Harry Nilsson – The Complete RCA Albums Collection
Sony Legacy
★★★★★ (out of 5 stars)
Over the past few years – as the CD era recedes further and further into the rear-view – major labels have taken to packaging up artists’ entire catalogs into comprehensive box sets that are packaged cheaply enough to result in a cost-per-disc of about four or five bucks, which is somehow simultaneously appealing to the completists, the curious, and the cheapskates. This long-overdue collection of Harry Nilsson’s masterfully melancholy pop is similarly devised, comprising the 14 albums he recorded for RCA between 1967 and 1977, all of which are in cardboard LP-replica sleeves. But this set also includes three incredibly revelatory discs of alternate versions, demos, and outtakes and extensive liner notes, making it well worth the somewhat loftier price tag it commands.
