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The  RCA Victor and T-Neck Album Masters: 1959-1983 [Box Set] Image
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88

Universal acclaim - based on 7 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The box set includes 21 remastered versions of the R&B/soul/funk group's 21 albums from the RCA Victor and T-Neck labels as well as the previously unreleased Wild In Woodstock: The Isley Brothers Live At Bearsville Studios.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Aug 27, 2015
    100
    If you only buy one multi-disc set by soul legends whose work spans seven decades, make it this one.
  2. Aug 21, 2015
    90
    It doesn't cover the Isleys' brief '60s stints with Wand, United Artists, and Tamla, but it is remarkably generous with dozens of bonus tracks--mono versions, single edits, instrumentals, and so forth--and LP-replica sleeves for each album.
  3. Sep 11, 2015
    85
    What the Isley Brothers achieved can't be contained in a single album nor can it be adequately summarized in a hits collection. They seized all the tumult, all the excitement, all of the sounds of their time and turned it into enduring commercial art whose endurance and depth is best appreciated in a set like this, where the actual records can be heard in their entirety.
  4. Aug 21, 2015
    80
    With 23 discs to sort through what matters most is the main album cuts and not the odds and ends unique to this box with one exception: a 1980 recording from Woodstock, New York titled Wild in Woodstock. Recorded in a studio up there with the understanding that the band would add crowd noises later, this “live” album retains the best Isley sensibilities for the stage.
  5. Aug 21, 2015
    80
    The box's liner notes are a bit scant, but it's full of treats even for aficionados.
  6. Mojo
    Aug 21, 2015
    80
    This small brick of a box set housing 22 Isley Brothers albums, many of them essential to any soul-funk library, astonishingly does not include something like a dozen tracks that any sane person would suggest were key to the band's story. This is not a complaint, merely a fact to illustrate the broad sweep of their career. [Sep 2015, p.104]
  7. Uncut
    Aug 21, 2015
    80
    There are moments of genius throughout. [Sep 2015, p.91]