Bob Dylan – Mixing Up the Medicine Review

More books should come with soundtracks. Nick Banks had the right idea when he featured QR codes in his autobiography, From Punk to Pulp. Little visual breaks for those moving from chapter to chapter. It benefits the best of them. Mixing Up the Medicine may be nothing more than a compilation of Bob Dylan hits but the break it gives to those in the trenches of bootleg material is refreshing. Even if there is little thought put into the track list beyond release order, there is a charming simplicity to a project which features the likes of Forever Young and Hurricane. These are not the expected hits but are memorable enough to include. An A-grade collection of songs mixed in with ultra-recognisable hits, where a passing note can kick the mind into gear. The Times They Are A-Changin’ has that effect. 

Parker Fishel and Mark Davidson set out to profile the musical changes Dylan made in his formative years. Mixing Up the Medicine as a playlist of those changes does a solid job. It eases listeners in with the popular shots of Blowin’ in the Wind and, by its end, has made a comfortable and satisfying move to Things Have Changed. It feels like an obvious conclusion, but Mixing Up the Medicine earns it. These are the mighty peaks Dylan had, though the lack of material from Street-Legal to As Good as I Been to You is striking. Surely within these fourteen years, Dylan released something of musical change. Of course, he did. But did he craft anything on a level as Like a Rolling Stone? One of the few songs in history to give those giddy feelings on each listen. Even when thrown into what should be a Spotify playlist like Mixing Up the Medicine, it transcends all expectations. Few songs can do that. Fewer artists did it consistently. 

Such is the point of Mixing Up the Medicine. Can the prolific works of Dylan be as impactful on their own as they are in their album slot? For most of these songs, yes. Across Mixing Up the Medicine is the evolution of Dylan in his formative, arguably most prominent years. The electric burn to established songwriter and into protest songs with a mind diverging from popular constructs. It makes for a fascinating compilation listen, far better than best-of albums. But this is more because of the theme running through than anything Mixing Up the Medicine achieves without the context of the book. Releases like this are a neat excuse to listen to the classics of the Dylan discography, but without the book to accompany it, it makes for an isolated and strange release. 

What purpose does it serve other than to shore up the words of Fishel and Davidson? No doubt their thoughts on the evolution of an at-the-time contemporary masterclass are well-made, but compiling the hits which prove their point and skipping over massive portions of work which would otherwise sink the ship is telling. Mixing Up the Medicine is a neat run-through of the best works Dylan put out there and nothing more. Still, it serves a purpose. Moments like this where you can lean back into a near-hour of the successful Dylan glories are difficult to come by, if you do not possess the fingers and thumbs needed to make up a playlist of your favourites.