Marc Bolan and T. Rex - Total T. Rex 1971-1972 (2004) [5CD+DVD BoxSet] {Easy Action Recordings}

Marc Bolan and T. Rex - Total T. Rex 1971-1972 (2004) [5CD+DVD BoxSet] {Easy Action Recordings}

Rock / Glam Rock / Proto-Punk

Total T. Rex is a beautiful collector's box set, individually numbered and limited to 5000 copies worldwide. This six disc box set contains previously unreleased material from the personal collection of Marc's family for the first time! Box set includes five CDs, a DVD, Electric Warrior stickers and an illustrated booklet containing liner notes by T. Rex members Mickey Finn, Steve Currie, Bill Legend, and several unpublished photos. This set captures the four piece group at the height of their popularity during the period when Marc's success was dubbed by the press as “T-Rextasy”. Across the six discs is a wealth of previously unheard material including home demos of Marc and the band rehearsing and working on songs for the legendary Electric Warrior album and features the song Electric Warrior which was to give the band the title of the album although the song was left in the vault at the time and has never previously been heard! Marc's son Rolan Bolan has personally overseen all the aspects of this lavish boxed set.

The first major release under son Rolan Bolan's stewardship of Marc Bolan's back catalog, Total T. Rex is a six-disc, 72-track collection that rounds up a mountain of material from 1971-1972, largely live but also including radio sessions, demos, and even a bonus DVD's worth of live footage. Little of it is entirely new to the avid collector, although the cleaned-up sound and sensible chronology is an improvement on many past attempts to anthologize this period. A few of the live recordings, too, seem to hail from hitherto untapped sources, although the only disc that really counts as "invaluable" would be the one that delves into the sessions for 1971's Electric Warrior watershed and hauls out the hitherto unheard title track -- which shifts so quickly into the so-familiar "There Was a Time" that one wonders what all the fuss has been about. Elsewhere, demos and rehearsals do round up a few more items of interest, but the entire package is really recommended only to collectors who, having spent the last decade or so in a land with no record stores, haven't already been tempted by much the same material in a wealth of other packagings.