A box set is a compilation

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 of various musical recordings, film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s, television program

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

s, or other collection of related items that are contained in a box

Box

Box describes a variety of containers and receptacles for permanent use as storage, or for temporary use often for transporting contents. The word derives from the Greek πύξος , "box, boxwood"....

.

Music box sets

In the case of music, box sets are usually made up of three or more discs

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

, covering a broad range of the music of a given artist or genre. Artists and bands with an extremely long and successful career often have anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 or "essential" collections of their music released as box sets. These often include rare and never-before-released tracks. Some box sets collect together previously released singles or albums by a music artist, and often collect the complete discography of an artist such as Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

's Oh, by the Way

Oh, by the Way

Oh, by the Way is a compilation box set by Pink Floyd released on 10 December 2007, by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and the following day in the United States through Capitol Records. The box set includes all fourteen of their standard studio albums, packaged as mini-vinyl replicas...

. The box set The Aeroplane Flies High

The Aeroplane Flies High

The Aeroplane Flies High is a five-disc box set released by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins in 1996. It contains expanded versions of the five singles from their album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and also included a 44-page booklet with pictures and writings by the...

, released in 1996 by The Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins

The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...

, is an expanded collection of the singles from their album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is the third album by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins, released October 24, 1995 on Virgin Records. Produced by frontman Billy Corgan with Flood and Alan Moulder, the twenty-eight-track album was released as a two-disc CD and triple LP...

.

Other music box sets focus on a compilation of different artists from a particular genre such as Big Band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, 1960s rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

, or opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

. They generally feature a large collection of various hits from some of the top artists of a particular genre. The scope of such box sets varies widely, with some genre-specific box sets (such as one featuring rock music) focusing on a specific style (for instance, guitar rock or "Summer of Love

Summer of Love

The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...

" music). Two of the best known companies for making box sets are Legacy Recordings

Legacy Recordings

Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...

 and Rhino Records; both have won multiple Grammy Awards. Prior to Rhino and Legacy, companies such as Time-Life Records

Time-Life

Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales....

 and Readers Digest also issued box sets.

In rare cases, box sets contain all original material such as In Search of The

In Search of The

Vol. 4: E-Notes:*Vol. 2, 1 samples the drumbeat to They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!.*Vol. 2, 8 is identical to Vol. 3, 2.*Vol. 4, 4 contains an extended background beatbox session, possibly from Buckethead....

, a 13-disc set by Buckethead

Buckethead

Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...

 or the Merzbox

Merzbox

Merzbox is a box set compilation by the Japanese noise musician Merzbow, released in 2000 by Extreme Records. It consists of 50 CDs, spanning Merzbow's career from 1979–1997; 30 discs are taken from long out of print releases, while 20 are composed mainly of unreleased material...

, a 50-disc set by Merzbow

Merzbow

is the main recording name of the Japanese noise musician , born in 1956. Since 1979 he has released in excess of 350 recordings.The name "Merzbow" comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' artwork, "Merzbau”. This was chosen to reflect Akita's dada influence and junk art aesthetic...

 in which 20 of the discs are of new material while the other 30 discs are catalog material. Some box sets become best sellers, such as Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

's Led Zeppelin (1990), George Strait

George Strait

George Harvey Strait is an American country music singer, actor, and music producer. Strait is referred to as the "King of Country," and critics call Strait a living legend. He is known for his unique style of western swing music, bar-room ballads, honky-tonk style, and fresh yet traditional...

's Strait Out of the Box

Strait Out of the Box

Strait Out of the Box is country music singer George Strait's box set. It contains four CDs worth of music, dating from 1976 all the way to 1995. It mainly consists of Strait's singles, except for a select few that Strait decided to leave off. They were replaced by Strait's choice of album cuts and...

(1995), Nirvana

Nirvana (band)

Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...

's With the Lights Out

With the Lights Out

With the Lights Out is a box set, containing three CDs and one DVD, of previously rare or unreleased material, including b-sides, demos, rough rehearsal recordings and live recordings, from the American rock band Nirvana. It was released in November 2004...

(2004) and The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' twin The Beatles Stereo Box Set

The Beatles Stereo Box Set

The Beatles Stereo Box Set is a box set compilation comprising all of the remastered stereo recordings by The Beatles. The set was released on 9 September 2009, the same day both The Beatles: Rock Band and the remastered mono recordings were released...

and The Beatles in Mono

The Beatles in Mono

The Beatles in Mono is a box set compilation comprising the remastered monophonic recordings by The Beatles. The set was released on 9 September 2009, the same day the remastered stereo recordings and companion The Beatles Stereo Box Set were also released, along with The Beatles: Rock Band videogame...

discography box sets (2009).

In classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, box sets often contain e.g. all works of a certain composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 or all works in a certain genre, like symphonies

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 or chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

, performed by a certain orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

, ensemble

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 or conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

.

Video (Blu-ray, DVD and VHS) box sets

Film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s, television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, and other video

Video

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

 programs on Blu-ray

Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

, DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 and VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 are sometimes sold as box sets. Such a box set might include an entire season or seasons of a popular TV program, a collection of films by a well known director or starring a well known actor/actress, or a collection of films of a particular genre such as horror, sci-fi and westerns. Other criteria for box sets have included all films of a series such as the Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

series or the Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...

trilogy, and a selection of adaptions of a particular author such as Stephen King

Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

 or Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

. Some box sets contain different versions of one film, as in the case of Blade Runner

Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...

, and Alien Quadrilogy.

Book box sets

In the field of publishing

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

, well known author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

s and artists who have written or produced several related book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s or portfolios of fine art photography

Fine art photography

Fine art photography refers to photographs that are created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as artist. Fine art photography stands in contrast to photojournalism, which provides a visual account for news events, and commercial photography, the primary focus of which is to...

 or other artistic mediums whose work is considered historically, culturally, or socially significant may have certain works sold as box sets. For example, one can buy box sets of the plays of Shakespeare, collection of J.R.R. Tolkien novels, or Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....

 photographic prints.

Other box sets

More recently, the term "digital box set" has been used with items such as music downloads or television streaming, even when no physical box exists.

Box sets can contain collections of items other than music, video, or literary media. Some examples include a box set of basic carpentry tool

Tool

A tool is a device that can be used to produce an item or achieve a task, but that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such...

s, a barbecue

Barbecue

Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...

 cooking utensil box set, and a box set of loose-leaf tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

varieties. Box sets generally offer a number of items normally sold separately as one set.