The other side of Bob Dylan referred to in the title is presumably his romantic, absurdist, and whimsical one – anything that wasn't featured on the staunchly folky, protest-heavy Times They Are a-Changin', really. Because of this, Another Side of Bob Dylan is a more varied record and it's more successful, too, since it captures Dylan expanding his music, turning in imaginative, poetic performances on love songs and protest tunes alike…
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…
The Complete Album Collection Vol. One is a forty-seven disc box set released on November 4, 2013 by Bob Dylan. It includes thirty-five albums released between 1962 and 2012, six live albums, and a compilation album unique to the set, Side Tracks, which contains previously released material unavailable on regular studio or live albums…
It's hard to overestimate the importance of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, the record that firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter, one of considerable skill, imagination, and vision. At the time, folk had been quite popular on college campuses and bohemian circles, making headway onto the pop charts in diluted form, and while there certainly were a number of gifted songwriters, nobody had transcended the scene as Dylan did with this record…
While it doesn't take many chances, the U.K.-only Best of Bob Dylan is an adequate collection of familiar items – "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are a-Changin'," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Like a Rolling Stone," "Just Like a Woman," "All Along the Watchtower," "Lay Lady Lay," "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," "Forever Young," "Tangled Up in Blue," "Gotta Serve Somebody" – highlighted by the inclusion of the alternate take of "Shelter From the Storm," which was originally released on the Jerry Maguire soundtrack.
If Highway 61 Revisited played as a garage rock record, the double album Blonde on Blonde inverted that sound, blending blues, country, rock, and folk into a wild, careening, and dense sound…
Taking the first, electric side of Bringing It All Back Home to its logical conclusion, Bob Dylan hired a full rock & roll band, featuring guitarist Michael Bloomfield, for Highway 61 Revisited…
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…
This album was unusual on several counts. For starters, it was a soundtrack (for Sam Peckinpah's movie of the same title), a first venture of its kind for Bob Dylan. For another, it was Dylan's first new LP in three years – he hadn't been heard from in any form other than the single "George Jackson," his appearance at the Bangladesh benefit concert in 1971, in all of that time…