TOP PICK
U2360° at the Rose Bowl
(Interscope)
U2’s 2009 Rose Bowl concert — the one that was beamed out live on YouTube and attracted something like seven zillion viewers — comes to DVD with a panoramic view of the on-stage action. The band tears through several No Line on the Horizon songs, but there’s also plenty of classics (“With or Without You,” a revelatory “Ultra Violet”) to keep you cheering.DVD
Elvis 75th Birthday Collection
(Twentieth Century Fox/MGM)
All the recent CDs celebrating the King’s birthday are cool, but this box — which gathers seven movies from Elvis’ erratic Hollywood career — makes a perfect companion. They stretch from the pretty-good (Flaming Star) to the kinda-awful (Clambake). Elvis shows his range throughout, playing a boxer, a soldier — even an American Indian. Thankyouverymuch.VIDEO GAME
Green Day: Rock Band
(MTV)
Yeah, I’m tired of all these Guitar Hero and Rock Band offshoots too. But this outing (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii) featuring modern-day punks and Broadway stars Green Day is a no-brainer. Who hasn’t rocked out to air-guitar versions of “Basket Case” and “American Idiot”? Creepy fact: The drummer and bass player are just as annoying as video-game avatars.
BOOK
Neil Young’s Greendale
(Vertigo)
Young’s 2003 concept album is a sprawling mess. The movie isn’t much better. But this graphic novel actually makes sense of the story about a small California town and its effect on one family. There’s an environmental message at the center of all this (duh — it’s called Greendale), which comes through much clearer without pesky guitar solos cluttering up the narrative.CD
Oasis: Time Flies … 1994-2009
(Big Brother/Columbia)
Oasis transcended the stifling Britpop genre with two great albums in the mid-’90s. This two-disc set compiles 27 songs from the band’s career (most of them were chart-topping U.K. singles, including a 1994 rarity). The best songs — “Roll With It,” “Wonderwall,” “Champagne Supernova” — still sound fresh, exploding with hooks as big as the Gallagher brothers’ egos. Send feedback to mgallucci@clevescene.com.
This article appears in Jul 7-13, 2010.