Top three CD Boxed-Set Packages…

August 8, 2007

…That Piss Me Off.

I’ve decided I don’t need to keep every piece of every CD I own, so the most egregious and unrewarding packaging for some of my CD box sets are going in the trash. It’s not high value clutter-tossing, but every little bit counts. Here are three boxes that aren’t worth keeping.

3. Paul Simon’s The Studio Recordings 1972-2000. On the outside, a cheap cardboard sleeve covered with legal pad scribblings of Paul Simon’s lyrics. Maybe they’re the original lyric sheets. Maybe they’re artistic recreations. Whatever they are, they’re ugly. Inside; cheap cardboard and plastic CD cases for Paul Simon’s first nine albums, starting with Paul Simon and ending with You’re the One. They all reproduce the original album art. The cardboard box isn’t annoying, just butt ugly. At least it doesn’t take up more extra space, which can’t be said for…

Two more after the jump.

2. Led Zeppelin’s Complete Studio Recordings A heavy cardboard-and-plastic case inconveniently sized for a CD rack. As if that weren’t enough, the artwork is a low-contrast U.S. Naval Institute photograph or collage of what I guess are twisted Zeppelin girders. It contains cheap cardboard-and-paper book-like sleeves with minuscule reproductions of the album cover art and the liner notes inside. Five sleeves, nine albums. With the exception of the two-disc Physical Graffiti, each sleeve holds two albums. I guess in order to make it seem like these are precious gems, the case actually has room for twice as many sleeves. Grooves in the box hold the sleeves well apart from each other. It’s like opening a new bag of potato chips and finding it only 1/3 full. (Except these potato chips rock. At least up to Runes.) Obnoxious, yes. But not as obnoxious as…

1. Tori Amos’ A Piano: The Collection A cardboard longbox with two octaves of plastic, full-sized three-dimensional piano keys on the top. The book inside: 5.25" tall by 11.75" wide. Guaranteed not to fit on your bookshelf. That also means the book opens to a freakish two feet wide, by the way. The box collects dust like no-one’s business and is ugly as sin — the cardboard almost immediately begins to bow out from the plastic keys. Inside: five disks in nearly identical monochrome cardboard/plastic jewel cases. And — get this — the spines of the case are pure black with no lettering on them whatsoever. Extraordinary arrogance? Or is she just quoting Spinal Tap?

I’m keeping the discs but not the boxes. Unless, of course, you have the space to waste. Act fast! They go in the garbage in the morning. (Along with a bunch of other crap too boring to list here.)

Posted in Art and Writing, Music