Jim Morrison once waxed on wax about how “the future is uncertain and the end is always near.” Well if that’s the true-be-all-end-all-whatsit statement folks, then it’s a good thing that music is always near to help with the confusion. No matter what the mood or attitude of the homosapien: mad, glad, depressed, morose, lively, ebullient, ragtag, etc., music is always a welcome addition regardless of what’s going on or what’s going down. This year’s crop of sonic comestibles should take care of anyone feeling hi-fi or lo-hi; either way, all of them are welcome additions under the tree or near the menorah or whatever your late year holiday preference may be. Human beings have so many choices to choose from these days, and here’s some more below.

Check out our 2022 Holiday Gift Guide for Music.

Blondie
Against the Odds
Remastered (1974 – 1982)
8 CD Box Set

This 8-CD oeuvre of the first 6 albums by the New York band that was the bridge in many ways between the CBGB’s punk and power pop circuit is a vital musical record of a band that is a lot more than just their Billboard chart success. Led by Debbie Harry, who had the right mix of attitude, model shelf glamor, and moxie for days, Blondie is best known for their cadre of hit after hit after hit during the late ’70s and early ’80s, hits which remain in the musical lexicon to this day: “The Tide is High,” “One Way or Another,” “Call Me,” “Rapture,” (with its always mentioned in music articles, as is here, early wave of hip hop posturings). They all jangle with Chris Stein’s anxiety stutter riffs and the driving force of the rhythm section. Along with all this music, Against the Odds also includes a sampling of outtakes and rarities from more expanded deluxe editions and an all-encompassing photo book jam packed with photos of the band’s international pressings of picture sleeves and the like.

The Beatles
Revolver
Special Edition
5 CD Box Set

Released in between Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper, Revolver remains one of The Beatles’ most musically adventurous outings, and that’s saying a lot considering the total work of the Fab Four. This special edition contains a new mix of the record by Giles Martin and the original mono mix done by his late father George Martin back in 1966 when the album was first released. There are the expected exhaustive bonus extras included within: a 4 track EP, almost 30 session takes and home demos, and to cap it off, a 100-page book with detailed track notes and tons of photos.

Guns N’ Roses
Use Your Illusion
Super Deluxe Edition
7 CD/Blu-ray Box Set

Simply a monumental package in every way, including both parts of Use Your Illusion by jailhouse hard rock JDs Guns N’ Roses, this deluxe 7-CD set houses 97 total tracks from those sessions, 63 unreleased. There are also live performances from the band during the time of the album’s original release recorded in New York and Las Vegas which are being released for the very first time, including a video performance of the New York show as well. Also included is an expansive book and replicas of tour passes and even their fan club minutiae at the time, making this without question a zenith of a release and almost unprecedented in its total scope.

Elvis
Elvis On Tour
50th Anniversary Edition
6 CD + 1 Blu-ray Box Set

Comprised of four of the shows presented on Elvis’ memorable 1972 tour, which also was filmed for a movie with the same title, Elvis on Tour is a deluxe 6 CD set, with 145 tracks — 91 unreleased until now — spanning the King of Rock and Roll’s career from its earliest savage and uninhibited phase to his later white suit spectacle and all in between. All of the recordings still have that Presley gravitas, both from his commanding presence and the bands, creating a tight swinging, rocking explosion of sound, and it creates some of the last times Elvis exhibited such attitude; he would die only five years after these recordings. Elvis on Tour also includes the film on Blu-ray and is a nice counterpart to the explosive yet uneven Baz Luhrmann slapdash roller coaster biopic ride released earlier this year, with just-right Austin Butler as the King.

Michael Jackson
Thriller
40th Anniversary: Extra Tracks
2 CD Set

In the span of the 40 years since the release of Thriller, which remains the biggest selling album of all time, obviously a lot has happened. What remains the same as always is the vibrant urgent music of Michael Jackson. The arguable apex of the alchemic collaborations between MJ and studio meister Quincy Jones, Thriller is almost like a greatest hits album when one reads the track listing (“Billie Jean” and “Beat It” to name a few). There isn’t much more to trumpet about the album, except to state how it remains an R&B classic and a crossover of genres which fused together fans of all stripes. This 40th anniversary 2-disc set contains the original 1982 album and a disc filled with unreleased demos and more.

Humble Pie
The A&M CD Box Set (1970-1975)
8 CD Box Set

This British foursome first had success in the late 1960s as a kind of mix of the blues, rock, and dungaree-wearing folk sounds that pervaded the scene at the time. As the ’70s dawned, Humble Pie took their style more in the direction of the hard rock idiom and wound up becoming the arguable dark horse of that entire genre. That era is gloriously showcased in The A&M Box Set, in which the band, made up of the likes of underrated vocalist and guitarist Steve Marriott and the soon to be pop superstar Peter Frampton (who plays with a never-to-be-heard from again power abandon throughout) absolutely blaze their way through song after song with rock riffs and high strut which no doubt made Jimmy Page and Robert Plant go back to their playbooks upon hearing this new slice of Pie. While the later years of the set are Frampton-less, who had left the
band by that point, Humble Pie still retains a tuff enuff strut that makes this set and the band overall one of hard rock’s best, if not the… The set includes 7 classic Pie albums along with a disc of B-sides and rarities (with 5 previously unreleased tracks) as well as a hardback book featuring an all-new essay, rare photos, and other memorabilia.

Frank Zappa
Waka/Wazoo
4 CD/Blu-ray Audio
Box Set

2022 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the albums Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo by polymath wizard of the fretboard and the control board Frank Zappa. Both albums, The Grand Wazoo in particular, showcased Zappa’s experiments in 1972 with his take on the big band electric Jazz sounds that were
popularized at the time by the works of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Don Ellis, Woody Herman, and Buddy Rich. Concocting a formula which are a few parts of his old stalwarts in The Mothers of Invention, coupled with new stalwarts like keyboard extraordinaire George Duke and others, the result is a highly galvanizing recording which may possibly sport the greatest Zappa guitar solo of all time in the track “Eat that Question.” Oddities and rarities also spread across the 4 CDs, as well as a live 1972 Winterland recording of most of both albums
and unreleased George Duke demos. Highly recommended for jazz freaks, guitar heroes, and Zappafficiados. This also includes a Blu-ray Audio disc with both albums with Dolby Atmos and 5.1 mixes + 96/24 hi-res stereo masters.

The Rolling Stones
Singles (1963-1966)
7″ Single Box Set Limited Edition
Box Set

This limited edition vinyl set houses 18 vinyl 45 singles and EPs all in original picture sleeves. It also includes a 32-page book and photo cards and a poster, all contained in a hard shell casing. But most importantly, it houses songs by a band who would go on to become world famous and a blueprint for so many that
followed them, songs that showcase The Rolling Stones still meshed heavily to the American blues roots, songs that showcase the exquisite and all-together different guitar work of Brian Jones. This Limited Edition box set great for the Stones connoisseur who dabbles in the band a little bit more than just brown sugared jumping jack flashes.

T-Rex
1972
Import
5 CD Box Set

After the success of Electric Warrior propelled T-Rex into the supernova of music success in 1971, the following year turned out to be one of the band’s biggest in its home country of England, emboldened bythe press with the suggestive moniker “T-Rextasy.” Success also came in America during that year, albeit a cult one, one that continues to this very day. Now a 5-CD box set entitled 1972 showcases all that was T-Rex in that banner year for the glam/pre-punk/hard rock juggernaut. Stuffed with studio recordings, broadcasts, and live performances, including arguably the band’s greatest release The Slider, along with the complete version of the Born to Boogie soundtrack from the Ringo Starr-directed docu-film
release, 1972 almost brings the entire sonic zeitgeist of what it was like to be in the eye of the T-Rexmania fifty years ago. Rare tracks, the expected comprehensive book, and even a replica of a flexi-disc 1972 Christmas single round out the set.

Nick Drake
Pink Moon
CD

The only album released in America during Nick Drake’s lifetime (he died in 1974), Pink Moon, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, remains, like the man who created it, a mysterious, evocative piece of broken stained glass which still cuts and resonates and reverberates to this day. Drake was an anomaly to most and still is; a pained folk-style singer who didn’t really sing folk songs, a guitarist who had a unique style of fingerpicking and a penchant for self-reaching evocative lyrics and imagery, which drew from William Blake and the basic elements such as the air, sky, the moon, and who fused those elements together to create sounds that although they didn’t during Drake’s lifetime, have since stretched far and wide onto the musical palate to this very day. Pink Moon is a perfect place to start for anyone even remotely curious about the artist; one will not be disappointed — just ask any of the zealous fans that have stretched generations now for fifty years.

Quick Picks

Here’s some hard rock and heavy metal quick picks from Empress Eve of Doom and Metal.

– Steve Vai: Inviolate
CD
– Korn: Requiem
CD
– Saxon: Carpe Diem
CD | Vinyl
– Voivod: Synchro Anarchy
CD | Vinyl
– HammerFall: Hammer of Dawn
CD | Vinyl
– Scorpions: Rock Believer
CD | Vinyl | Deluxe CD | Deluxe Vinyl
– Vio-lence: Let the World Burn
CD | Vinyl
– Ghost: Impera
CD | Vinyl
– Grim Reaper: Reaping the Whirlwind: Live British Steel Festival 2018
CD | Vinyl
– Destruction: Diabolical
CD | Vinyl
– Charlie Benante and Friends: Moving Pitchers
Vinyl
– Kirk Hammett: Portals
CD | Vinyl
– Rammstein: Zeit
CD | Special Edition CD | Vinyl
– Gwar: The New Dark Ages
CD | Vinyl
– Kreator: Hate Über Alles
CD | Vinyl
– Arch Enemy: Deceivers
CD | Vinyl
– Machine Head: Of Kingdom and Crown
CD | Vinyl
– Megadeth: The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!
CD | Vinyl
– Ozzy Osbourne: Patient Number 9
CD | Vinyl
– Behemoth: Opvs Contra Natvram
CD | Vinyl
– Slipknot: The End, So Far
CD | Vinyl
– The Cult: Under the Midnight Sun
CD | Vinyl
– Lamb of God: Omens
CD | Vinyl
– Queensrÿche: Digital Noise Alliance
CD | Vinyl
– Sodom: 40 Years at War – The Greatest Hell of Sodom
CD | Vinyl
– Candlemass: Sweet Evil Sun
CD | Vinyl

Note: When purchasing music in physical formats from Amazon, be sure to look for the “AutoRip” logo near the top of the product page by the format selections. If you see that logo, that means if you purchase the physical format, you will also get a FREE MP3 version of it. (See their terms & conditions for more details.)

Check out all of our Holiday Gift Guides for more ideas, and remember, if all else fails, there’s also the Amazon.com Gift Card, you can have emailed to the recipient (arrives immediately) or you can print out the gift card at home and give it to the intended that way. If you order in enough time, you can get the physical gift card sent directly to you or to the recipient.