Bob Dylan: Greatest Hits Albums
1967
Columbia Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 2. Blowin' in the Wind 3. The Times They Are a-Changin' 4. It Ain't Me Babe 5. Like a Rolling Stone 6. Mr. Tambourine Man 7. Subterranean Homesick Blues 8. I Want You 9. Positively 4th Street 10. Just Like a Woman
A collection of all the Bob Dylan songs you've probably heard 10 billion times already...As I listened to this, I realized I'm no longer capable of consciously hearing "Blowin' in the Wind"...It's become refrigerator hum to me...A lot of this suffers from "Stairway"-itis...Don't get me wrong, it's all fantastic stuff, but I just don't pull this from the record shelf too often except to hear "Positively 4th Street" (an awesomely bitter song that doesn't appear on any of his proper albums...God, this Dylan guy sounds like a real asshole...Ever seen that "Don't Look Back" movie? ASSHOLE!! But he's an amazingly hilarious asshole, so he gets a pass from me)...
Bob Dylan: Greatest Hits Volume II
1971
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Columbia Records
Track Listing: 1. Watching the River Flow 2. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right 3. Lay Lady Lay 4. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again 5. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight 6. All I Really Want to Do 7. My Back Pages 8. Maggie's Farm 9. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You 10. She Belongs to Me 11. All Along the Watchtower 12. The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo) 13. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues 14. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall 15. If Not for You 16. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue 17. Tomorrow Is a Long Time 18. When I Paint My Masterpiece 19. I Shall Be Released 20. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere 21. Down in the Flood
Now this is a greatest hits album! Compiled by ol' wheezy himself, it's absolutely perfect...If I were to put together a Dylan greatest hits album, this is pretty much what it would have looked like...And as a bonus there's a good EP's worth of new material on here (mostly re-recordings of Basement Tapes material, which hadn't been released yet), which is where you can find the banjo-y version of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" with the alternate lyrics that bust on Roger McGuinn for fuckin' up the lyrics on the Byrds version...One of the few instances where the new studio tracks on a greatest hits album actually live up to the hits...This album gets my highest possible recommendation...
Bob Dylan: The Essential Bob Dylan
2000
Columbia/Legacy Records
Format I own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: Disc One: 1. Blowin' in the Wind 2. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right 3. The Times They Are a-Changin' 4. It Ain't Me Babe 5. Maggie's Farm 6. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue 7. Mr. Tambourine Man 8. Subterranean Homesick Blues 9. Like a Rolling Stone 10. Positively 4th Street 11. Just Like a Woman 12. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 13. All Along the Watchtower 14. The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo) 15. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Disc Two: 1. Lay Lady Lay 2. If Not for You 3. I Shall Be Released 4. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere 5. Knockin' on Heaven's Door 6. Forever Young 7. Tangled Up in Blue 8. Shelter from the Storm 9. Hurricane 10. Gotta Serve Somebody 11. Jokerman 12. Silvio 13. Everything Is Broken 14. Not Dark Yet 15. Things Have Changed
A CD-era double disc monster that mashes up Volume 1 and 2 and puts them in chronological order and then delves into the post-1971 wasteland of Dylan albums...It's still not as listenable as Volume II, since the early stuff is overly-familiar and the post '71 stuff gets spottier and spottier as it goes on..."Jokerman" is a fucking incredible adult contemporary pop single though...God, I love that song...Honestly, I bust this out for "Jokerman" every now and then, but I can imagine if you're a newcomer to Dylan, this compilation might blow your mind (and also drive you away from post-"Desire" Dylan)...
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