Could the quest for the Holy Grail of box sets finally be at an end? For those of us still seduced by the architecture of pop packaging, the trudges to Ikea’s shelving section could finally be over: the much-anticipated remastered Beatles albums will finally be available from 9 September and they will, of course, be housed in the inevitable box set for the sum of £135. Love Me Do!

But keep your credit cards handy, it doesn’t finish there. If you’re interested in getting the full Fabs picture - and let’s be honest, the box set crowd is largely made of this sort of “enthusiast” - you’ll be wanting The Beatles In Mono box set, and for this you’ll have to make an additional £158 come together. That’s just short of £300 for some albums you already have. Truly, they saw you standing there!

As the value of the actual music carried on vinyl (180 gram, natch) or CD (gold plated, darling!) diminishes and we increasingly log on to Spotify to hear new releases, there will be an explosion of this sort of box settery in months to come. We’ve already had the exhausting Neil Young: Archives, Vol 1 available either in the eight-CD Tower Of Tracks You Never Wanted for the casual fan (£90) or the 10 Blu-Ray discs with book plus a lock of Neil’s hair contained in A Big Box Of Bollocks for £230.99. OK, I made the hair bit up.

At least Young has had a long, glittering career and deserves a little self-indulgence. Could the same be said of, say, the Stone Roses? The forthcoming Stone Roses - The Collectors Edition is a six-disc box set of - wait for it! - their debut album. What? Whoever put this £80 package together deserves a medal for ingenuity. Or postmodernism. This vast package is one 49-minute album stretched over three CDs, a DVD, three vinyl albums and a lemon-shaped USB stick. No, I didn’t make the USB bit up.

But the real biscuit-taker has to be the Pixies’ Minotaur, a box set so complicated it has its own YouTube video to explain it. Curated by 4AD designer Vaughan Oliver and photographer Simon Larbalestier, it crosses the line from record release to art installation and appears to be more of a project for them than the band. But don’t miss out on the limited edition, housed in a “custom clam shell”. At $495, that’s half a monkey gone to heaven.

What next? I was going to suggest a load of ideas of my own (Led Zep’s back catalogue in a six-foot golden airship; the Clash’s London Calling inside a moving doll of Paul Simenon in mid-bass-smashing moment), but this would be pointless - they’re probably already in production. No idea is too far-fetched for record companies and artists seeing the window for selling recordings getting smaller and smaller.

So will you be queuing up in September ready to give Macca, Ringo, Yoko and Olivia some more of your cash? You know what, you probably will; but it’s more likely you’ll be shelling out for The Beatles: Rock Band - released on the same day. Why wallow in a box set when you can actually be in the band?