CDs of the week: Three box sets of the year’s best releases

Hank Williams: The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings … Plus!

(Time Life, $200)

****

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Hank Williams’ songs are “woven into the American fabric,” yet few people actually know the man behind that famous material, said Mario Tarradell in The Dallas Morning News. This revelatory 15-disc collection aims to change that. The box set “beautifully gathers” more than 70 of the radio shows the country singer recorded for Nashville’s WSM in 1951. Williams, who died in 1953 at 29, is thought of as a “tragic figure,” but these recordings reveal the “fun Hank,” said Meredith Ochs in NPR.com. He sounds “jovial, riffing on the ad copy” he was asked to read and joking with his wife and his band, the Drifting Cowboys. Though Williams may have sung of heartache and loneliness, these recordings reveal “someone who loved life and lived to perform.” At 18 hours, they also expand his catalog “by a remarkable 50 percent.” Wonderfully preserved, these radio shows deliver a “prismatic view of an iconic performer.”

Africa: 50 Years of Music, 50 Years of Independence

(Sterns, $140)

****

This “historic music collection marking 50 years of African self-rule is unsurpassed,” said Neil Spencer in the London Observer. Gathering 185 recordings from 39 countries, the 18-disc set presents an “intricate patchwork” of African music. An “ambitious history lesson,” it separates the music by region and includes recordings from each country beginning in the year each gained independence from colonial rule. Of course, considering that in any one country there could be a legion of ethnic groups and dialects, it seems unfair to use a blanket term like “African music” to describe the output of all these artists. But this set’s very existence is significant, said Chris May in Allaboutjazz.com. What makes it even more impressive is how “exhaustive and erudite” it is. From Mahmoud Ahmed’s Ethiopian anthem, “Ere Mela Mela,” to a 1991 “gem” from Sudan’s Abdel Galir Salim, there isn’t a “single dud” to be found. This collection has set the bar for future compilations. “Listen and be transported.”

Matador at 21:Various Artists

(Matador, $50)

****

As the ’80s turned into the ’90s, Matador Records helped establish an “enduring template” for indie music, said Jon Pareles in The New York Times. The New York label put out music that was raucous, scrappy, guitar-centered, idiosyncratic, and “collector-minded.” The same could be said about Matador at 21, a musical “self-celebration” of sorts. The six-disc history is arranged chronologically, revisiting the ’90s with such “college-radio favorites” as Pavement, Superchunk, and Yo La Tengo and returning to the 21st century with such recent Matador signings as Delorean and Times New Viking. Though most Matador artists could be classified as “lo-fi,” a more telling connection emerges here, said Scott Plagenhoef in Pitchfork.com. All were singular songmakers offered free reign by a label “that associated ambition with artistry rather than commercialism.” Matador at 21 plays like your favorite old mix tape—“messy and haphazard,” as if the history it relates should never be etched in stone.