In fact, the much anticipated 17th CD in the set, sent as a last-minute gift to disgruntled customers, only made matters worse. Other than the inclusion of one of Elfman's four new music box recordings at the start of the CD, everything else on it had been commercially released before. It is mostly a collection of main theme arrangements from the original soundtrack albums. Thereafter, Warner's communications with buyers became even more frustrating. The release date continued to get pushed further into 2011, and those who enquired about updates on the official Facebook page for the set received only some vague photos of the box's production that made it look like laborers of an ethnic minority were have a really boring time of assembling some pieces of cardboard. Speculation began about difficulties Warner was having with laborers in China that were hired to manufacture the zoetrope. Quite amazingly, the label actually came forth in late February and sent an e-mail to buyers blaming precisely those Chinese laborers for delaying the set. After explaining that the shipping frame had been delayed until April, Warner stated, "Unfortunately we ran into some manufacturing issues in China and sadly could not get everything completed by the country's New Year. This delay added weeks to our turn around hence why we could not have the package to you by the end of this month. We have prioritized the Limited 'Collectors' Box Sets and these will be delivered before the standard edition." The e-mail continued, "The main piece that we are waiting to have completed is the hand crafted tin box and zopetrope. Most of the other items have been completed." Indeed, not only is zoetrope a difficult word for them to spell correctly, but it is also apparently a challenge to manufacture, and for fans seeking just the Elfman music for their collections, waiting on Chinese laborers (possibly indecently paid) to complete their $500 box was the last thing they asked for. Alas, when the oversized package did arrive at the doorsteps of collectors, some of those efforts to beautify the box surrounding the zoetrope proved pointless due to damage incurred during the shipping process. The copy received by Filmtracks for this review (#736 out of 1,000, if you're curious) had been stuffed into its Styrofoam so snuggly that the exterior imagery had been peeled back on two of the eight "legs and arms" of the box. Additionally, the contents inside the box looked like a tornado had occurred within during transport. An included form letter from Elfman was nice surprise, however, featuring details about each of the bonus tracks on the USB stick. One of the few highlights of the packaging (other than the book, of course), is that Elfman includes detailed notes about almost every track in the inserts of each of the "miscellaneous" CDs, addendums to material covered generally in the book.

But enough about the wretched set! What about the music? For the purposes of reviewing the additional music in this unwieldy beast of a product, Filmtracks will feature almost all of its commentary about each individual score's new material in the separate reviews of those scores. That means that CDs 1 through 13 will not be covered here. With CD #17 already discussed above, what follows is analysis of the music heard on the three "miscellaneous" CDs of the set, "Oddities and Ends" (#14), "Curios and Curiouser" (#15), and "Notes and Notions" (#16), the last one also assigned the bonus materials existing only on the USB stick. The 14th CD, "Oddities and Ends," opens with Elfman's contribution to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Jar," an early entry in the collaboration that is stylistically pure Elfman, but sparsely suspenseful in Bernard Herrmann mode. Three minutes on tracks 4 and 5 were previously released on the first "Music for a Darkened Theatre" compilation; a full ten minutes is presented here. Identical to the material on the second "Music for a Darkened Theatre" compilation is the music from the "Amazing Stories" episode "Family Dog," the remainder of the source tapes reportedly lost. Newly released are the tracks from the "Family Dog" television series that followed, musically consisting of smaller, less vibrant variations on the "Amazing Stories" material. Next is "The World of Stainboy," an animated web game by Burton in 2000 that received mostly creepy atmospheric music from Elfman that would accelerate in tempo depending upon user movement. Its only really notable attribute is the application of the theremin in ways reminiscent of Mars Attacks! When the Museum of Modern Art hosted an exhibit called "The Art of Tim Burton" from 2009 to 2010, Elfman was asked to write two pieces of music to be heard in the background of that exhibit. He ended up composing twenty tracks, all performed on synthesizers at home by himself. These tracks are among the most interesting on the CD, with techniques for electronic choir, theremin, and organ that will occasionally remind of Elfman's feature scores, especially in "Trailer." One of the tragedies of Elfman's career is the development of (and ultimate inability of the composer to contribute to) the "Edward Scissorhands Ballet" in the mid-2000's. He sketched out a multitude of demos for the project, yielding interesting extensions of existing themes that would have been fascinating to hear fleshed out by a full ensemble. Unfortunately, this chance to hear an original Elfman sequel to Edward Scissorhands was lost when he was unable to score the 2005 ballet due to commitments in his movie schedule. Despite his lament over that circumstance, these demos are still great to hear.

Elfman also couldn't follow through with a score for the movie 9 a few years after the ballet because of his schedule for Milk, but he wrote and recorded a series of demo themes for Deborah Lurie to adapt into the final score for that film. They're a bit drab on the whole, but it's intriguing to hear their influence on the final score. The grand choral sequence in "Theme 5" alone makes these worthy of a listen. The "Oddities and Ends" CD concludes with the "Fudderwacken" source-related material for Alice in Wonderland, an item that some mainstream movie-goers were disappointing to find omitted from the commercial album for the score. Elfman recorded dozens of ideas for that odd dance scene in the film, and he features what he considers the best of these demo arrangements here. Some of them sound like Eric Serra's funk from The Fifth Element, though the final version of the song (at the very end of the CD) more heavily emphasizes the Hammond organ and other retro elements. The 15th CD in the set, "Curios and Curiouser" is arguably the weakest of the lot, unless you're a huge fan of the musicals in the collaboration. The bulk represents The Nightmare Before Christmas, including the opening and closing narration by Elfman himself (instead of Patrick Stewart or the film version) over the final orchestral recording. There's great depth to these performances; as with Stewart, the amount of reverb is perfect. The many demos that forced Elfman to play nearly all the roles himself are interesting in that some of the vocal performances for these were considered superior to the final recordings and thus used instead (this seems most notably the case with "Jack's Lament"). An equally fun little nugget is the rock version of "Making Christmas" that clearly didn't make the movie but is nevertheless a really enjoyable and entertaining infusion of Oingo Boingo attitude into this context. The foreign language versions of select songs, on the other hand, are truly bizarre, and some of them are completely unlistenable. So much of the success of The Nightmare Before Christmas is owed to the unique personality of Elfman's own performances in the lead role that hearing alternatives in any language is a bit jolting. The German performance of "Jack's Lament" is painfully awful (where's the lament in the barked German lyrics?). Only slightly better are the demo versions of the character songs from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, though some solace does come with the more creative demos from Corpse Bride. "According to Plan" and "The Wedding Song" are longer and better developed, and "Erased," an unused song based upon Victor's piano theme, is a very pretty representation of the best of Elfman's somber side.

As Elfman himself admits, the 16th CD in the set, "Notes and Notions," can be referred to as the "karaoke disc." It contains the underlying orchestral recordings for the songs in the three musicals, followed by some loose ends that include "Corpse Bride Piano;" like "Erased," it's another pleasant exploration of Victor's piano theme from Corpse Bride. The music box suites at the end of this CD were created specifically for this set by Elfman. One of them is a standalone medley that references themes from Big Fish, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland, and Batman, while the other three are devoted to single scores. The Edward Scissorhands performance wouldn't be out of place with the original soundtrack, though the suite from The Nightmare Before Christmas moves too quickly and awkwardly through its themes and hearing Pee-wee's Big Adventure (which is not exactly music box material) in this manner is beyond silly. That concludes the actual 16th CD, but on the USB stick, there a number of bonus items that didn't fit on any of the CDs. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the MP3's are encoded at 192 kbps, so all of these selections sound like crap. The first section of USB bonus cues belongs to The Nightmare Before Christmas, with additional demos leading to the two source cues from the Halloween Town Band. The "Snakey" demo informed parts of "This is Halloween," the alternate "What's This?" reprise is very sparse but spirited, the "Oogie Boogie" demo is not too far off from the final ideas, and "Mayor's Theme" was largely lost in development, cute but insignificant. From Sleepy Hollow then comes a demo version of the primary theme that is interesting in its display of the thematic core in an earlier stage. The motifs in that score clearly got better from this point in the demo, though the next track, an alternate version of "More Dreams," isn't really different enough from the final recording to merit the same attention. For Planet of the Apes enthusiasts, Elfman provides the orchestra-only recording of "Ape Suite #1," though fans may not be as attracted to the theme without its powerful percussion overlays. A source track from Big Fish, "The Hoe Down," is largely unimpressive unless you're a massive fan of similar but more restrained ideas in Sommersby. From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory come three extra orchestral cues, the first two suspenseful and engaging while the third insignificant (these tracks amount to three minutes in sum). An early demo of "Augustus Gloop" is a precursor to the CD 15 demo version, and the instrumental performance that follows better matches the finished product.

[Editor's Note: Two weeks after reviewing this beast of a box set, I was manually assembling the track listings for all its miscellaneous albums (the woeful official site for the set isn't always accurate and includes no track times) and discovered an oddity on CD 16. I had fallen out of a willow tree earlier in the day while trying to prune the unwieldy monster, and I figured upon encountering a strange issue with the orchestra-only version of "Finale/Reprise" from The Nightmare Before Christmas that I was simply "hearing things" in my head because I was groggy from the day's work. Upon closer inspection, however, as well as confirmation from my wife after my third attempt to point her to this oddity, some facts were revealed. In this particular track, the last forty seconds could be classified as one of two things: a disastrous attempt to edit a cue or a really cool accident. What originally caught my attention was the feeling that I was still hearing Catherine O'Hara's voice in the background of the "Finale" with Sally's theme in that supposedly orchestra-only version. Naturally, I ignored it at first. After all, I've heard that soundtrack enough times through the years for my brain to simply fill in the voices subconsciously. But then I noticed that the orchestral recording concluding that track is the superior film version, a more whimsical alternate with a hint of "What's This?" in its celesta contribution. What you hear closing out "Finale" on all the vocal versions on CD going back 1993 contains a solitary descending brass line instead. After transferring the track into some editing software, I confirmed that I wasn't simply "hearing things" in regards to O'Hara's voice, either. While the accordion is front and center as it's supposed to be, her lyrics "...and sit together, now and forever" and "we're simply meant to be" are relatively evident at high volumes (especially the "s" tones). Elfman's voice is completely absent. Another clue to this strange artifact occurs right before her lines begin; at precisely 1:57 into the track, there's a hiccup in volume that reveals a bad splice where someone apparently attempted to change recording sources. It's possible that an editor chose to include the film version of the orchestra's performance for the last 20 seconds of the score, simply cutting into a different take at that 1:57 mark but failing for some reason to completely dial O'Hara's vocals out of the mix. Some listeners probably won't notice any of these issues, maybe hearing a woman humming in the background at most. But the film version of that cue has been long awaited on CD, and, aside from the hiccup at 1:57, the ghostly nature of the voice in the background is strangely appropriate. On the other hand, it's yet another example of a disappointing set with an abundance of sloppy and curious choices.]

Continuing through the bonus material contained only on the USB stick, the strong extra material from Corpse Bride continues on the set, starting with a different demo of "Erased" from the version on CD 15 (with more major chords) and an "Unused Bride Theme" worktape that is a lovely little piano-led nugget. Another pair of highlights from the bonus material is a duo from Alice in Wonderland. The "Alternate Titles" is a shortened but effective version of the "Main Titles" addition to the score's own CD in this set, and "The Parapet" is a cue that was dropped from that other CD due to space. That's truly unfortunate, because it's a nice, longing cue with a dramatic end that should have been on that CD. Music box related materials close out these offerings, starting with a short source cue recorded for the Edward Scissorhands Ballet. Finally, the "other" new medley for the set included here is the one that was sent to the limited edition buyers on the 17th CD. It's a different suite than the one on the 15th CD, combining that CD's four performances into one. It once again opens with Big Fish ("Jenny's Theme") before transitioning to Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas ("Sally's Song"), and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Ultimately, what makes little sense about the bonus material on the USB stick only is why this music wasn't pressed onto that 17th CD sent to buyers in 2010. That way, those collectors would have all the music in lossless form, and the compilation of goodies would have been far more interesting than the collection of themes that mostly comprised that CD. When you step back and look at this product, though, one can't expect a whole lot of common sense. Perhaps one can't really blame Elfman or Burton for the fact that this massive set is an overpriced disaster. It's painful to see a product receive so much effort in areas that don't have anything to do with the music, and it's the music that the buyers really wanted. Even if Warner Brothers had managed to manufacture this set on time, it would still have been grossly overpriced for the music you receive. A listener seeking only the expanded scores for Pee-wee's Big Adventure, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Alice in Wonderland, some of those that benefit the most from this set, has to pay for an immense quantity of music and packaging that he does not need or want. In the conceptual stages, the spirit of this endeavor is easy to appreciate. But somewhere along the lines, a monstrosity was created, the kind of product that is difficult to store and forces you to split its components, including the book, out into different places for easy future access. The bitrate of the MP3's on the USB stick was the ultimate, insulting tipping point. It's painful to give the "25th Anniversary Music Box" the lowest possible rating at Filmtracks, but there really is no alternative.  FRISBEE   @Amazon.com: CD or Download