Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Then a holding action while Dylan unloaded his head after his May 1966 motorcycle crash, now a nostalgia merit badge for boomers and a course in Dylan 101 for '90s newcomers, Greatest Hits stands up remarkably well as a listening experience. Smartly programmed to ride all over an...	Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3	The Essential Bob Dylan (Rm) (2CD) Two discs of music don't exactly provide for a thorough overview of four decades of recording, particularly if the subject of the retrospective is one of the most important and prolific performers of his time. So The Essential Bob Dylan definitely skates over the leagues-deep oeu...	Highway 61 Revisited Dylan was virtually gushing great songs when this masterpiece arrived in the summer of 1965. From the epochal opening of "Like a Rolling Stone" through the absurdly apocalyptic closer, "Desolation Row," his command of surrealistic language was daring and amazing. As a vocalist, h...	The Times They Are A-Changin'
Blonde on Blonde	The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan Dylan's outstanding second album is a tremendous jump from its predecessor. Whereas the debut established him as a peerless interpreter of folk and country-blues classics, and a singer like none before, this followup features some of the most pungent original songs of the '60s. "...	Blood on the Tracks Inevitably, when critics praise a new Dylan album, they label it the "best since Blood on the Tracks," and with good reason. Inspired by a crumbled marriage, and recorded after a tour with the Band had apparently re-ignited his creativity, Blood is among Dylan's masterpieces. The...	Bringing It All Back Home "You sound like you're having a good old time," a purist Dylan fan is spotted telling the artist in the documentary Don't Look Back just after the release of this, his first (half-)electric album. He certainly does. Updating Chicago blues forms with hilarious, tough lyrics--in fa...	Modern Times At a time when the majority of those his age are drifting into retirement, 65-year-old Bob Dylan has put the capper on a three-record run that ranks with the best in his storied, 44-album career. Like Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft before it, Modern Times is a rootsy, blues-...

Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol 2
2 decades ago I wore out the cassette and the 8 track. This is a one of the worlds best "Greatest Hits" collections.

Not Only Hits, but Great Unreleased Stuff too
Bob Dylan didn't release a new record in 1971, but instead issued several unreleased songs on this second Greatest Hits record. "Tomorrow is a Long Time," is a beautiful song recorded during Dylan's 1963 Town Hall Concert. This concert was released on the Trade Mark of Quality bootleg "While the Establishment Burns" and the show is brilliant. I'm guessing, wishing, hoping that one day Bob Dylan and CBS/Sony will release the show as part of the official Bootleg Series. "Watching the River Flow" and "When I Paint My Masterpiece" were produced by Leon Russell and are both outstanding. "Watching the River Flow" was kind of a hit single and is really a rocker. "Masterpiece" makes its first appearance here. "The three songs recorded with Happy Traum are really beautiful and I would have loved to see a whole album done this way, what a joy that would have been. Still, we take what we can get from Mr. Dylan and are thankful for all he's given us. Like his first Greatest Hits record, this album was huge, going five times platinum which makes the first two Hits records his all time best sellers. This is a must own disc for everybody and anybody who has even a passing interest in Bob Dylan.

Best Songs from the Best (!) Songwriter
'Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Volume 2' is part of the evidence that makes one wonder why the first Gershwin award for popular songwriting went to Paul Simon and not to Bob Dylan. Unlike some other reviewers, all but one song on this collection was immediately recognizable, from the high point of Dylan's career with Highway 61 Revisited, Blond on Blond, John Wesley Harding, and Nashville Skyline. I have to admit that Simon's career had more major hits in the '80's, '90's, and the 21st century, and Simon had almost as many 'major' hits in the '60's, but this collection demonstrates that no one in our lifetimes has ever matched Dylan's genius for songwriting. Even after all these years, I find this collection and its predecessor a great source for recalling Dylan lyrics, as when I was trying to remember the song from which the line 'But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'. Discovering the answer ('My Back Pages') was much easier by listening to this album than by reading a book of his lyrics. I was especially keen on listening to Dylan's original 'All Along the Watchtower', to compare it to possibly the greatest Dylan cover of all time, by Jimi Hendrix, of this song on 'Electric Ladyland'. Hendrix' rendition only shows how great is Dylan's genius at lyrics and tunes, when we see the rendition Hendrix was able to build with the song.

Should have been on a single disc
Only complaint I have is this should have been on 1 disc. Disc 1 is 36 minutes flat & disc 2 is 42:23. All 21 tracks could have easily fit on one space-saving 78 minute disc. Only way to justify this being on 2 discs would be to include at least 1 bonus track, which Columbia has done on some other artists' reissues. Other labels have reissued 2 LP sets on 1 CD, such as Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland, The Who's Tommy & Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, so they should have done that with this album.

Dylan Fans
Bob Dylan is always at his best, but this time he may be more on top than usual. The music is fresh, concise, and delivered with enthusiasm. It reminds me of a time when the music and the story were the most important issues.