Take an hour with Greatest Hits Vol. 3 and it becomes clear this compilation is more about bolstering a lacklustre period than anything else. Take a week with it, and it becomes a fascinating compilation of Bob Dylan’s underrated, overlooked efforts from a decade where his image was based more on public nostalgia than contemporary acclaim. How an artist reinvents themselves during this period, how an individual reconnects with themselves and the music, is blind luck. For Dylan, the long while he spent at odds with the listening public appears to have hardened his hard-to-pin-down persona. He has now become a figure of myth, a man of demigod status to his hardened fans who claim they were sticking by him when he wrote Knocked Out Loaded. Nobody sane would persevere.
But to be a hardcore Dylan fan, to actively hunt down Greatest Hits Vol. 3 in the hope of learning something new, is to strip sanity from your day. At a time when compilations from bands like Queen and Electric Light Orchestra feel like studio housekeeping, reminders of what the band achieved, it is refreshing to hear risks taken by Dylan and the label on something as seemingly throwaway as a greatest hits album. He had already featured original recordings on previous volumes, and while Dignity makes it onto Greatest Hits Vol. 3, the choice of B-Sides and lowly efforts like Under the Red Sky as shining examples of his hits is a genuine and hilarious choice. Opener Tangled Up in Blue is the firing pistol moment. Off to the Dylan-themed races we go. It is the only song which traditional or passive listeners may know. Greatest Hits Vol. 3 challenges the very concept of hits-based releases, because to strip Tangled Up in Blue of its album context is to listen without reason.
Why else would it be paired with Changing of the Guards from Street-Legal. Still, it is better to fall for the “hits” tag and hear Series of Dreams and Brownsville Girl than have some vacant Spotify DJ deliver the best works and nothing more. Where the likes of Shot of Love and Slow Train Coming may be labelled lesser works, inevitably so when compared to an album like Blonde on Blonde, they are still worth listening to. Not just because there is a hit or two hidden away in those works, but because it adds a much-needed context to Dylan’s career. It is a learning experience, a slog worth enduring to appreciate the golden periods and the work to follow. Rekindle your love for listening and in Greatest Hits Vol. 3 you find some new appreciation not for the writing Dylan put out during his career slump, but for just how tricky it can be to stay consistent.
Not every track is a winner but listening in regardless is a truly rewarding experience. Bold it may be to represent Knocked Out Loaded on an album advertising the best in class, Brownsville Girl is a standout experience and worthy of celebration. The same goes for Silvio, a track which showcases the love and collaborative skill between Dylan and Grateful Dead members like Robert Hunter. But beyond those specifics, it is an album which showcases how even the perceived lows can have worthwhile moments in them. All it takes is a little time removed from the song and album in question. There is a reason Dylan, even now on the Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, returns to songs from Shot of Love and Under the Red Sky. Favourite albums of sickos, for sure, but still worth a listen.
