Drunk as hell but no throwin' upHalf way home and my pager still blowin' up

Rhino is amazing when it comes to comprehensive box sets and album reissues with tons of b-sides and unreleased tracks. They recently announced a new 90s box set that will come out next month (billboard story with the track list is here). I have been debating buying last year's 80s box set, Left of the Dial. It's a collection of college radio hits from the 80s. I have come really close to getting it several times. Jon has it and has said good things about it, but I still haven't pulled the trigger. I still have some gift cards to Best Buy that I got for my birthday. Maybe that'll be what I spend them on. Bygones. The point of this is the new 90s box set. I'm no where near as intrigued by it as I am by the 80s set. I think because the tracklist is so varied. I can see having a set of chart toppers like Rhino's other, more popular 80s set; a 90s version of that would certainly lead to a varied tracklist, but that's not what Rhino appears to be doing. There are too many underground hits mixed in with the chart toppers. As Scott put it, "That sure is a lot of crap but somehow I'm still compelled to want it."

Andrew Unterberger explains in full why the new set doesn't work for him in a new "Playing God" article at stylusmagazine.com. The article is very long but well worth reading if you want to know what a real and comprehensive 90s box set should sound like. (By the way, I was fully behind the guy even before getting to his explanation for Disc 3, Track 17, but if there was any doubt at all, that one sealed the deal. Making the Goodyear blimp say, "Ice Cube's a pimp," is up there on my list of frivolous things to do if I were really rich. It's right behind getting MC Hammer out of debt and just in front of convincing Whitney Houston that she can do better than Bobby Brown. And yes I am aware that that's the second Whitney and Bobby reference on this blog in less than a week.)

One more thing: This "endorsement" should not rule out a 90s box set that focuses on smaller 90s hits, something similar to Left of the Dial. I am just agreeing with the "Playing God" article that the new Rhino collection should have focused on one or the other.