Article summary

This mammoth chronicle of the legendary Bob Dylan's five-decade-spanning career contains his best-known works (among them 'The Times They Are A-Changing' and the oft-covered 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door') as well as some obscure tracks from his more experimental periods. Though he was originally notable for his politically motivated anthems, a focus on musical progression has prevailed in later recordings. With Dylan's never-ending touring schedule and frequently evolving creative output still flourishing, this retrospective is as timely as it is detailed. The limited edition box set comes packaged with extensive sleeve notes and rare photographs.

Customer's review

The reason why

The incentive to get the De Luxe Edition of this CD is the packaging of it.I mean for a start this won't be available for long.
But with all this Dylan in the catalog surely the time is right for one of his recent covers done on his tours

Won't play on a mac

Very much enjoyed the CD. I'm a big Dylan fan but don't own many of his CDs, so having this compilation is great for me.

However, a few issues: I cannot seem to play to CD on my MacBook at all, it works fine on Windows and my CD player but not on the mac. Also the casing for the CDs sometimes makes it difficult to get the CD out. But otherwise its a great set of Dylan's work.

Repackage ,Reissue , Pointless.

You have to ask what is the point of this exercise other than ....."repackage reissue" etc....
Obviously there are some wonderful wonderful songs here.
BUT the BIG but, is, there are some real clunkers included, and some amazing omissions.
Only buy either version of these 2 cd, or 3 cd compilations if you have no Dylan at all.
The thing is ( and it is a big gripe, not a Dylan anorak gripe) that you could easily make a list of 20 known tracks from his back catalogue, that are missing from the 3 c.d collection, that would make a compilation on their own.
Now that compilation, on its own , would be significantly better than 95% of all the other Best Of's and Greatest Hits available, from just about any artist alive or dead.

Dylan is unique, but this release is a waste of time .

Good intro for new listeners, absolutely pointless for everyone else

Dylan is cropping up all over the place in the last few years, whether it's his (panned) 2003 flick MASKED AND ANONYMOUS, the Scorsese PBS documentary from 2005 NO DIRECTION HOME, his first number one album in 30 years, MODERN TIMES, the Mirror dvd chronicling his Newport concerts from 1964, and now this release. And that's not all. There are already some very heavy rumours Dylan is going to be recording MODERN TIMES's followup with producer Rick Ruben (!!!!) in early 2008. A lot of stuff going on for the Dylan community.

When we found out about this set, the Dylan fanbase met the news with trepidation. A lot of us thought ultimately it would be of little interest to us who already know his music. Then we found out Mark Ronson would be remixing "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I Go Mine", which was interesting, if little more than a novelty. Disappointingly enough, [that] this remix appears only on the single disc compilation issued in conjunction with the triple disc set. What a marketing ripoff. So how does the Dylan set came hold up? Depends on whose asking.

The problem with any Dylan anthology Columbia will put out is there are two primary audiences who will consider buying it.

The first audience are those [There are the] hardcore Dylan fans who have been listening to him (perhaps obsessively) for years, who read the bios, who haunt fan websites, and who collect as many boots as possible. I belong to this group, and have for the last several years.

The second audience are the casual fans, those who may have heard of Dylan but never really listened to him other than the few stray tracks they may have heard on the radio (and trust me, most of Dylan's work is NOT played on the radio). They have a vague notion of what he wrote, may know an album or two, but for whatever reason never really got into him, whether it be to lack of interest or a hard time adjusting to his voice. (As far as Dylan singing, he's a great singer, though not in a technical sense. I love Tom Waits, but for my money his voice is much harder getting adjusted too than Dylan's.).

Now, when doing a retrospective, these are the two primary audiences to keep in mind. Well, obviously Columbia has decided to forgo thinking about the first audience and focus on the second audience, because quite frankly this set is of little interest to the Dylan faithful. Despite Columbia's hype that the track selection was heavily influenced by fan input on the dylan07.com website, there are very few surprises here (oh look, we got "Dark Eyes". Woohoo). On the fansites I go to there was talk of flooding the ballot box with requests for rare and alternate takes, unreleased studio outtakes, and live material. Obviously, that didn't happen.

Looking at the set list, for those who are new to Dylan's work, this is an overall fair representation of his work. While there's much more than this (and I can think of several songs, namely "That's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" and "Desolation Row", that are missing), I already know Dylan is simply too prolific to fully capture his genius in a mere three discs, so I'm more forgiving in that regard that I have been in previous years. I've made my own "Essential Bob Dylan" CD-Rs before. There were two volumes, each double-disc, the first covering 1962-1975, the second covering 1975-2003 (this was just before MODERN TIMES came out), and I found myself cutting quite a bit of material I felt should belong there. To do a true retrospective, the best route would be to do two three discs set, each covering the first part, the second part, and the last part of his recording career. But that is neither here nor there.

While DYLAN may contain little surprises, what makes it all the more disappointing for the Dylan faithful is Bob Dylan's first boxset (and one of the first major boxsets by a major rock artist ever), BIOGRAPH manages to satisfy both audiences, and sets up the template that most bands and solo artists would use when constructing their own box sets. BIOGRAPH managers to capture Dylan's strength as a songwriter and paint an accurate and telling portrait of what makes Dylan so highly regarded by so many people.

While there's a large proportion of previously released work on BIOGRAPH, the genius of that box set is it incorporates a large number of studio outtakes and a handful of live tracks, weaving them seamlessly into the portrait of Dylan the songwriter that the set is weaving. The outtakes they released on BIOGRAPH is good as anything he's released, and some I count as among his best songs ("I'll Keep It With Mine", a particular favorite I wish they had seen fit to include here, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune," "Percy's Song", and "Up To Me", the BLOOD outtake that should have been on the album, to name but four.) BIOGRAPH, released in 1985 was the first major boxset to be commercially successful, with Clapton's CROSSROADS following in 1988, and most boxsets have followed Dylan's template of mixing previously released work with previously unreleased work.

The main problem with BIOGRAPH is it came out in 1985, so it only takes you so far into Dylan. While a second boxset was obviously called for to update that set, DYLAN is simply not [that set] BIOGRAPH's spiritual successor. Columbia played it like a simple retrospective, and a very predictable retrospective at that, despite the couple of curve balls they managed to throw in there. There's plenty of stuff in the vaults that hasn't been released, so where is it? Where's "To Fall In Love With You", one of Dylan's best unreleased songs from the 1980s (found on the Genuine Bootleg Series Vol 2).? Or "Freedom for the Stallion"? Or "Sidewalks, Fences, and Walls"? Or "Old Five and Dimer"? Or the awesome b-sides "Trouble in Mind" and "Band of the Hand"? Or the John Hiatt cover "The Usual", or "Night After Night", or the Infidel outtakes, or any number of other material?

Ultimately, DYLAN is simply nothing more than another retrospective on Dylan, which is sad as BIOGRAPH managed to do so much more than that. If you look at the three previous Greatest Hits albums, and the Essential Bob Dylan album, it is obvious this release is little more than an update of those releases, and ultimately rather redundant. For the newcomers, a good way to get into Dylan, approx 4 star intro. For ever one else, 1 star.

Overall, DYLAN serves as a fair introduction for newcomers. Unfortunately for everyone else who count themselves Dylan fans, this set is pretty much useless. Dylan has such active fanbase this release would be much more successful if Columbia tried to address both audiences, like they did so successfully in 1985. At the end of the day, this is more of a missed opportunity to update BIOGRAPH than anything else.

Dylan: Deluxe Edition

Another year another Dylan greatest hits package. I have to admit when I first saw DYLAN advertised on the official site a long sigh and a roll of the eyes was my first reaction. However, when I saw what they were planning with the deluxe package I thought it might be worth investigating. The box set itself is really beautifully done, including an extensive booklet (not much but non-informative praise written inside but some great photos) and a set of cards with reproductions of old live posters. The CD's are reproduced to look like old vinyl records (including a little card inside sleeve). The box container opens to reveal a soft velvet-like interior with the Columbia logo printed in gold. It's a really well conceived box set that gives you something much different to the bog-standard jewel CD case.

For a Dylan fan this has to be an essential purchase if you want something special to add to your collection. It would also make a fantastic and unique introduction to Dylan's music for anyone who has thought about, but not quite got around to, buying any of his releases.

In terms of the music contained on the three CD's there's something for everyone here. It won't satisfy all but it may re-introduce you to songs you hadn't cared for before or forgotten about. The sound quality of the re-masters is great and Dylan shines through especially on his earlier songs. It would have been nice to have had some extra space for live favourites throughout his career but I guess that's another 3-disc set in itself.

Dylan (3CD) (Deluxe Edition)

Article summary

Customer's review

The reason why

Won't play on a mac

Repackage ,Reissue , Pointless.

Good intro for new listeners, absolutely pointless for everyone else

Dylan: Deluxe Edition

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