 DYLAN!!! |
| Review Date: February 3, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Merle E. Gifford, Shreveport, La |
Dylan! This, sort of best hit goes "way" back to the sixties to today. And is....Dylan! This is a hell of a recording. Buy it!
Gif
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NOTHING IS REVEALED
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| Review Date: January 17, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Remaster Bob, Hong Kong, China SAR Hong Kong |
Hi. In case anyone out there is curious (as I was) about the sound reproduction of these "digitally remastered" discs, you need not be. Nothing has been newly digitally remastered.
I ran a series of A/B listening tests with half-decent ears and a fairly decent system and the results were quite puzzling. In all cases, nothing has been remastered anew, in fact on a few tracks there seemed to be less weight in the bass compared to earlier compilation and album editions.
I compared this box with all the previous "Greatest Hits" volumes (1-3), 1997's "Best Of", and 2000's "Essential". Every time it is exactly the same mastering; I cannot discern any improvements and I usually can if there are any. As well as concluding "You cheapskate b***ards Sony/Columbia" I wonder why there are so many different "Mastering Engineers" credited across those releases - Vic Anesini, Mark Wilder, Greg Calibi, Bob Irwin. Are they actually all the same person? Or is someone taking the mickey out of Columbia/Sony? Or maybe just out of us? What are they all being paid for?
So far my range of tests was between 1997 editions and this 2007 release. Imagine my surprise then when I pulled out 1985's Biograph and compared Quinn The Eskimo there with this 2007 release; exactly the same! This all smells a funny color.
There was however a very minor improvement in presence and lower end strength I felt between these discs and 1991's The Bootleg Series Vols. 1-3 box set. But I think these finite variations are the result of the pressings. The weird but unavoidable conclusion is that Columbia/Sony have remastered each of these songs once - starting as early as 1985 - and they have never bothered to touch them again since. Then they flog a new box set with the sticker "Digitally Remastered"...and forget to add "...since 1985". (That's twenty-two years before this release, you miserable cloth-eared scumbags!)
One other curious discovery: the Brownsville Girl version here is a different mix from every earlier version I have. Not a different remaster, just a different mix; there is an extra element of Spanish/classical guitar playing away quite noticably (in the first couple of miuntes alone you will notice it) which has appeared without any mention in the booklet. It's not worth getting excited about even for the fiercest of completists; it's just more dumb record company imbeciles playing little mind games with the people who pay their salaries. Either that or just good ol' fashioned incompetence.
Thankfully I am wary of Sony as a record label - very untrustworthy in my experience - so I only bought this box when my local store dropped the price w-a-y down in their New Year Sale. The booklet is all pictures and big font size, worth about three minutes of your time, and the postcards are spoilt by being numbered for some unfathomable reason. The first thing you notice is how spacious the inside of the box is for the volume of the contents. I was able to ditch the plastic jewel cases for several other Dylan discs and store the CD's and booklets inside this vacuuous box. So some good came from this purchase. Ha.
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Good for going digital, if you're already there then leave it behind
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| Review Date: July 17, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mr. Scott T. Allen, Naperville, IL |
I had Dylan on vinyl. This is a decent collection if you haven't "gone digital" yet. For the price, perhaps you're better off buying separate CDs, but I chose this for 1 song I couldn't find elsewhere: Dylan's version of Blind Willie McTell. Sure, that song is on 'The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991' but the Series is pricey.
I was gambling because I hadn't even heard Dylan's original Blind Willie McTell: just covers by The Band and the Stone's Throw guy. Anyway, it's worth it, perhaps his best song ever. According to Wikipedia, he didn't/doesn't think it's a "finished work." Shows how Dylan is a true genius, because he doesn't know when he's good and doesn't know when he's bad, he just has a compulsion to write and perform. Gotta give Mark Knopfler due credit for his accompaniment here.
Yes, this is a rambling review but if you can put up with Dylan's ups and downs, you can handle it. |
Bob Dylan 3-disc set
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| Review Date: June 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: O. M. Hobbs, Little Rock, AR |
| Love the CD. Got it brand new at a great deal! Haven't been able to take it out of the CD player yet! |
Nothing But Great music
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| Review Date: February 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Jon Strand, USA |
I realized I didn't have "Positively 4th Street on CD," and buying this 3CD "Dylan" set from one of the dealers selling through amazon.com, I got this 3CD set new -with shipping- for less than $9.
It's amazing: there's only one track here from "Highway 61 Revisited," NOTHING from "The Basement Tapes" (the notes say "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" is, but it's the "Greatest Hits 2" Happy Traum version), etc., etc.
One could get angry at all the songs *not* here (see all the negative reviews for the Deluxe Edition), and all the Dylan collections this is not (Previously mentioned example: with Tom Petty 1986 -Studio and Live), but what this *is* is "Positively 4th Street" and 47 other GREAT Dylan songs, stretching from one end of his career to the other. Not a single loser.
This CD isn't just Greatest Hits 1, 2 & 3 plus a few more tunes ... it lacks songs on those discs, and has songs that they lack. (Collecting Bob is not a tidy process!)
CAVEAT!!! The one danger is this set may make you buy other Dylan CDs: hearing the beautifully remastered version here of "On A Night Like This" made me buy "Planet Waves," which I'd had on LP and hadn't listened to in years. This set tantalizes:-) And it flows. |
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