Big boxed sets aren’t just for mega-sellers

Throbbing Gristle fans can spend a day with the notorious British industrial-rock outfit starting Tuesday. That’s the release date for “24 Hours of TG,� a mammoth, 24-CD boxed set, each disc holding one of the group’s hourlong, eardrum-shattering, noise-drenched performances recorded from 1976 to 1980.

Interested collectors better jump: Only 1,000 copies, selling for roughly $230 each, will be available via the Mute Records Web site, www.mute.com/tg.

Hold the phone ....

It’s understandable why RCA Records put out the $425 “Elvis Presley Collection� 30-CD boxed set three years ago, and why Reprise Records issued the $500 “Frank Sinatra: The Complete Studio Recordings� 20-disc box seven years back.

But Throbbing Gristle, a group that’s never touched the Billboard charts?

“The fact that it boggles your mind is good,� says Pete Howard, publisher of ICE, a monthly magazine for record collectors. “That means it will appeal to the completist -- those music collectors who have to have everything an artist releases. They’re the ones who will make these things turn a profit.�

Besides the Presley and Sinatra boxes, which have sold about 1,000 and 10,000 copies at retail, respectively, a 17-CD Dwight Yoakam set is due early next year from Rhino Handmade, the Rhino Records custom division.

The Yoakam set had been targeted for release this fall, but that date was pushed back because all the elements, from music to souvenir guitar picks to shreds of Yoakam’s jeans, weren’t in place in time.

“Sometimes, it just takes longer to get it right,� says David Dorn, Rhino’s vice president of media relations, new media and promotion. “Ultimately, what we want to do is do it right.... We have found at Rhino, being in the [reissue] business for 24 years, that there is a very healthy collector community out there. And they have not shriveled up just because a lot of box sets have appeared.�

In the last decade, numerous boxed sets have gone well above and beyond the standard three- and four-CD retrospectives, with packages containing 10 or more discs. The subjects of the all-stops-out approach range from the obvious (a 16-CD Beatles set covering all of the Fab Four’s studio albums and singles, and a 12-CD set culling nearly 300 vintage sides by pioneering country group the Carter Family) to cult bands (a 13-CD Blur box and a 12-CD set on British progressive rock group Marillion).

“There’s a huge number of artists who are big enough for people to flock to these things,� ICE’s Howard says. “There is a certain novelty aspect that will wear off, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near that yet. It’s actually kind of fun and exciting to think what might still be coming down the pike.�