Thoughts on the Who's Next/Life House box

Warning: Classic rock geek-out ahead

I’m not a huge fan of boxed sets, other than the ones for artists to whom I owe lifelong alliegance, and even then, going back and listening to records that I completely wore out decades ago is a mixed blessing. Yes, the remixes can be interesting (if rarely that overused critical word, “revelatory”), and I no longer own a single one. They are often a combination of daunting (even I don’t have time to listen to four or five or six CDs worth of music I know by heart) and overly familiar, however good the remix.

Take recent boxes of The Beatles’ Revolver, or Abbey Road: Two of my favorite albums of all time, of course, but listening to “Taxman” or “Here Comes the Sun” again, even with better (ostensibly) mixes, is mostly an academic experience for me now. I’ve just heard them too many times to ever get really engaged on the level I used to.

In contrast, with artists I don’t know well, I’m even less likely to dive into a box set, no matter how historically interesting or important. If I …