The Best "Making Of An Album" Box Sets, Ranked

Also: Imagining a killer "Nebraska"/"Born In The U.S.A." box set that doesn't exist

Back in February, a Vox article called “Everyone Is A Sell Out” went viral, particularly in certain social-media corners that I populate centered around the rapidly shrinking professional media. It was a lament about the “labor” of self-promotion, which apparently is supposed to be beneath self-identifying creatives. “Under the tyranny of algorithmic media distribution, artists, authors — anyone whose work concerns itself with what it means to be human — now have to be entrepreneurs, too,” the author wrote.

When this article kept popping up in my feed, I couldn’t help but scratch my head. Is this really a new problem? And is it really a problem? If a person makes something — writes a book, records an album, paints a painting, etc. — is there an expectation that the outside world is automatically supposed to care? If it is “labor” to talk (or tweet or TikTok or whatever) about the thing you made, what exactly is it for the people who did not make it and otherwise have no vested interest in that thing? Who is your best advocate if advocating for yourself is too much of a burden? Are you really expecting other people to do the talking for you? Why in the hell would they do that?! Isn’t that attitude actually more self-absorbed than simply plugging yourself?

What if talking about the thing you made is actually kind of … fun?

It’s weird to say “I like self-promotion.” We are conditioned as humans to regard the idea of talking constantly about yourself as a bad thing. Because it is a bad (or at least annoying) trait in most contexts. But speaking as someone who has been doing a lot of interviews lately for the book I just put out, I must say that I’m always honored, a little surprised, and 100 percent psyched that people want to talk to me about my work. It’s honestly one of the most enjoyable parts of the book-writing process. It’s something you think about as you’re writing — what are interviewers going to zero in on when they talk to me about this? That’s what you hope happens. Because what’s the alternative? Putting your thing out into the void and never speaking about it again? Grow up, people!

Anyway: A topic that’s come up a few times in these interviews concerns the nonexistent box set covering Bruce Springsteen’s 1981-84 songwriting and recording period, which includes Nebraska and Born In The U.S.A. There’s long been the hope (if not expectation) that Bruce would eventually follow up the box sets for Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, and The River with a set commemorating arguably the most productive era of his career. This mythical collection would, theoretically, begin with the demos he laid down in late ’81 at his rental home in Colts Neck, N.J., continue on through the sessions in the winter and spring of ’82 with The E Street Band (including the so-called Electric Nebraska), pick up again with the solo recordings he did in early ’83 at his home studio in L.A., and then go back to the work he did with the band later on in ’83 and into ’84. Add a disc or two of live tracks from the tour, and you have quite the box set.

But, alas, it was not meant to be (at least for now). All there has been is a rather underwhelming “40th anniversary edition” of the album, due out next week, that includes new liner notes and absolutely nothing else. When asked by Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene about the possibility of a Nebraska/Born In The U.S.A. box set in 2022, Bruce said this: “First of all, what people need to understand is that most of the Born in the U.S.A. great outtakes are out there on Tracks 1. The Born in the U.S.A. stuff we have left either isn’t very good or there isn’t any of it. I’m not sure which. We’re hoarding no secrets.”

There are two things to consider here. One, it’s possible that Bruce (unlike me and many other Boss fans) considers Nebraska separate from Born In The U.S.A., and therefore he wouldn’t think to group them together in a box set. Two, his definition of “good” differs from mine. Because anyone who collects bootlegs knows there is plenty of material out there that’s not on Tracks and is often quite good and sometimes great.

I talked about that last point with my friend Brian Hiatt for an episode of Rolling Stone Music Now that hasn’t come out yet. (Brian wrote a really good Bruce book of his own, by the way.) Brian forwarded the notion (apparently shared by Bruce) that the unreleased outtakes (like “The Klansman,” which I write about at length in my book) aren’t up to snuff. I disagree, obviously, but beyond that I think that a box set charting the in-tandem development of Nebraska and Born In The U.S.A. would be a fascinating listen from a documentary perspective.

In recent years, there’s been a proliferation of box sets that go beyond the standard “remaster plus bonus tracks” of run-of-the-mill anniversary editions. These collections actually give you an inside view of how the album came together, tracing the development of demos into finished tracks with various outtakes and rehearsals. You get to hear the arrangements that were tried and discarded, and the lyrics that were pondered and then revised. These sorts of box sets aren’t for everybody, but they aren’t just for obsessives (or music critics) either. There’s no question in my mind that if Bruce decided to put out the mythical box set I described earlier, it would be voraciously consumed by fans and written about rapturously by critics.

To give you a better idea of what I mean, here are my favorite “making of an album” box sets, ranked in descending order.

1. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

I’ll just quote from my own review: “I’ve often said that my favorite Wilco record is a bootleg of outtakes from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. As great as the record is, the long and restless journey in search of that greatness has always been more fascinating to me, for the same reason that rock geeks have long obsessed over the making of similarly “difficult” paradigm-shifting curveballs like Pet Sounds, Tusk, and Kid A. For many months during 2000 and ’01 at The Loft, Wilco’s north side Chicago rehearsal space and studio, they ran through countless different versions of the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot songs. In the process, they touched on nearly every corner of modern music history, dabbling in classic Brill Building pop, spacey psychedelia, blistering krautrock, rustic folk, surly garage punk, bubblegum funk, John Cage-inspired dissonance, and various points in-between. (There are also the fan favorites that didn’t make the album, like “Venus Stop The Train” and “Cars Can’t Escape.”)”

2. The Who, Who’s Next/Life House Deluxe

This is the box set I envision the Nebraska/Born In The U.S.A. collection resembling. It starts with Pete Townshend’s demos, and then there are outtakes with the band, and then there are songs that didn’t make the album, and then are two (incredible) complete shows. It’s 10 discs, which is insane, but justified given that we’re talking about one of the greatest rock albums ever made. (I would hope the imaginary Bruce box would be similarly massive.)

3. The Replacements, Tim - Let It Bleed Edition / Bob Dylan, Fragments - Time Out of Mind Sessions 1996-1997 The Bootleg Series Vol. 17 (tie)

These box sets do what the Wilco and The Who sets do, documentary-wise, and then take the extra step of radically remixing the respective classic albums in order to “improve” them. I still prefer the original mixes of both albums — Tim for sentimental reasons, Time Out Of Mind due to my “I love Daniel Lanois gloop” preference — but the reduxes nevertheless sound fantastic. (Full disclosure: I wrote liners for the Dylan set but I’m putting it here in spite of that.)

4. Tom Petty, Wildflowers & All The Rest

Wildflowers is one of my favorite albums of all-time, and along with Exile On Main St. it’s my favorite hangout record ever. Like a hangout movie, a hangout record is where you feel like you’re hanging out with the musicians as you’re listening. So, on that count, I might prefer the box set to the original LP. You get to enjoy a longer hang with TP and Co.!

5. Miles Davis, The Complete Jack Johnson

Could have also put the In A Silent Way box here. Both sets (among many other quality Miles boxes) will deepen anyone’s appreciation for Miles’ producer Ted Macero, who pieced together the great man’s great albums out of in-studio jams. As for The Complete Jack Johnson, it’s a different kind of hangout album. Not as chill of the Petty box, but the feeling of being in the same room with so many genius players is plenty intoxicating.

Bonus pick: The Waterboys, 1985

This one dropped earlier this year, and I’m still working my way through all six discs. It covers the making of 1985’s This Is The Sea, one of the most sweeping examples of “The Big Music” concept propagated by passionately earnest ’80s rock bands like U2, Big Country, Simple Minds, and this U.K. outfit fronted by the visionary singer-songwriter Mike Scott. Anyone who loves The War On Drugs and wishes they had a new album out would be well-advised to dive into this box with me. Adam Granduciel has acknowledged Scott as a primary influence, and the evidence of that influence is all over this music.

(The Waterboys actually have another “making of the album” box set that’s also worth checking out: Fisherman’s Box covers the making of 1988’s fantastic Fisherman’s Blues, and features a wealth of covers from the worlds of folk, country, and rock. I think of it as a U.K. Basement Tapes.)

Recommendation Corner

One of my favorite current bands, Good Looks, dropped a great new album, Lived Here For A While, on Friday. Lovers of heartland rock jams with penetrating lyrics that veer from autobiography to political commentary will want to run (don’t walk) to this record. (I wrote about it here.) The Good Looks record pairs well with a recent discovery, the Indianapolis grouop Everything, Now!, whose 2024 release Hideout Mountain is a winning combination of rock-y power pop and psychedelia.