I worked on a new Backstreet Boys 4-CD box set, which has now been officially announced on Amazon, so I thought I'd provide details here. It's called "Box Set Series" and will contain 48 songs, 24 of which are songs or remixes that were never released in the US. Here's the track listing.

Disc: 1 - THE BALLADS
1. I Want It That Way
2. As Long As You Love Me (Radio Version)
3. Drowning (country remix)
4. Non Puoi Lasciarmi Cosi (Quit Playing Games With My Heart Italian Version, unreleased in the U.S.)
5. All I Have To Give (Radio Version)
6. Shape Of My Heart
7. Show Me The Meaning Of Being Lonely
8. Nunca Te Haré Llorar (I'll Never Break Your Heart Spanish Version)
9. Incomplete
10. Inconsolable
11. More Than That (Special Radio Mix)
12. Back to Your Heart
13. Just Want You To Know (Radio Edit)

Disc: 2 - BEYOND THE BALLADS
1. Everybody (Backstreet's Back - Single Version)
2. We've Got It Goin' On (Radio Edit)
3. Poster Girl
4. Soldier
5. Bigger
6. Larger Than Life (The Video Mix)
7. Straight Through My Heart
8. It's Gotta Be You
9. Don't Want You Back
10. Get Down You're The One For Me (LP Edit No Rap, unreleased in the U.S.)
11. The One

Disc: 3 - THE REMIXES
1. As Long As You Love Me (Matty's House Dee Zee AH, unreleased in the U.S.)
2. I Want It That Way (Morales Club Version, unreleased in the U.S.)
3. Everybody (Backstreet's Back - MultiMan Remix, unreleased in the U.S.)
4. Shape of My Heart (Soul Solution Club Mix, unreleased in the U.S.)
5. Drowning (Rizzo and Harris Club Mix, unreleased in the U.S.)
6. Just Want You to Know (Jason Nevins Remix Radio Edit, unreleased in the U.S.)
7. Inconsolable (Jason Nevins Remix, unreleased in the U.S.)
8. Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely (Jason Nevins Crossover Remix, unreleased in the U.S.)
9. All I Have to Give (Davidson Ospina radio mix, unreleased in the U.S.)
10. Quit Playing Games With My Heart (E-Smoove Vocal Mix, unreleased in the U.S.)
11. Larger Than Life (Jack D. Elliot Radio Mix, unreleased in the U.S.)

Disc: 4 - THE RARITIES
1. Give Me Your Heart (unreleased in the U.S.)
2. Tell Me That I'm Dreaming (unreleased in the U.S.)
3. If You Knew What I Knew (unreleased in the U.S.)
4. There's Us (unreleased in the U.S.)
5. I'll Never Find Someone Like You (unreleased in the U.S.)
6. Helpless When She Smiles (Radio Version, unreleased in the U.S.)
7. Close My Eyes (unreleased in the U.S.)
8. Nowhere To Go (unreleased in the U.S.)
9. Last Night You Saved My Life (unreleased on CD)
10. What Makes You Different (Makes You Beautiful)
11. All I Have to Give (A Cappella)
12. Christmas Time
13. It's Christmas Time Again (unreleased on CD)

Here's the link to the amazon page:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VU2KRPK/?tag=imwan-20

I've only recently started working on Sony products, and when possible, I try to include songs or remixes or rarities of some sort (i.e. that haven't been released in the US, or on CD, or only on promo CDs, or single mixes that have never appeared on CD, etc. In some cases, I even get to include truly never-released songs (but there are so many factors that come into play in order for that to happen.) At any rate, I was happy we were able to include some nice things here.

Good to have somebody on the inside thinking about us music fanatics!

I forgot to mention that Amazon is selling this 4-CD box set at a list price of $21.98. With 48 songs on there, that's a great price - less than 50 cent per song. To buy an individual song on amazon would be $1. So quite a good deal I think.

This looks like a very nice package. I will be grabbing a copy of this. Nice work. Any other Sony Legacy projects that you are working on, EdisonLite?

I'm working on several Dionne Warwick Arista reissues with Sony that are being released by funkytowngrooves - most will have special bonus cuts (including unreleased). Three are already out, more album reissues (with bonus cuts) coming - also some other Dionne compilations not through ftg, but Legacy. I also worked on the Essential Air Supply, already out digitaly, as well as another Air Supply comp hopefully coming out soon. Several others I'm working on but probably shouldn't talk about yet.

Like this BSB box, I was also working on a 4-CD Britney Spears Box Set but it got canceled (it was to have several non-US songs, many remixes, and some really cool stuff, but sometimes these things happen.) Another box set I was working (I can't mention the artist) but was put on hold, but hopefully will come out some day.

Sorry to hear that the Britney box got cancelled--while she's released a bunch of non-album tracks over the years (at least three of which remain download-only), enough unreleased material has leaked over the years to indicate that there is some good stuff still in the vault. There's also things like the music she has recorded for Pepsi commercials, and I've heard that at some of her early shopping mall shows, cassettes were sold containing demos.

You probably can't answer this, but...strange things seem to have been going on within the Spears management team lately. A couple of years ago, a 2-disc best of, "The Essential Britney Spears" showed up on store shelves, only to be pulled for unknown reasons. The set is available again, but I still haven't heard a reasonable explanation for the recall, except perhaps that there was a timing issue (an all-new studio album was released about four months later.)

As far as remixes go, it would be great to see some of the truly rare Britney remixes show up on CD for the first time--stuff that only been released on vinyl or on rare promos.

I wasn't working with Sony at the time that Britney's Essential seemingly went off the market (or even when it came back on). So I wasn't sure what happened there. I read all the comments on the board here, guessing why, one of which was that the will.i.am track was from Universal and maybe there were licensing issues. (When it was put back on the market, did it still have the will.i.am duet?) Your theory about about it being 4 months before her new album release also seems like a valid theory, as I'd imagine RCA wouldn't want there to be competetion between "Essential" and the new release. But I honestly don't know what happened there.

When I learned recently that the Britney "Box Set" was declined, I wasn't given a reason.

And I agree it would have been great to get at least 1 of her 2 Pepsi commercials on it (My favorite was "Joy of Pepsi"). We were looking in to that, but then the project was canceled.

From what I've been able to determine, the contents of "The Essential Britney Spears" never changed at all.

Another odd Spears release was "Blackout", back in 2007--at the 11th hour, the release date was actually moved up two weeks after Perez Hilton posted rough demos of tracks from the album.

Bump: We finally have a cover image for this, now in the first post.