FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS 25th Anniversary Collection (Rhino)

No doubt about it: this super deluxe fourrecord boxed set is the everlovin’ past blast anthology of the year. The Seasons were one of the major—you hear me? MAJOR— groups of the ’60s and certainly one of the most overlooked in these troubled times. Now, at long last, every one of the classic AM hits (including a well-selected sampling of Frankie Valli’s solo career) have been collected under one roof. The final side falls a bit short only because it’s ’70s stuff (sorry, grease just ain’t the word), but what comes before that is out of this world. These masters of heartbreak martyrdom, excrutiating self-sacrifice, agonizing break-ups and hopeless obsessions always had two secret weapons on/hand—ultra-hot percussion (I mean, great drumming) and an unerring sense of vocal dynamics (“Let’s Hang On,” “Dawn [Go Away]” and “Walk Like A Man”—and about two dozen others—are masterpieces of tension-release euphoria.) As for Frankie’s falsetto.. .well, I’ll let Nik Cohn have the last brilliant word: “It would scream out of your hi-fi like some insane airraid siren, and it deafened you, destroyed you, turned you blind. So you’d stumble and shake in the sheer wildness of it. You’d be tripped out on sound alone." C.Z.