Disc Two starts with the romantic "Lay, Lady, Lay" from 1969's Nashville Skyline, through the 70's and the return of acoustic guitar and harmonica with two songs from Blood on the Tracks, to end the decade with the beginning of his Christian recordings, and a great track from Slow Train Coming, "Gotta Serve Someone".

Ten years later brings him to the fabulous "Everything is Broken", from Oh Mercy, and the collection ends with "Things Have Changed" from 1999, which was featured in the film "Wonder Boys", and the reason I bought this CD set. After viewing the film, what I remembered and liked the most was this powerful, marvelous song..

I am one of those that feel no one sings Dylan better than Dylan, and truly enjoy his rough, expressive voice; it is interesting to hear it through the span of nearly forty years on one compilation...it has become huskier, with a bit more wobble, but to my ears better than ever.
Total time for Disc One is 56:24, Disc Two 68:31, and the sound quality varies somewhat from song to song, but overall it is excellent.


Great b/c songs are great, but inadequate introduction   November 9, 2000
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

Look, these songs are great. Everyone knows that. But if you want a real introduction to the greatest songwriter of the century, start with something larger like Biograph, then go to Bootleg Series. This collection is laughable in its attempt to "represent" four decades worth of music from one of the most prolific and interesting artists of this or any other time. Even if you memorize every song backwards and forwards in this collection, you will still be a pathetic novice of Dylan and his work. He deserves better than this paltry representation.


Attempting the Impossible, and nearly succeeding   June 11, 2002
S. Sroczynski (Boston, MA United States)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

As many have already written, making a 4-disc Dylan "Essential" collection out of Bob Dylan's monstrous (40+ albums!) material would be hard. So making a 2-disc one is quite impossible. Yet the "Essential" Bob Dylan does a worthy job of incorporating material from his heyday in the 60s and his more recent efforts together into one collection. I myself am a huge Dylan fan and I own all of his 60s albums, some of his 70s material (Blood on the Tracks + Desire), none of his 80s work, and his two most recent albums (Time out of Mind + Love and Theft). This collection displays all his big hits with 3 glaring tracks missing by my count: "Visions of Johanna," "Ballad of a Thin Man," and "Desolation Row." Also I would have liked to see at least one of Dylan's less famous anti-war ballads, either "Masters of War" or "With God on Our Side." The colletion DOES include the original versions of "Knockin on Heaven's Door" and "All Along the Watchtower." I myself prefer the live versions of both of these, but it is nice to see what they originally sounded like (they have been covered myriad times by various artists, most notably by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Guns N Roses).

This collection rolls through with hit after hit, but it stumbles in a few places: the last 2 tracks of CD one, although both good songs, could have been replaced by any of the previously mentioned glaring ommissions. CD two starts strong with "Lay Lady Lay" but the next 3 songs, though catchy, again could have been replaced by more brilliant work (Dylan has plenty of it). Later on disc 2 we see only 4 songs representing his entire 80s work, and out of those the only great song is "Jokerman." The rest (especially "Silvio" and "Everything is Broken") are quite forgetable, much like Dylan in the 80s. But the collection finishes strong with the raw, emotional, lyrically amazing "Not Dark Yet" which in 1997 was Dylan's best song in at least 12 years, probably more like 23, and "Things Have Changed," another Dylan track with touching lyrics, which was only available on the Wonder Boys Soundtrack before.

If you are a casual Bob fan or not a fan at all, buy this collection as your first Dylan CD. But be aware that Dylan is much more than a hit single. And really, instead of a collection of songs, whole albums of his (Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61, Blood on the Tracks) should be considered "Essential."