Biograph (3 Cds in Double Jewel Case) [Box set]

Bob Dylan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 19, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 3
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000008TFC
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,757 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-own, November 10, 2001

By 

Bill R. Moore (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Biograph (3 Cds in Double Jewel Case) (Audio CD)

Biograph is more than just a retrospective; it is essential for any Dylanophile. While it indeeds collects the majority of the essential tracks in Dylan's canon (Rolling Stone, Heaven's Door, Watchtower, I Want You, Blowin' In The Wind, etc.), classic album tracks (To Ramona, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, etc.), live and alternate take offerings (Visions, I Don't Believe You, It's All Over, etc.), and the best of the latter day tracks (Gotta Serve Somebody, Groom, Every Grain of Sand, etc.), what makes this set an essential for the hard-core (other than the revealing sequencing, which puts a whole new light on the material, and the deluxe packaging) is the generous smattering of previously unreleased material. Absolutely first-rate songs such as Percy's Song, Caribbean Wind, and Up To Me stand up well to his officialy released canon. This, along with Volumes 1-3 of The Bootleg Series, show that Dylan throws away tracks that any other artist would kill to have written. This release was so good, in fact, that it set the standard (and the pattern) for all box sets to come. It stands as a good primer for those new to Dylan, and also as an essential addition to the catalog of the fan who already has everything else.

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential compilation for every fan, December 7, 2005

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FairiesWearBoots8272 (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Biograph (3 Cds in Double Jewel Case) (Audio CD)

The three-CD Biograph is probably not the best place to start if you're new to Bob Dylan, but it is a really great set that any serious fan needs to own. Biograph is both an excellent summary of Dylan's musical career (the first twenty years of it, at least) and an assortment of excellent rare and obscure tracks. Supreme classics like Blowin' in the Wind, Like a Rolling Stone, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Tangled Up In Blue, Mr. Tambourine Man, Just Like A Woman and Subterranean Homesick Blues are here representing some of Dylan's finest recorded work to see commercial release. There are tons of very good lesser-known songs as well. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, the excellent closing track from Dylan's John Wesley Harding album is one of Dylan's finest country love songs. Mixed-Up Confusion from 1962 was actually Dylan's first song with electric guitars and a backing band. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is very highly regarded by Dylan fans as a beautiful, somber eulogy/protest song but remains largely unknown or forgotten to the general populace. To Ramona is one of Dylan's most beautiful and eloquent love songs (and it does have a lot of competition there). Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window is a single from 1965 that faded into obscurity by not appearing on an LP until Biograph in 1985. Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) is a hidden classic from Dylan's underrated 1978 album, Street Legal. Just listen to this song and see if it doesn't give you goosebumps.

However, there's much more still. Numerous excellent tracks which did not see commercial release are here for your enjoyment. Songs such as I'll Keep It With Mine, Percy's Song, Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Abandoned Love, Caribbean Wind, Up To Me, and I Wanna Be Your Lover are as good as anything on Dylan's studio albums. You will also hear alternate versions of familiar favorites, some in the studio and some live, such as I Don't Believe You, Visions of Johanna, It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Isis, Romance in Durango, I Shall Be Released, Forever Young, and All Along the Watchtower.

Another reason is to pick it up is for two key tracks: Positively 4th Street and Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Positively 4th Street is a Dylan classic, released as a non-album single in 1965, the only album it was available on was Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. Knockin' On Heaven's Door is a classic from 1973 that has seen many cover versions, notably from Eric Clapton and Guns N' Roses. The only album it appears on is the soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid in which the song originally appeared. So you get both of these great songs in one place without having to buy the otherwise unnecessary Greatest Hits or Pat Garrett soundtrack. These two songs are nearly worth the price of the set.

The sound quality on the CDs is excellent, provided you get the 1997 re-release which was remastered for highest fidelity. The 1997 version is in a double-CD case as opposed to the bigger box set format of the original release. In addition to the excellent music there are thorough and informative liner notes by Cameron Crowe which give a look at Dylan's discography and notes for every single song as well as recording and release dates. That's something of very high value to geeks like me. There are lots of pretty pictures of Mr. Dylan too.

I think I've given you ample reasons to buy this box set. If you consider yourself any kind of Bob Dylan fan and you don't have Biograph, get it right now! Stop reading this extraordinarily well-written, very helpful review and go buy this set. If this box has you itching for more Dylan outtakes and rarities, then by all means proceed to The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased) for even more delectable unreleased goodness.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remains the finest overview of Dylan's genius, June 19, 2005

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Biograph (3 Cds in Double Jewel Case) (Audio CD)

By any measure, Bob Dylan is one of the two to three most crucial figures in the creation of modern rock and popular music. It wouldn't be too simplistic to say that rock as we eventually came to know it was the result of the meshing of the way Chuck Berry wrote music and Bob Dylan wrote lyrics. For several years, I told friends that I was going to write a book about the way music changed when Dylan released the most important single in the history of rock: "Like a Rolling Stone." Otis Redding heard it and felt compelled to write something more "meaningful" than his prior compositions, and "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" resulted. Sam Cooke responded to it by attempting to deepen his lyrics, and penned "A Change is Gonna Come." Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, and Pete Townshend responded to the challenge by writing more complex and lyrically sophisticated songs. After Dylan, absolutely no one could ignore lyrics. (The book, by the way, was eventually written by someone vastly more qualified than I am: Greil Marcus, in his 2005 book BOB DYLAN: AT THE CROSSROADS, a book on my Summer 2005 reading list.)

This boxed set provides a magnificent overview of Dylan's work, but is also significant for being arguably the first great boxed set to appear after the CD format appeared. It was the first such set to blend both previously unreleased cuts (such as his famous 1966 London solo recording of "Visions of Johanna"), hard-to-find singles (such as "Positively 4th Street," previously only on the BOB DYLAN'S GREATEST HITS album, which was otherwise useless for those who owned all of Dylan's albums), overlooked songs from neglected albums (most notably the stunning "Every Grain of Sand," from his Christian album SAVED), as well as a couple of handfuls of hits. Because Dylan has been the most prolific musical figure of the rock era, it is impossible to do anything approaching a comprehensive collection (unless one would to do a 25-CD boxed set), so this box represents merely a taste, but a very good taste it is. Of how many artists could it be said that a 3-CD set represented only an introduction? It is instructive that one of the Beatles in an interview (I believe it was George Harrison) was asked whether he thought the Beatles would be listened to five hundred years from now. He replied that he didn't know, that the only contemporary artist he was certain would still be familiar would be Bob Dylan.

The cuts on the albums are arranged non-chronologically, which seems to bother some listeners, and I can understand their reasoning. But musically I think arranging the songs by contrast and variation probably results in easier listening. Also, so ordering the songs results in unexpected insights. For instance, it is generally thought (on the whole, quite correctly) that Dylan wrote most of his good music in the sixties, rebounded in the mid-seventies to produce a couple of stunning albums (including the amazing BLOOD ON THE TRACKS), suffered a permanent decline only occasionally interrupted by gems like EMPIRE BURLESQUE in 1985 and TIME OUT OF MIND in 1997. But BIOGRAPH showed that Dylan had written songs after BLOOD ON THE TRACKS that could stand up to his best sixties and seventies work. If BIOGRAPH doesn't change one's mind about the primacy of the earlier work, it helps make one less dismissive of the later.

Dylan's output has been so massive that arguing that this or that song should have been put in rather than another. My only complaint is instead of the version of "Isis" from DESIRE, they included a previously unreleased version that lacked all of the subtlety and charm of the original. It does serve to illustrate how dramatically Dylan will perform his songs. Still, whenever I hear this "Isis" I end up pulling out DESIRE and listen to that one instead.

For reasons I won't go into, I have owned both the original 1985 release of BIOGRAPH and the 1997 repackaging. The latter is greatly to be preferred because they upgraded the recordings for the re-release. If you compare CDs from the respective sets, the quality of the more recent set is obvious.