Japanese original release of "Side Tracks," which was originally released as bonus CDs for "The Complete Album Collection Vol.1." Features cardboard sleeve artwork faithfully replicating the LP which was released for "record store day." Also features the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD2 format (compatible with standard CD player). Uses the latest remastering which was used for "The Complete Album Collection." The liner notes include new Japanese translations of lyrics. Released on the Black Friday edition in 2013 Record Store Day brouhaha, Bob Dylan’s Side Tracks is a 30-track journey into the deeper cuts of the legendary musician’s catalogue. In essence – It stands as an alternate history, a left-of-center greatest hits collection from an artist whose best songs sometimes are the stray cats and orphans left as B-sides or recording room scraps. Most everything here has appeared elsewhere on compilations like the incomparable Biograph, but by stripping the record of Dylan’s well-known songs, it provides a deeper look into his metamorphosis from nasally folk artist to his current status as a gravel-voiced elder statesman.
Bob Dylan returned from exile with John Wesley Harding, a quiet, country-tinged album that split dramatically from his previous three. A calm, reflective album, John Wesley Harding strips away all of the wilder tendencies of Dylan's rock albums – even the then-unreleased Basement Tapes he made the previous year – but it isn't a return to his folk roots…
Reteaming with the Band, Bob Dylan winds up with an album that recalls New Morning more than The Basement Tapes, since Planet Waves is given to a relaxed intimate tone – all the more appropriate for a collection of modest songs about domestic life…
Masterpieces is a compilation album by Bob Dylan. The 3-LP set was released in Japan and Australia in anticipation of his 1978 tour. Primarily a greatest hits collection spanning Dylan's career up that point, the album features three previously unreleased tracks, including "Rita May", "George Jackson" and a unique (1962) outtake version of "Mixed Up Confusion". It also includes a live performance of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" from Dylan's 1966 World Tour, which was first released as the B-side of his "I Want You" single in 1966 and later appeared on Self Portrait. Masterpieces was reissued on CD in 1991 by Sony Music (Cat. No. 4624489), but is no longer in print.