By the Numbers

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by Greg Cahill
Mar 25, 2025

At its best, a box set can capture the soul of an artist, revealing fly-on-the-wall insights into the creative process and rewarding diehard fans with precious rarities. No box set this year has done that better than John Lennon’s Mind Games: The Ultimate Mix (Capitol/UMusic). The imaginative super-deluxe edition—replete with LPs, CDs, and Blu-rays with 5.1- and Atmos-surround mixes—is encased in a thick clear plastic case and weighs in at a whopping 40 pounds. It’s the mother of all box sets. This sonic shrine, priced at a hefty $1,350, harbors loads of outtakes, books, art objects, bespoke I-Ching coins, and four innovative picture discs emblazoned with zoetrope images of Lennon and Yoko Ono that appear to dance on your turntable (YouTube’s Parlogram channel does an excellent job unboxing the super-deluxe edition). Sean Ono Lennon supervised the lavish packaging and it shows that someone needs to put him in charge of the comparatively lackluster Beatles reissues—cue the Grammy Award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package. Frugal fans can opt for hi-def streaming tracks, a two-LP abridged version, or an eight-disc deluxe edition that includes hi-def Blu-ray and Atmos surround mixes—the discs shimmer with encrypted symbols when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Mind Games- The Ultimate Mix

Of course, gimmicks are fun, but music matters most. Paul Hicks has remixed and remastered these 1973 recordings from the original master tapes, admirably boosting what was originally thin sound (the project was Lennon’s first as a producer). Musically, the original mix of Mind Games was uneven and this wasn’t one of Lennon’s best solo albums—he was sometimes tepidly juxtaposing his 70s peace-and-love ethos with his love for 50s rock and pop. The real draw here is the newly remixed outtakes, which elevate the art. Stripped of overblown production, the outtakes take you inside the creation of Lennon’s exuberantly eccentric “Meat City” and filter his signature double-tracked vocals to put the artist in a compellingly intimate light as one of rock’s great balladeers. Check out outtake five of “You Are Here” or outtake two of “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry).” It’s 2 AM and you’re in the studio, enveloped by one of Lennon’s most personal vocal ballad performances. And then there are the hidden bonus tracks: “I’m the Greatest” and “Rock ’N’ Roll People” feature Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Klaus Voorman—the 1970 recordings reunited the then-former Beatles and friends for the first time since the band’s then-recent volatile break up.

When it comes to sheer numbers, Bob Dylan, 83, takes the prize with the mammoth 27-CD deluxe-edition of The 1974 Live Recordings (Columbia/Sony). It gathers 417 previously unreleased tracks culled from all his professionally recorded concert dates with The Band, (including 133 recordings newly mixed from 16-track tape and every known soundboard recording), plus 12 tracks recorded at the L.A. Forum that comprised 1974’s Before the Flood album. Old folk favorites, like the anthemic “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and the romantic “Something There Is About You,” get vigorous stage readings. These tracks also provide fodder for a more affordable three-LP/seven-inch single set released separately on colored vinyl on the Third Man label. The voluminous material chronicles an emotionally charged, transitional period that saw Dylan living through the personal turmoil that informed 1975’s studio album Blood on the Tracks and found the restless bard preparing for his infamous Rolling Thunder tour plus shifting to the Asylum label after a decade-long association with Columbia Records. This mega-box marks the 50th anniversary of Dylan’s return to the road on what has become his legendary Never-Ending Tour.

Hey, rust never sleeps, as Neil Young, 78, has said. That iconic Canadian rocker, who has maintained a breakneck schedule in recent years, releasing both old and new material, once again has plumbed his recorded treasure trove for the hefty Archives Vol. III. Spanning 11 years, from 1976 to 1987, the massive 22-disc box set gathers 198 sonically splendid tracks from the Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps, Live Rust, and Trans sessions, including 121 previously unreleased versions of live and studio mixes or edits, and 15 previously unreleased songs. The set also includes five Blu-rays with 11 films, four of which are previously unreleased. Vibrant 16-track double-LP and 17-CD editions are also available.

Film is also at the core of the Blu-ray included in Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision (Legacy), which showcases a new documentary chronicling the creation of Hendrix’s 16-track studio built on the ruins of a dilapidated Manhattan nightclub. The 5-LP or 3-CD + Blu-ray box set also includes 39 previously unreleased post-Experience tracks matching Hendrix with bassist Billy Cox and drummer Mitch Mitchell. One standout is a stripped-down take of “Angel” sans the drum track added by Mitchell after Hendrix’s 1970 death. The Blu-ray also has 20 new 5.1 surround mixes that gather the entire First Rays of the New Rising Sun sessions with three bonus tracks (“Valleys of Neptune,” “Pali Gap,” and “Lover Man”). “Pali Gap” in surround sound! Rave on.

Meanwhile, Frank Zappa fans can feast on the 75-track Apostrophe*: 50th Anniversary Edition (Zappa/UMe). The 1974 release earned the Clown Prince of Absurdist Rock his first gold-selling record and spawned the irreverent hit “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” (which has been re-released as a single). Bernie Grundman has remastered the original album, which is paired with 43 live concert tracks, numerous alternate takes, and newly released archival tracks remixed and restored by Craig Parker Adams and remastered by John Polito. In addition to the five CDs, an accompanying Blu-ray provides Apostrophe’s out-of-print 24/96 quadraphonic mix, the 2024 stereo remaster in 24/192 and 24/96 PCM, and 24/48 Atmos and 24/48 Dolby TrueHD. Enjoy the album while flipping through a 52-page booklet and rare photos. It’s a prog-rock tour de force.

Or freak out to Zappa and his original Mothers of Invention showcased on Whiskey A Go Go, 1968 (Zappa/UMe), an archival, rarities-packed five-LP or three-CD set (also available on an abridged double-LP version) that, thanks to an eight-track mobile studio, brilliantly captured the eccentric rocker and his cohorts holding court in the legendary Sunset Strip nightclub during its heyday.

Plastic people need not apply.

Tags: MUSIC SET