Sony’s Ambitious Boxed Set: the Century’s Top 547 Tunes

“Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century” is a mammoth boxed set that arrived in stores this week with some terrific marketing slogans, but also a lot of question marks.

“The Greatest Story Ever Heard” is one way Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings describes the 26-disc package, which includes 547 selections by 479 artists. “The Most Comprehensive Collection of Popular Music Ever Assembled” is another description.

And the questions?

The first one surely involves price.

The suggested retail figure is $349, though the set--which comes with a lavish, 9-pound, 300-page coffee-table book of photos and essays--is being discounted at some stores around town for under $300.

What do you get for your money?

Far from simply a pure pop music survey of recordings from Sony-affiliated labels such as Columbia and Epic, the set touches on everything from blues to Broadway, classical to country, jazz to gospel, R&B; to rock.

The good news?

Sony’s labels have one of the most distinguished histories of any recording company in the world, a legacy of landmark artists that includes Leonard Bernstein, Johnny Cash, the Clash, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Vladimir Horowitz, Mahalia Jackson, Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson, Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Sly & the Family Stone, Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand.

The downside?

Because the set is limited to Sony artists, there’s a world of essential music from the 20th century that isn’t included. In rock alone, you won’t find any hits by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix or Nirvana. In country, there’s no Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams, Emmylou Harris or Loretta Lynn.

Why not a quintessential 20th century set drawn from all labels?

“We thought about it, but we thought the licensing restrictions would be so difficult that the project just seemed impossible--physically getting all those artists from all those labels,” said Jeff Jones, senior vice president of Legacy Recordings.

“The goal was to do a comprehensive history of Sony. Blue Note, Atlantic, Stax and a number of other companies have documented their histories, and the millennium seemed to be the right time for us to do it.”

What if you don’t want the entire spectrum? Can you buy the discs separately by genre?

Yes, the music from the main set is broken into 11 two-disc sets and one four-disc classical set, each with a suggested price of $24.98. The two-disc sets are divided into pop music (1890-1950); jazz; folk, gospel and blues; country; movie music, Broadway, pop music (1951-1975), rock, R&B;, international music and pop music (1976-1999).

“There are two target audiences--one, people who are serious music collectors and historians who would be interested in the whole set,” said Jones. “Then there are fans who are interested in specific genres.”

So does the overall set seem like a good investment?

It is certainly filled with memorable music, but it is chiefly convenient, one-stop shopping that provides you with more than 40 hours of music for all occasions. All the work of choosing a cross-section of 20th century recordings is done for you.

The option for those in the market for a basic library is putting together your own collection of albums. With bargain-priced “greatest hits” CDs and other compilations, you could probably buy 25 to 30 albums for the same price and have a more customized selection.

How do the individual sets hold up?

The 40-song rock set illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of celebrating the music of a single label. Any collection that starts off with Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and continues with Sly & the Family Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher,” Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” and Oasis’ “Wonderwall” has a solid foundation.

To touch on as many Sony artists as possible, however, the team that put together “Sony Music 100 Years . . . “ offers for the most part only one selection by a particular artist per individual set.

Instead of a Sony “best of” that might include half a dozen Dylan, Springsteen or Costello tracks, you end up instead with marginal music from such Sony hit-makers as Journey, Kansas and Judas Priest.

Similarly in country, you get only one tune each from such major figures as Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins, while equal space is given to such lesser-impact artists as Jimmy Dean, David Houston, Lynn Anderson and Joe Diffie.

In the overall package, you do get additional tracks by such artists as Dylan and Janis Joplin because some of their recordings show up in other categories. Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” for instance, appears in the “Folk, Gospel & Blues” section, while his “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is on the “Movie Music” disc and “Like a Rolling Stone” is included in one of the “Pop Music” discs.

One of the most entertaining areas is the one devoted to pop music from 1890 to 1950, because it chronicles so many odd cultural shifts and involves music that would be new to many listeners today--from Al Jolson’s “Swanee” and Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher’s Wedding Day” to Walter Huston’s “September Song.”

There’s lots missing from all fields, especially the R&B; and folk, gospel and blues areas, but what’s here is generally first-rate.