Bob Dylan 2007

In 1985, Bob Dylan's Biograph established the blueprint for weighty rock & roll retrospectives, blending rare and unreleased material with classics over the course of a three-disc set that wound up being the template for rock & roll boxes for the next 20 years or so. Twenty-two years later, Dylan's second triple-disc retrospective arrived, and it's quite a different beast, bucking all the conventions that Biograph instituted…

Unplugged albums are frequently corny, but this was an important artistic move for Dylan in 1995, when many fans had given up on his incomprehensible singing and lackluster concerts. With sympathetic backup musicians, including organist Brendan O'Brien and guitarist John Jackson, Dylan returns the coherence to his originals ("All Along the Watchtower," "The Times They Are A-Changin'," "Desolation Row," "Like a Rolling Stone") and rearranges them just enough to freshen their sound. The previously unreleased "Dignity" is one of Dylan's best songs this decade, and it fits nicely with the rickety versions of "John Brown" and the finale, "With God On Our Side." –Steve Knopper, Amazon.com.

Bob Dylan is an American musician, singer-songwriter, artist, and writer. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements.

A four-disc box set spanning Eric Clapton's entire career – running from the Yardbirds to his '80s solo recordings – Crossroads not only revitalized Clapton's commercial standing, but it established the rock & roll multi-disc box set retrospective as a commercially viable proposition. Bob Dylan's Biograph was successful two years before the release of Crossroads, but Clapton's set was a bona fide blockbuster. And it's easy to see why. Crossroads manages to sum up Clapton's career succinctly and thoroughly, touching upon all of his hits and adding a bevy of first-rate unreleased material (most notably selections from the scrapped second Derek and the Dominos album). Although not all of his greatest performances are included on the set – none of his work as a session musician or guest artist is included, for instance – every truly essential item he recorded is present on these four discs. No other Clapton album accurately explains why the guitarist was so influential, or demonstrates exactly what he accomplished.

There never was a supergroup more super than the Traveling Wilburys. They had Jeff Lynne, the leader of ELO; they had Roy Orbison, the best pop singer of the '60s; they had Tom Petty, the best roots rocker this side of Bruce Springsteen; they had a Beatle and Bob Dylan, for crying out loud! It's impossible to picture a supergroup with a stronger pedigree than that (all that's missing is a Rolling Stone), but in another sense it's hard to call the Wilburys a true supergroup, since they arrived nearly two decades after the all-star craze of the '70s peaked, and they never had the self-important air of nearly all the other supergroups. That, of course, was the key to their charm: they were a group of friends that fell together easily, almost effortlessly, to record a B-side for a single for George Harrison, then had such a good time they stuck around to record a full album, which became a hit upon its 1988 release.