trust us. We’ve got you covered. In addition to gift guides in virtually every channel CraveOnline has to offer, we’ve got your Must-Have Music Lover’s Holiday Gift Guide, to take the pain out of picking for the picky. Check out a gallery of ten of the most prominent, popular and badass music releases for the year below, with a special focus on box sets and vinyl for the serious music devotee. Be sure to check back later in the month for our Music Gear Guide and more as we head into the depths of holiday season.
Must-Have Music Guide
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The Music of Grand Theft Auto V Box Set
PRICE: $119
BUY IT NOW: Amazon
Rockstar Games has released a kickass set of limited edition collections of GTA V’s star-studded soundtrack on both CD and vinyl. ‘The Music of Grand Theft Auto V’ limited edition collections include 59 tracks with original music from A$AP Rocky, Tyler, The Creator, Twin Shadow, Wavves, Flying Lotus, Yeasayer and more. In addition, the limited editions will feature the original score composed by Tangerine Dream, Woody Jackson, The Alchemist & Oh No, mixed by DJ Shadow, along with the other incredible music featured in Grand Theft Auto V. Limited to a production run of under 5000 units worldwide, these limited editions will are available now.
The vinyl collection will feature a total of six vinyl records, a full color booklet and an exclusive lithograph poster in a classic box-set. The CD collection includes three discs along with a branded Grand Theft Auto V gold brick-shaped USB Drive, artwork and poster all sealed in a special die-cut package.
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The Beatles in Mono Vinyl Box Set (Limited Edition)
PRICE: $336.47
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
Fans looking to re-live the iconic music from The Beatles as it was first heard by the world in the ‘60s are celebrating the arrival of one of the most highly anticipated and exciting collections of the year, The Beatles in Mono limited edition vinyl box set. Released in a 14-LP collection of 180-gram vinyl, newly mastered from the analogue master tapes, each album is available both individually and within the lavish, limited and gorgeous box set edition with a 108-page hardbound book. If you have a Beatles maniac in your house, or you are one yourself, this is guaranteed to be a show stealer when the wrapping paper comes off.
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Jack White - Lazaretto (Vinyl)
PRICE: $20.00
BUY IT NOW: Third Man Records
When the musical Willy Wonka decks out his vinyl releases with mindblowing tricks, goodies and even a freakin’ hologram, it’s not hard to imagine the public leaping for the goods.In true musical-Wonka fashion, Jack White’s Third Man Records imprint released the staggeringly packed “Ultra LP,” a version of White’s Lazaretto album packed with the kind of stuff that makes vinyl lovers swoon. The contents of the Ultra LP include a reverse groove pattern guiding the needle from the center of the record outward, dual-groove technology, a dead-wax area on Side A containing a hand-etched hologram (the first of its kind on a vinyl record), and so much more.
Lazaretto’s popularity isn’t relegated to old fashioned mediums, however, as it also landed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 138,000 units sold in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It also shattered previous records to become the highest-selling vinyl album of all time.
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Soundgarden - Echo of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across The Path Box Set
PRICE: $99.99
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
Soundgarden’s new 3-disc rarities collection is a dream come true for fans. On November 24, the rejuvenated Seattle rockers will release the long-awaited 3-CD rarities collection, Echo Of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across The Path. The set includes seven unreleased tracks (including a brand-new recording, “Storm,” recorded in May this year with producer Jack Endino in Seattle), as well as a blizzard of material featuring everything from original B-sides to unreleased tracks, instrumentals, covers and demos. The collection was curated and hand-selected by guitarist Kim Thayil.
“As album sets go, this one has been fun to collect and compile over the decades,” he writes. “I personally may have referenced this project a number of times over the years, going back almost twenty of them to the mid-nineties!”
The package was beautifully designed by Josh Graham and features three separate thematic discs in a clear plastic slipcase with three separate mini-jackets, each sporting its own unique art, a booklet and inserts, allowing you to mix and match your own album graphic layout.
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Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy (2014 Jimmy Page Remastered 2LP+2CD Super Deluxe Edition)
PRICE: $287.00
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
Led Zeppelin is deep in an extensive re-release campaign of its nine studio albums (1969 to 1982), with re-mastered versions of the records personally overseen by virtuosic guitarist Jimmy Page.
The legendary Houses of the Holy album is among the most exciting of these remastered reissues, available on CD in vinyl replica sleeve, with the companion audio disc in a card wallet featuring new alternate cover art. Additionally, the remastered album comes on 180-gram vinyl in a sleeve replicating the first pressing, and the companion audio on 180-gram vinyl in a sleeve with new alternate cover art, a high-def audio download card of all content at 96kHz/24 bit, a hardbound 80-page book with rare and previously unpublished photos and memorabilia and a high-quality print of the original album cover (the first 30,000 will be numbered).
In other words, this is one supremely badass Zeppelin set. Jimmy Page, who produced the albums and heads up the project, says the unreleased mixes are "interesting enough and have a different perspective on the instruments to make a good companion to the original.''
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Bruce Springsteen - The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984
PRICE: $84.98
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
Remastered editions of the first seven albums recorded and released by The Boss for Columbia Records, all between 1973 and 1984, are compiled in this phenomenal new collection. All of the albums are newly remastered (five for the first time ever on CD) and all seven are also making their remastered debut on vinyl, with recreations of their original packaging. The set is accompanied by a 60 page book featuring rare photos, memorabilia and original press clippings from Springsteen's first decade as a recording artist.
Legendary engineer Bob Ludwig, working with Springsteen and longtime engineer Toby Scott, has remastered these albums, newly transferred from the original analogue masters using the Plangent Process playback system.
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The Art of McCartney - Vinyl Box Set
PRICE: $199.99
BUY IT NOW: Amazon
A staggering collection of top-tier artists have come together for The Art of McCartney, a new celebration of the music of the surviving Beatle. The run of artists covering Dylan in this box set is downright jawdropping: Billy Joel, The Cure, Roger Daltrey, Brian Wilson, Alice Cooper, Dr. John, Yusuf (Cat Stevens), Barry Gibb, Jamie Cullum, KISS, Chrissie Hynde and many more are featured.
Producers of the set have developed five different purchasing options for the collection, including 2CD, 2CD+DVD, triple vinyl, a 4LP coloured vinyl box set and a limited deluxe box (1000 only) which combines coloured vinyl, CD, DVD, a Höfner bass guitar USB, and various art prints.
The two box sets have 42 tracks – McCartney compositions from all eras including The Beatles, Wings and solo work. The other formats have 34 songs, except the 2CD+DVD available on Amazon, which has 2 bonus tracks (C Moon – Robert Smith and Put It There – Peter, Bjorn & John).
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Flying Lotus - You’re Dead! (Vinyl)
PRICE: $39.99
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
Looking to embark on a shamanic pilgrimage into the psychedelic unknown of the infinite afterlife? Then Flying Lotus’ new album is the way to go. The album, with psychedelically awesome gatefold artwork by Japanese comic book artist Shintaro Kago, features “a sonic, visual and metaphysical fusion of technological innovation and technical virtuosity that amounts to a transcendent, mind-expanding plasm that could only exist between our world and another”. In other words, this is one trippy-ass ride.
Appearances on the album include Herbie Hancock, Kendrick Lamar, Captain Murphy and Snoop Dogg, among others. If you’re new to the producer/rapper/experimental soundscapist, here’s an entrypoint to a rabbithole of entirely unexpected proportions.
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LCD Soundsystem - Live at Madison Square Garden (5LP Box Set)
PRICE: $149.75
BUY IT NOW: Ebay
LCD Soundsystem bid farewell with a nearly four-hour April 2, 2011 farewell show at New York's Madison Square Garden, and The Long Goodbye is the complete, unabridged recording of the performance - a definite must-have for fans waving bittersweet goodbye. Produced and mixed by LCD founder and frontman, James Murphy, the 5LP set for The Long Goodbye is the ultimate audio document of LCD Soundsystem's now legendary final show, building on the performances featured in the acclaimed film, Shut Up and Play The Hits. This special box set was released exclusively on Record Store Day 2014, and is available in limited quantities.
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Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun (Limited Edition Deluxe Vinyl)
PRICE: $67.26
BUY IT NOW: Amazon
With timelessly powerful riffage and a cross-pollinated sound between Black Sabbath’s doom and King Crimson’s hyper-prog genius, Mastodon hit a new high this year with a shining addition to one of the most celebrated discographies in modern metal. Boasting three vocalists— bassist Troy Sanders, drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Brent Hinds, the sounds are as varied as they are complex - and supplemented in brilliant fashion with staggeringly awesome artwork by the artist known only as Skinner.
With a gatefold layout that may just be the most impressive vinyl artwork we’ve ever seen, Once More ‘Round The Sun is Mastodon at their sonic and visual finest.
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Bob Dylan and The Band: The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11(Deluxe Edition)
PRICE: $119.88
BUY IT NOW: AMAZON
The definitive chronicle of Bob Dylan's legendary 1967 sessions with The Band has arrived in complete form, with a massive 6-disc set including 138 tracks compiled from meticulously restored original tapes. Also included is an exclusive 120 page deluxe-bound book containing rare and unseen photographs and memorabilia, as well as extensive liner notes.
The Basement Tapes have been a source of fascination and novelty for generations of fans, with Dylan’s post-motorcycle accident recovery finding him in creative seclusion. Shutting out outside influence, Dylan ensconced himself in the basement of a small New York house, along with Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Levon Helm. Together, this group recorded more than a hundred songs over several months including traditional covers, comical one-offs, sporadic impromptu performances and, most important, dozens of newly-written Bob Dylan songs, including future classics "I Shall Be Released," "The Mighty Quinn," "This Wheel's On Fire" and "You Ain't Going Nowhere."
