What's in a box?

In an interview with Wired's Underwire on Monday, Black Francis discussed the release of the Pixies' eyewatering (in more than one sense) new box set, Minotaur. For those who are unaware of this development, Minotaur is a collection of all five of the band's studio albums (from Come On Pilgrim through to Trompe Le Monde) on LP, CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs, a DVD of a previously unreleased show at London's Brixton Academy, and other tidbits for Pixies collectors. Sounds impressive? That's just the standard 'deluxe' edition - the ultra-limited edition run comes in a oversize clamshell case and also includes an entire book filled with artwork and photography, and even more odds and ends. They really have gone to town on their studio discography (except all B-sides and rarities, which have been omitted from this release).



Of cause, this kind of thing has to have a value, and Minotaur's deluxe edition comes in at $175. Want the limited edition? Be prepared to fork out $495, and hope that UPS arrive before the accountants call.

One of the quotes in the Underwire interview which interested me was Black's response to whether box sets like Minotaur were the relevant products to keep the CD alive in the age of digital downloads:

"I got in trouble because I was recently quoted about the state of the music business, and I was saying it should be kind of a $5 world right now. Records and tickets should be cheap, given the overpricing of recent years and the state of the world economy. But now, this box comes out and I feel like the biggest shithead in the world. But I'm not spinning it."

My first response to this was "Really?" Francis surely knows that in the eyes of most dyed-in-the-wool fans and collectors, buying this would be a no-brainer, economic hardship or not. Offering a little bit more seems to go a lot further for the artists; Trent Reznor told audiences to steal his music in response to overpriced CDs, knowing that enough of them wouldn't need to be asked to pay $300 for the limited edition, signed set for Ghosts I-IV. For all the talk of In Rainbows' brand new, industry-defying, pay-what-you-want price model, a good number of $80 'discboxes' were dispatched from W.A.S.T.E. before Christmas 2007. (Due to my brother's uni-based purchasing without prior consultation to his music oracle - aka, ME - we ended up with two of those boxes in our house.) Placebo's golden ticket offer - a single golden pass for a winner and a companion to travel to a city of their choice, meet the band over dinner, see the show from backstage, and genuinely have the holiday of a lifetime - and the possibility that one of the 500 signed box sets would be sent to you helped shift Battle For The Sun's £70 box sets, from which - from the time it went on sale - no music had been released to promote it. (The first play of the title track was a couple hours after the box set went up for pre-order.)

So if fans and artists were so hung up on the standard jewel case costing too much, then why are box sets - typically consisting of two CDs and LPs, special artwork and lyric booklets, occasionally a 'behind the scenes' or 'live' DVD - becoming a popular product in the industry? Given that, in a supposedly digital age, the number of vinyl sales is increasing rapidly, it surely has something to do with a personal need for ownership of something physical and personal, qualities that an MP3 will never have. It's a legal way of obtaining extra material and additional goodies that are often inaccessible to casual fans. Add in the motives of desire (not necessarily greed) to be part of a select group who own said product (never underestimate the force that is musical elitism), and it's easy to see why the box set is so appealing.

Not many bands have the reach in terms of their fanbase in order to make a box set work, and even those who do still struggle with making a product that's actually worth the money or the extra material. (Billy Corgan, I'm looking at you!) My Battle For The Sun box is actually a beautiful bit of art in itself, and the two books featuring the CD and 4LPs (with two exclusive studio tracks - one of which, 'The Movie On Your Eyelids', is one of the most leftfield, yet hauntingly beautiful songs Placebo have ever written), plus two DVDs, a blank CD for downloading exclusive material via the band's website, lyrics and exclusive artwork, are definitely worth the £70 price tag. Like Radiohead, Placebo had come to the end of their contract with a record label (Virgin, also under the EMI umbrella) and not only could reach a large group of pre-existing fans, but also dig into their own pockets to fund such an endeavour. In their case, it resulted in a genuinely good collectible for fans; other box sets with more upmarket intentions may, as the French might say, trompe le monde.

Read Black Francis' interview with Wired's Underwire here.