Box Set

The title of this collection -- Box Set -- is generic, but the music is anything but. Linda Ronstadt's career has snaked its way through the folkways of so many different musical cultures that four discs hardly seem like enough space to contain it all.

Fans of Ronstadt's burnished, L.A. pop-rock phase -- when she reigned as one of the biggest-selling female artists of the '70s -- may come away disappointed, however. Aside from the predictable procession of familiar hits and album cuts, few rare gems from that era are unearthed. Happily, everything else is here: the Mexican ''canciónes''; the pop standards arranged by Nelson Riddle; and the collaborations with Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Philip Glass, and even the Muppets.

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