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Dylan

Joan Dillon | 12/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"We just can't get enough of this album. We have been Dylan fans for years and years and this album just makes us want to dance. We were raised in California, born in the 40's and college in the 60's need I say more."

Full of holes...

finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 12/12/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Once every two or three years, it seems, the Record Company Compilation Generator pulls out about fifteen of Dylan's best-known songs (you know, the same fifteen or so that appear on every OTHER Dylan collection, splices on a couple latter-day tracks, and calls it "The Best of Bob Dylan... ALL OVER AGAIN!" Sorry, but no. That's not the way it works. Rather than look at Dylan's career with even the slightest amount of depth, this takes the cop-out way by giving little more than the sketchiest overview possible. One thing that really gets me about these collections is that they only include ONE song from the groundbreaking Highway Sixty-One Revisited, and that song is ALWAYS "Like a Rolling Stone" - one of the best songs on that album, to be sure, but there's MORE TO IT THAN THAT! "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", the title song, "Tombstone Blues" and "Desolation Row" are all held in VERY high regard, why can't they ever be thrown in the mix, just for the sake of doing something different? And ONE song from Freewheelin'? Yeah, let's see "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "It's a Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", shall we? Not to mention "Masters of War" or "Girl of the North Country". This is just your basic Dylan 101 I'm talking about here too - while I'm ranting, you also can't do a Dylan best-of without "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", "I Want You", "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You", "Shelter from the Storm", "Idiot Wind", "One More Cup of Coffee", and so on and so forth. Plus I think they kinda botched the new tracks - there are far better selections from Time out of Mind than "Make You Feel My Love" ("Love Sick", for instance - or "Cold Irons Bound", "Standing in the Doorway", "Not Dark Yet", "Tryin' to Get into Heaven" and "Highlands" - okay, so the seventeen-minute "Highlands" isn't very user-friendly, but it's amazing - take your pick). Love and Theft is overlooked totally ("Mississippi", "Summer Days" and "Lonesome Day Blues" are definite "best-of" material in my mind), and the "Trouble No More" ripoff "Someday Baby" is one of the weaker songs on "Modern Times", his best effort in quite a while - may I interest you in "Thunder on the Mountain", "Spirit on the Water", "Nettie Moore" or "Workingman's Blues #2"? Oh yeah, I almost forgot "Jokerman". And "Brownsville Girl". And "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". And "My Back Pages". And "It Ain't Me Babe". And on and and on. I understand that this is supposed to be a sort of sampler from the three-disc compilation of the same name. The three-disc actually is pretty much the comprehensive Dylan overview that we've been waiting for all these years (though once again the ONLY song from Highway Sixty-One Revisited is "Like a Rolling Stone" - why do they keep pulling that trick on us? There is more on Highway Sixty-One Revisited than "Like a Rolling Stone"!). This is more or less pointless. It's hard to go wrong with Bob as long as you stay away from all the '80s albums but Infidels and Oh Mercy! (and avoid the notorious Self-Portrait, of course), so go for those - for the record, they are (in chronological order) Freewheelin', Another Side of, Bringing it All Back Home, Highway Sixty-One Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Live at the Royal Alpert Hall (you know, the "JUDAS!!!" concert), John Wesley Harding (iffy lyrics but fantastic melodies!), Blood on the Tracks, Desire, Infidels, Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times. Yeah, fourteen that are more or less must-haves - Freewheelin' is a bit overrated, I'll admit, but it has some real gems on it you can't get anywhere else; Infidels is the most underrated of his career - unfairly so, too, because it rocks; and Blood on the Tracks is my favorite Dylan record and one of the five or so greatest records ever made. This is pretty much entirely made up of good songs, and I appreciate the lack of "Gotta Serve Somebody", but at eighteen tracks it's still skimpy. But hey, it's Dylan, and his work is tough to compile. Maybe they should just stop trying..."

Bringing A Brilliant Past to the Present

Louis A. Laurent | Naples, Florida United States | 12/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been following Bob Dylan almost from the beginning of his career. I grew up listening to his messages; Dylan demands that you think. He assumes that if you are listening you are intelligent enough to listen to his messages and read between the lines. This album brings so much of his brilliant past into an equally troubled world. His messages are as appropriate today as they were in the 50's and 60's. Even if you have every album that he ever produced, this album is a "must.""