Customer Reviews

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan/The Times They Are A-Changin/Another Side Of Bob Dylan

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This slip case encloses three albums that are all very good, and probably should be in the collection of just about any self-respecting music fan. All three are classics, historically important, and great. However, be warned: if you already have these albums, there's no reason to buy this box. The albums are the same (track and package wise), and the new packaging is minimal. However, if you don't already own these CDs, this IS the way that you should purchase them, since they come conveniently in one package, and is considerably cheaper than buying them all separately.

BOTTOM LINE: If you don't have these albums already, get this. If you do, don't bother.

Make this known; if you enjoy the best of Bob Dylan then you already own these three CDs. However if you enjoy great music but don't own these three classic Dylan sets (shame on you) then this is the way to get them. They're essential '60s folk from the greatest poet of the past 50 years with great sound, coming at an exceedingly low price. (Less than 8$ per CD, in fact) If you insist on knowing more let me review each one for you.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan- 4 Stars The weakest of three. While much of it is average and it contains its share of filler (Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance is one of Dylan's worst) it also contains some of the greatest material of Dylan's career and in all of music (A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Blowin' in the Wind, Girl from the North Country, Don't Think Twice Its All Right, Masters of War). Essential folk and protest music.

The Times They Are a Changin- 5 stars The most consistent and most satisfying of the three albums. Its still folk, but not quite as traditional. Captures Dylan at his most whimsical as a poet, giving us vivid images and fascinating lyrics through his music. Not a bad song in the set. Up there with Dylan's best poetry (Behind Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61, Blonde on Blond, and Time out of Mind.)

Another Side of Bob Dylan- 5 stars Another step in Bob Dylan's evolution. He may still be using accoustic guitar, but Dylan now has some rock 'n' roll attitude to back up his folk style. Here he moves beyond protest music, becoming far more witty and loose. While it is inconsistent (but with less filler than Freewheelin') classics such as My Back Pages, Chimes of Freedom, All I Really Want to Do, and It Ain't Me Babe this is a 5 star classic.

So if you are a long time Dylan collector, then you already have these albums in some form or another, so this is obsolete to you. But if you need to get some high quality Dylan at a nice price this box set is something you should get today. And if you don't have them (and I'd hate to be you if you don't) get Blonde on Blonde/Blood on the Tracks/Time Out of Mind (Another Bob Dylan box set) and Highway 61 Revisited while you're at it. YOU WILL NEVER REGRET IT!

P.S. Why are you still reading this. Get them NOW!

This Box Set is an elegant choice for fans of early Dylan covering sixty-three to sixty-four, and I also appreciate CBS's packaging. The chronology is proper (no missing albums), with each disc presented in its own unique red jewel case. The cover art and LP paper insert are faithfully reproduced, and the original song sequence is maintained. Overall sound quality (from analog masters) is sparkling. For about eight bucks each, that's not too shabby. Nice package, nice price, nice going CBS.

in all honesty, these are dylan's 3 best original albums (i also loved his self-titled, but it only contains 2 songs that he wrote). the best of the three, i'd have to say is "the freewheelin' . . ." although the others are very close.

freewheelin' has some of the best songs ever written on it. "don't think twice" and "hard rain's a-gonna fall" are the best in my opinion. hard rain is very emotional and you can tell that dylan meant every word of what he sang about. the sarcasm and wit of "don't think twice" is very humorous, and the melodies and music itself is just brilliant. all the songs on this album are near perfection (with the exception of "blowin' in the wind", i think peter,paul,and mary ruined that one for me).

"the times they are a-changin'" is the second, and damn near equally brilliant, of the set. song's like "only a pawn in their game" and "god on our side" tell the story of a man troubled by what he see's going on around him. the whole album is very strong, most bands would be lucky to have an album with ONE song as good as any of these.

"another side of bob dylan" doesnt really have the reputation of the other two, but is just as good in my opinion. songs like "all i really wanna do" and "i shall be free #10", show that dylan is more than just deep lyrics, his songs stand on their own without a political message. he goes even further with "my back pages" to say that he may even be wrong about some of the things he's saying. lyrics such as "i was so much older then, i'm younger than that now" tell us that he has learned a lot, and isn't as naive as he once was. overall, a beautiful album.

if you are just getting into dylan and want to start buying his albums, i'd say these three are the perfect place to start. they're some of the best albums of ANY artist of ANY time . . .

thank you and good night.

The reason I give it four stars is, other than being a cheap way to pick up all three albums, this package has little marketing value other than economics. It would have been interesting had they stuck on a few unreleased tidbits from the Columbia vaults on here, rounding them out to about 75-80 minutes apiece.

That doesn't mean I think the music is not good. I tend to think of Dylan's work in trilogies, with this acting as his Folk Trilogy. While the debut is folk, this, with the exception of two tracks off FREEWHEELIN', is entirely Dylan's material.

In this package, we have one of the single most important albums released in the Sixties here: THE FREEWHEELIN' BOB DYLAN. Its anthems are well known, and it has one of my favorite Dylan compositions ("Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"). I highly recommend THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOLUMES I-III, with the first disk having some great outtakes to this album. Tracks I think should have been included: "Let Me Die In My Footsteps", "Bear Mountain Picnic", "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", and "House Carpenter". This could have very easily been a double album, and there are a lot of great outtakes to this. The amazing thing, though, is had it been a double album it would still stand as important as it does now.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN', is, to me, the weakest of these three albums. Dylan has two albums that capture such emotional depths it is very hard and intense listening. One is BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, and the other this. Which is better depends on what you want, though for most people BLOOD will be the better listen.. THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' deals with Dylan's cynicism of life, and his plea to get things back in order. It is pure folk, with none of the electric guitars permeating his music as in later albums. (From my own standpoint, although I love folk music, I think Dylan's rock albums are some of the best around. For me, both are richly satisfying, which is something he has over The Beatles. Bubble-gum pop is alright, but not near as good as the real thing. The Beatles' later period is much better than their earlier period, whereas Dylan was more well-rounded). Not to say it's not good, but it pales next to FREEWHEELIN' and ANOTHER SIDE. Has anyone noticed that when Dylan does works in series of threes the second installment is always the weakest? It happens here, it happens with SAVED of the Christian Trilogy, and it also happens with the Double Album trilogy (BLONDE ON BLONDE, SELF PORTRAIT, and TIME OUT OF MIND). Anway, about this record, it has Dylan in ultra-protest mode, with a bunch of angry songs. "Seven Curses" should have been on this record. The title cut is probably one of Dylan's most famous anthems, and "Ballad" is about a farmer shooting his family because of severe economic circumstances. The standout cuts are "Times", "One Too Many Mornings" (which gets an excellent rendition on the ROYAL ALBERT HALL CONCERT), "Only A Pawn", "When the Ship Comes in", "Boots of Spanish Leather", and "Hattie Carroll". The epic song "With God on Our Side" talks about the universal tactic of the political machinery of nations: they sell whatever they are doing militarily as "This is what your God wants," and by doing so justifying their actions. They are appealing to the almost universal belief of God in a cultural system, and taking advantages of syntaxes. Although not always wrong, Dylan is right that a lot of it is damned propaganda to obtain more power for the leaders. It stands as an important album, and it has Dylan at a stage of protest where we never see him again. But, as the Amazon reviewer points out, he sounds just as world weary here as he does on TIME OUT OF MIND, though the latter is a much better record. Its also interesting to compare this to the track "Things Have Changed", the latest word we have heard from Mr. Zimmerman. Dylan's come a very long road.

ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN, to me, is simply an amazing record. This is the album before BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, where he went electric for one side. Just as the title suggests, this shows Dylan moving away from the protest-topical songs and into more introverted lyrics. This process of deconstructing personas Dylan has continued throughout his career. This subject matter, especially that of "Ballad In Plain D", is very far from anything on TIMES THEY ARE. It instead stands as a more personal record. The only cuts not really necessary are "I Shall Be Free #10", which has a few references that should have been taken out ("I sat my monkey on the log in order for him to do the dog he wagged his tail and shook his head he went and did the cat instead he's a weird monkey"). The other throwaway is "Motopsycho Nitemare", but its simply hilarious. This record also stands as the one that introduced me to Bob Dylan, and it is the first Dylan album I listened too all the way through. So it has some sentimental value to me. But I can listen to it now, and simply be amazed at how really good it is.

Like I said, the only motivation to buy this is it's a great way to pick up the albums if you don't already have them. This would stand as a much more important rerelease had it included rare and unreleased stuff at the end of the records, but as it is this item is only of nominal interest to collectors of Dylan. Columbia has done this with a lot of its artists and musicians, and there's another pack of Dylan, featuring NASHVILLE SKYLINE, NEW MORNING, and JOHN WESLEY HARDING.

to collectors The music's first rate, but this package little value to collectors

The first CD in the set (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) is probably the best of the three. Needless to say, there are the angry, abrasive political songs that first made Dylan famous, such as "Masters of War" and "Oxford Town." He includes some playful songs, as well, though, such as "Bob Dylan's Blues" and "I Shall Be Free," and "Girl from the North Country" is an absolutely beautiful love song. "Blowin' in the Wind" has become so trite and ubiquitous over the years that it is almost unlistenable, but the other songs on the album compensate for it.

In The Times They Are A-Changin' CD, the anger from Freewheelin' has been transformed into sadness. "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol" are rich in heart-wrenching pathos, and "With God on Our Side" is dripping with wistful irony. Overall, it's an extremely melancholy record (even more melancholy than Time Out of Mind), but the sadness is honest and genuine . . .there's nothing false or contrived about it.

Another Side of Bob Dylan, finally, is the weakest album of the set. "Chimes of Freedom" is a terrific song, but it seems to be the only song on the album that Dylan actually crafted with any viable concern. After all, he can clearly be heard cracking up during the middle of "All I Really Want To Do" and "I Don't Believe You," and the bizarre lyrics of "I Shall Be Free Number 10" and "My Back Pages" do not suggest much time or consideration. Even so, Dylan's haphazardness is very appealing, and the record as a whole not only manifests his restlessness with folk music but also foreshadows the rock albums that would follow.

These three records are masterpieces by anyone's opinion and are perhaps Dylan's best work. He was young and he was so good.

-- The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan --

Freewheelin' is Bob Dylan's second record. While his first was an album of mostly folk song covers with only two originals, this record had only two covers, the rest being originals and some of Bob Dylan's finest work. "Girl From the North Country" is one of my favorite songs, by anybody, and to think it was written by a twenty-one-year-old kid, almost half a century ago, way back in 1963.

"Master's of War" still seems valid today. Re, those masters of war, those seller's of guns, "There is one thing I know, though I'm younger than you, that even Jesus would never forgive what you do." Yet, despite those words that moved so many, all these years later the masters of war are still plying their trade. And, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention "Blowin' in the Wind," perhaps the best antiwar song ever written. Dylan asks nine questions about war and freedom, the answers to all of them, I'm afraid are, "Blowin' in the Wind."

-- The Times they are a-Changin' --

The opening track, "The Times they are a-Changin'" is a call to arms. It was heeded in the Sixties when the streets were filled with protesters, kids who wanted an end to the war in Vietnam. Dylan has sung this song countless times over the years, talking about the battle that is outside raging, but somehow we've forgotten this message, though we sing the words with Dylan at almost every concert he's given on his never ending tour. Sadly there are almost no protesters today. And it seems if one does raise a voice, bad things could happen to him.

Lord, I have to wonder if God ever was on our side. Bob Dylan doesn't think he was, but there are so many today who are convinced he is, maybe they should listen to this record. At least we've done something about the horrible racism Dylan sings about on "Only a Pawn in Their Game" and the haunting "Ballad of Hollis Brown," but we have a long way to go. I think all those people who are so against those who only want to better themselves by coming to America should be forced to sit down and listen to this record. That's what I think.


-- Another Side of Bob Dylan --

For me "Another Side" is all about "The Chimes of Freedom." Yes there are several other good songs on this record that marks a change for Bob Dylan from his so called "Protest Period" to a darker, deeper, more poetic kind of music. Poetry, Dylan had become a poet and to all of those who think there are hidden meaning in his words I have to say, "No, I don't think so." I think Dylan put it all out there, said what he meant and meant what he said. No hidden meanings, no secrets implied, but who needs 'em. "Chimes of Freedom" says enough, says if for a generation, for generations.

"Tolling for the Rebel, tolling for the rake, tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and the forsaked." What words, what power from this twenty-three-year-old singer who was already tired of leading a movement. Still, try as he might, he was the one the youth of his time looked up to, listened to, wanted to follow, but Dylan wasn't leading. Just imagine what this world might be like today if he had been. Maybe some of those misdemeanor outlaws who wound up in the White House might have been sidelined where they belonged. Ah, well, we'll never know.

Still, this is one fine record. "To Ramona" is one of the best songs ever written, the poetry so divine in this dark song. "It grieves my heart love, to see ya trying to be a part of a world that just don't exist." It's like he's singing about me, way before I was born, because I sure want to be a part of that world that doesn't exist. Ah, I was so much older than, older yesterday even. It's so sad sometimes, because like Dylan says, they "hype you and type you in making you feel that you gotta be just like them." I know I'm not making much sense, but get this record. Don't be like them, just do what you think you should do.

I'd always been a casual fan of Dylan...having heard mostly "the greatest hits" through the years...but I had a chance this past year to see him live, and I was so impressed, I told myself I had to go back and delve a little deeper. So when I saw these 3 in 1 deals on Amazon, I figured it was time to make a purchase. I'm glad I did. All three discs are great, and it's comforting to know that if I begin to tire of these, there are quite a few more new (to me, anyway) albums available.

This set if made up of three of Bob Dylan's acoustic records and it would be decades after these three that he'd come out with another all acoustic disc. These are three outstanding pieces of work and after listening to them it's easy to see why some of his fans were so upset when he went electric. Little did they know how he was going to revolutionize rock. Anyway, this is a doggone good way to get all three records if you don't have them. Check out my short comments, then check out the records, you won't be disappointed.

Freewheelin'

Released in March of 1963 this album, unlike his first, consists mostly of songs by Mr. Dylan himself. The songs, everyone a gem, seem to be a running commentary on what it must have been like to be in young in the early Sixties and getting mixed messages from those in power. JFK was alive with the promise of hope and a New Frontier, yet the war in Vietnam was hotting up.

Songs like the lead off "Blowin' in the Wind," "Talking World War III Blues," "A Hard Rain," and "Masters of War," which appears to be just as relevant now as it was forty years ago, seem to be a somber message of the turbulent times to come.

With "Don't Think Twice," "Girl From the North Country," and "Corrina, Corrina," Mr. Dylan shows us that he's not just about protesting and complaining, that he can sing the tender ballads as well, and why not, this was a time of hope, there was tenderness in 1963, however there were storm clouds on the horizon, Dallas and a full blown war were coming and this record seems to be a warning.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

The third Bob Dylan LP, better than the first two and a portent of things to come. Hard to top "Freewheelin'", but in my opinion Dylan did it here. This album opens with "The Times They Are A-Changin'", which is a ringing call to arms for America's youth. As valid today as it was in the 60s. If ever America needed a young troubadour to point out the error of her was, that time is now. "With God on Our Side" is a song I've heard down with different lyrics over the years. Dylan just subs in the lastest war or two and makes us see they are as senseless as all the rest. Then there is that Dylan song that John Lennon liked so much, "When the Ship Comes In," a mind numbing song in which Dylan paints countless pictures with his unique ability to use words. Nobody uses words the way Dylan does and nobody does it better. This LP stands as well today as it did back then. It is haunting.

Another Side of Bob Dylan

There are probably boat loads of people out there who will disagree with me, but I think the best song on this album is "To Ramona". It's stood the test of time, this I know, because I've got in on my favorite Dylan playlist in iTunes. It ain't just no silly lovesong, it's a portrait painted in words. Words that will take you in, move you and leave you wanting more. "I Don't Believe You" is another song like that and it's also one of the songs he chose to electrify during his 66 tour. A powerful song with our without the band. Of course, everybody is familiar with "It Ain't me Babe," a song done by a lot of people, but in the end Dylan's version is the best. And if you don't believe, like I do, that America is losing her way, give a listen to "Chime of Freedom", and just maybe you'll change your mind.

All three of these superb discs get a big thumbs up from me.

Three of Dylan's strongest, folkiest records from the 60's in one nicely priced package. Not a bad way to acquire them at all. Highly recommended!