Back to the future

Despite the fear and loathing involved in joining hordes of frenetic holiday shoppers - and reading charge-card statements - musical gift-givers have plenty of reasons to do both this season. The goodies are out there, waiting to be plucked ... or ordered online.

This year's big trend is basically "back to the future": Music marketers are using new technology to remaster albums to their original form after selling us sonically sweetened versions for ages. With the success of historical and theme compilations, they've figured out these carefully made reproductions - with a few add-ons - will entice us anew.

Fans will also be lured by commemorative, special-edition packaging, bonus DVD samplers, and CD-Rom or Super Audio CD (SACD) technology. True devotees also will need the concert or video compilation DVDs, and if there's a new book or related product, well, hey, why not make it a package?

With this anniversary chronicle of its 60-year history, Capitol Records has created a timeline of popular music's development. Capitol Records: 1942-2002 ($114.98) contains six lovingly produced discs with a wonderful book (though, at jewel case size, too small) of rare archival photos. Starting with big band, it moves from Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Miles Davis, Merle Haggard, Pink Floyd, disco ("Boogie Oogie Oogie" anyone?), Bonnie Raitt, the Beastie Boys, and Garth Brooks to Coldplay and the Vines. The Beach Boys are here, along with those other B-boys: the Beatles. Sure, there are both skimpy and skippable parts, but it's quite a history lesson.

Amateur weightlifters can pair that with the hefty large-format paperback, The Book of Rock, by Phillip Dodd (Thunder's Mouth Press). At $29.95, this thorough, well-written encyclopedia is literally worth its weight. Full of arresting artwork, these 500-plus pages contain both legends and "whatever happened to" obscurities. Each gets equal respect - and space.

The three-CD A Salute to the Delta Blues Masters (Telarc, $30.98) will appeal to casual blues historians, with discs devoted to Robert Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Charley Patton. Some of the art form's finest players of every generation show up on this tribute, filled with lots of slide guitar and elemental emotion. Among the hard-to-pick highlights are "Walking Blues" by Susan Tedeschi and husband Derek Trucks, Joe Louis Walker's "Sugar Mama," and the sublime instrumental "Some Summer Day."

Package that with Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters ($29.95), a biography by renowned blues writer Robert Gordon. The man after whom both the band and the magazine were named (for his song, "Rollin' Stone") is a pivotal figure in blues and rock history, and Gordon examines his story in compelling detail. He also provides details about the illiterate sharecropper/Chicago transplant that only a fellow Delta native could convey. For more Muddy synergy, pick up the remixed, remastered The Last Waltz box (Rhino, $59.98), which includes the late bluesman and a bevy of rock greats saluting the band in a farewell event marking its finest hour. Make that hours - the four-disc set has 24 previously unreleased tracks, plus other add-ons.

Proving that time is on their side, some of the more ballyhooed releases are from older artists capitalizing on best-selling tours (the Rolling Stones) or special anniversaries (David Bowie's 30-year-old "Ziggy Stardust" release).

Speaking of the Stones ... as if their "40 Licks" tour and CD aren't enough, ABKCO Records has issued The Rolling Stones Remastered series, a 22-disc chronology (26 counting alternative British versions) of what some consider the band's best years. "Let It Bleed," "Beggar's Banquet," "Exile on Main Street" ... yes, maybe they were. Each disc also is encoded for SACD play. Packaging, playback speeds - everything has been restored as closely as possible to the originals - with the notable exception of a few tracks that apparently were mastered at the wrong playback speed and have now been corrected. First editions contain "certificates of authenticity" ($18.95). Wrap one with the Pretenders' new Loose Screw (Artemis Records, $17.98) because Chrissie Hynde and her band mates opened the first few "40 Licks" dates - and because they've created a fine, mature, yet far-from-staid album. Middle age agrees with these rockers, too.

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