Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits [Remaster] (CD - 1967)

Personnel: Bob Dylan (vocals, guitar, harmonica, keyboards).

Photographer: Roland Scherman.

Arriving in 1967, Greatest Hits does an excellent job of summarizing Dylan's best-known songs from his first seven albums. At just ten songs, it's a little brief, and the song selection may be a little predictable, but that's actually not a bad thing, since this provides a nice sampler for the curious and casual listener, as it boasts standards from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Like a Rolling Stone." And, for collectors, the brilliant non-LP single "Positively Fourth Street" was added, which provided reason enough for anybody that already owned the original records to pick this up. This has since been supplanted by more exhaustive collections, but as a sampler of Dylan at his absolute peak, this is first-rate. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Released in 1967, this collection anthologizes the best early work of one of the most important musical innovators of the 20th Century. As daunting a task as that might seem, it's pretty hard to go wrong with such a wealth of material to choose from. This album covers many sides of Dylan's mercurial muse, from the good-timey New Orleans funeral-march feel of "Rainy Day Women, #12 & 35" to protest songs like "Blowin' In The Wind" and the groundbreaking mother of all put-down songs, "Like A Rolling Stone." The songs collected here amount to a primer on the changing face of popular song form in post-Elvis America. Required listening. minimize