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The Best Box Sets of 2020

Here are the year’s best archival deep dives

Photographs used in illustration by Getty Images, 2; AP

We certainly have more time than usual to drill down and rediscover works by great artists, and 2020 offered a treasure trove of options, including expanded editions of classics by Prince and Tom Petty, rich overviews of Bob Marley, John Prine, and Richard and Linda Thompson, and much more.

From Rolling Stone US

Bob Marley, ‘The Complete Island Recordings’

To commemorate Marley’s 75th birthday, the reggae legend’s entire catalog in getting a deluxe reissue on CD and vinyl half-speed remasterings. Beginning with classic Wailers albums like Catch a Fire and Burnin’, both from 1973, which brought Marley’s music to a large international audience, and moving through Seventies gems like Exodus and Natty Dread up to the final recordings before his death, 1980’s Uprising, and the posthumous Confrontation, Marley created one of the most peerlessly influential catalogs in pop music. This reissue series includes his mega-platinum greatest-hits album Legend, as well as the live sets Live! and Babylon by Bus. In early 2021, a limited edition run of Marley’s albums, pressed and numbered at Tuff Gong International headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, will also be available; included in that batch will be the original Jamaican version of Catch a Fire. J.D.  (FIND IT HERE)