Bob Dylan

A double-disc set released for the holiday season of 2000, The Essential Bob Dylan is a fine choice for the casual listener that just wants all the songs they know on one collection – it's Dylan's equivalent of Beatles One…

German-only, lovingly compiled collection from the Rock/Folk legend. Pure Dylan is not just another 'best of' from the singer/songwriter but a single-disc compilation spanning almost the entirety of his career and includes many obscure tracks that don't normally make Dylan comps. Contains rare tracks like 'Trouble in Mind', the solo version of 'Spanish Is the Loving Tongue' and many others. A perfect release for the hardcore fan and the uninitiated.

Arriving in 1967, Greatest Hits does an excellent job of summarizing Dylan's best-known songs from his first seven albums. At just ten songs, it's a little brief, and the song selection may be a little predictable, but that's actually not a bad thing, since this provides a nice sampler for the curious and casual listener, as it boasts standards from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Like a Rolling Stone."…

With Another Side of Bob Dylan, Dylan had begun pushing past folk, and with Bringing It All Back Home, he exploded the boundaries, producing an album of boundless imagination and skill. And it's not just that he went electric, either, rocking hard on "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Maggie's Farm," and "Outlaw Blues"; it's that he's exploding with imagination throughout the record…

Bob Dylan's first album is a lot like the debut albums by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – a sterling effort, outclassing most, if not all, of what came before it in the genre, but similarly eclipsed by the artist's own subsequent efforts. The difference was that not very many people heard Bob Dylan on its original release (originals on the early-'60s Columbia label are choice collectibles) because it was recorded with a much smaller audience and musical arena in mind. At the time of Bob Dylan's release, the folk revival was rolling, and interpretation was considered more important than original composition by most of that audience.