Bob Dylan – More Greatest Hits Review

Compilations from legendary musicians are, usually, nothing special. Charity shop fodder. You can pick up twelve copies of The Best of the Carpenters and still have change for a bus ride home. It is a case of assumption which lingers as a shop wall relic. The suggestion that more people were interested in a project or compilation leaves the embarrassing overprint hanging around all too long. It is why you can still pick up a first print of Out of the Blue for the same price as the remastered versions. Compilations are destined for the rot of our record cabinet, unless they can offer something unheard. More Greatest Hits, also known as Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II, does just that. A compilation which features a gluttonous collection of some of his very best unreleased songs. A near whole side of at-the-time new material.  

All in good time, for More Greatest Hits must first tackle the Herculean task of convincing us of the hits. It does the job for hardcore Dylan fans, those who may take some sick joy in hearing a triple bill of Another Side of Bob Dylan on a best-of compilation which snub obvious choices like Mr. Tambourine Man or Desolation Row. They were included on the previous release, to be fair. But compilations are rarely about asking more from an artist. Usually, these releases are a consolidation of a backlog, a sense of changing winds and wanting to set the sails in the right direction. Stock in Dylan was at a low, lower style just two years later with the release of Dylan. Irrespective of the meaning or desire to release a compilation, it cannot be denied these songs are hits. Take a compilation at face value and you get moments of interest which, at their best, serve as a reason to head into the album itself.  

Why anyone would not listen to the full piece in the first place, unless truly strapped for time, is inconceivable to those who want the full picture. Perhaps that is why a chunk of Another Side of Bob Dylan appears. These are the subtle choices, the bolder ones are reserved for the unreleased materials, the A-sides which open More Greatest Hits. Songs which debut on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. II, especially When I Paint My Masterpiece and You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere hang with the best. Hell, all five of the at-the-time unreleased songs can be thrown into the best-of Dylan conversation. Defiance for a stronger future on When I Paint My Masterpiece to the liberation of the soul, despite a physical lock-up, on I Shall Be Released both suggest Dylan, despite being out of step with critics and public for much of the decade to follow, was still far from writing his best works. Four years on from this release, he would do so with Blood on the Tracks.  

Despite the accomplishment, it is not of interest to make good on the promises of those More Greatest Hits additions. It was never about proving a point. Dylan once more proves himself a difficult artist to understand, a man whose choices allude reason because we will never know what is, likely, the reason these songs were featured. It may just be a chance to shift a few more records with the promise of original material coupled to the hits. That seems likely. But a whole side dedicated to unreleased moments, some of which like Down in the Flood and You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere would overshadow some of the established songs heard earlier, is stunning. It would be a tragedy not to mention Tomorrow is a Long Time, a live rendition which reminds of a time when Dylan was without electric, not adrift in a storm of his own creative making. More Greatest Hits does what so few compilations manage. It tells a story worth hearing.