Bob Dylan "The Essential" 2LP

Bob Dylan "The Essential" 2LP

$49.99 Sale

Format: 120gm double LP, single LP cover, sealed

Label: Columbia/Legacy

Released: 2016

Country: EU

This double LP release (first issued in 2000) looks back on Bob Dylan's 38 years of recording and pulls out most of the signature tunes from the songwriting giant's prolific career. For an artist of such stature, it's no easy task to assemble an "essential" compilation in just 30 cuts, but it's hard to argue with the choices made here. Most of the high points in the Minnesotan troubadour's catalog are touched on, and the chronological sequencing provides a kind of tour through Dylan's various phases.

We're taken through the pioneering protest-folk period ("Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They are A-Changin'"), the Rimbaud-inspired songpoet mode ("It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Mr. Tambourine Man"), the amphetamine-fueled rocker phase ("Like A Rolling Stone"), and all the rest of Dylan's many twists and turns. From the poignant introspection of "Shelter From the Storm" to the born-again R&B of "You Gotta Serve Somebody" and the searing narrative of "Hurricane," we get the broad view of an awe-inspiring body of work. Diehards will doubtlessly complain about various disincluded tracks, but on the evidence presented, it's easy to see why the genius tag is so often applied to this artist.

Tracklisting

  1. Blowin' In the Wind
  2. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
  3. The Times They Are A-Changin
  4. It Ain't Me Babe
  5. Maggie's Farm
  6. Tambourine Man
  7. Subterranean Homesick Blues
  8. Like a Rolling Stone
  9. Positively 4th Street
  10. Just Like a Woman
  11. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
  12. Lay, Lady, Lay
  13. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
  14. Forever Young
  15. Tangled up in Blue
  16. Gotta Serve Somebody
  17. Jokerman
  18. Make You Feel My Love
  19. Things Have Changed
  20. Mississippi
  21. When the Deal Goes Down
  22. Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
  23. Long and Wasted Years