The Essential Bob Dylan (2001)

Artist: Bob Dylan
Album: The Essential Bob Dylan
Label: Columbia
Year: 2001
Discs: 2
Series: The Essential... (Sony Legacy)
Type: Aural History

Review: One of the earliest compilation albums brought about by the smash success of The Beatles' 1, The Essential Bob Dylan marks the true beginning of Sony's Essential franchise (now before you try to correct me, I know that The Essential Journey actually predated this by a few months but it didn't fit in with the rest of the franchise at that point), a collection of double disc sets focusing in single artists. This wasn't an original idea as Rhino's Anthology series had at least 9 years on the concept, but The Essential created a brand image with a fixed packaging look and consistantly high quality remastering and track arrangement.

It seem somewhat surprising that Dylan would be the first artist to be featured in the series proper. Bob Dylan had had his share of compilations in the past with three volumes of greatest hits in the 60's, 70's (a double album featuring rerecorded Basement Tapes tracks) and early 90's. On top of that there was the classic box set Biograph in 1985 (remastered in 1997) and the the first three "volumes" (it was a box!) of The Bootleg Series. Therefore why was it necessary to do another compilation? The reason is pretty simple. Up to this point there had never been a Bob Dylan compilation that arranged his hits in order of release and there wasn't a set that had them all in one convenient package, you had to buy multiple volumes. A commercial opportunity had arisen.

Essential Bob Dylan takes that opportunity and runs with it ignoring his self-titled debut and kicking off with tracks from Freewheelin'... before plowing through 30 years of content (the album stops at "Things have Changed" from the Wonder Boys soundtrack) hitting the most important notes like Subterranean Homesick Blues, Mr. Tamborine Man, Like A Rollin' Stone, Tangled Up in Blue, and Jokerman along the way. There are some gaps of course, the programmers of this set understandably ignore dreck like Self-Portrait and the infamous 1972 Dylan album. But would it have been hard to sneak in The Groom is Still Waiting at the Alter from Shot of Love? Other albums like Nashville Skyline and Desire are barely represented at all and that's a bit disappointing.

Those flaws aside this compilation still stands tall and serves as a welcome first salvo in what would become one of the most influential compilation lines of all time.

Music: *****
Packaging: **** 1/2 (not much in the way of liner notes but the use of Columbia disk labels from the 20s is inspired)
Sound: *****
Overall: *****

Johnny Mathis - "Johnny's Greatest Hits"

Artist: Johnny Mathis
Title: Johnny's Greatest Hits
Label: Columbia
Year: 1958
Series: None
Type: Standard Greatest Hits

Review: In the beginning, there was darkness... and then Johnny's Greatest Hits!

Ok that statement may be a bit of an exaggeration but there is truth to it. Johnny's Greatest Hits is what is considered to be the first true compilation in popular music, predating Elvis' Golden Records by a year. At the time Mathis had racked up a large wealth on non-album chart hits in the mid-50's with classics like When Sunny Gets Blue and Wonderful! Wonderful! that an album like this just seemed like a good idea at the time (nowadays we'd call it practically revolutionary). Whoever thought of it first at CBS deserves credit, this album spent a ridiculously long time on the Billboard Charts (over 400 weeks, a record eventually broken by Pink Floyd, and now unattainable due to the introduction of the Pop Catalog chart).

But how fair the music? Well for most fans the core Mathis catalog is all on this album. Chances Are, The Twelth of Never, and All The Time were the quintessential make out tunes of the 50s with their use of unearthly female backing chorus and luscious strings. This is Mathis in his romantic mode, no jazzy stuff like Teacher's Pet allowed, and considering he never really worked well in a jazzy setting, this is all for the best.

Regrettably, for all its commercial and historical merits, Johnny's Greatest Hits has never been properly treated by Columbia. All these tracks were originally mono singles and so was the initial release of this album. Sales however took a hit in the 60s due to the lack of desire to buy a mono album for Stereo equipment. So Columbia elected to remaster and reissue this album in "Electronically Re-channeled Stereo!"(translation: Duophonic) and it has been this master that has been used ever since. Bottom line: it sounds terrible. Duophonic stereo was never convincing, fluctuating between a heavily reverbed mono or the feeling you were underwater. These flaws all got transferred over to the cd release, which dates back to the mid-80's and has never been remastered. Dire straits all around.

So why bother with Johnny's Greatest Hits? Mostly its for reasons of historical merit. This is a good set of classic tracks that, despite awful sound quality, does paint a pretty good picture of what was popular in the easy-listening days of the mid-50s. There are other Mathis compilations out there but none of them do as good a job of covering this period as well as this one does.

Ratings:

Music: ***** (classic 50s easy listening makeout music)
Packaging: *** 1/2 (vinyl: just a sleave, CD: has a small essay for liner notes)
Sound: ** (Duophonic = BAD)
Overall: *** 1/2

Ratings are based off a rating scale of one to five stars.

Here beginnith the Compilation Compendium

Welcome to the Compilation Compendium! A blog designed to review those albums that often indicate the end of times for some artists, the compilation album. During the course of this blog I'll be looking at box sets, single discs, double discs, and the occasional triple disc. We'll be hearing a lot from the usual suspects in the reissue field like Warner's Rhino, Sony's Legacy, UMG's Chronicles, etc. And I'll also be going over some specific "series" like Rhino's various Anthologies , Sony's Essentials, UMG's Gold, and EMI's Legendary Masters Series. My purpose of this is to show that there is a variance in how compilation albums are put together and approached. To do this, I will be using the following terminology...

• Standard Greatest Hits - This is typically a one disc affair and more often than not has the words "greatest hits" on it. Mostly comprised of singles that made a serious dent on the charts or were fan favorites at live shows. Occasionally an artist will throw in some new tracks to sweeten the deal. More often than not these will not be arranged in chronological order.

• Quick fix - Similar to above but with a heavily abridged track listing and lower price point. Most of the time, these will be branded as part of a series (Super Hits, 20th Century Masters: The Millenium Collection, etc.)

• Aural History - These albums take more of a scholarly approach to an artist, usually focusing on a combination of hits and album tracks arranged in chronological order to trace overall development. Early examples date back to the 1970s with Atco's "History of Eric Clapton" and Neil Young's "Decade", but the format really took off in the early 90's following the smash success of Clapton's "Crossroads" box set.

• Catalog Killer - These attempt the everything but the kitchen sink approach. Where aural history albums usually leave sizable gaps in certain albums to get you interested in looking for their artists' albums, these albums leave no gaps. They're all studio works with rarities and non-album singles included designed for the fans who are already aware of said work and don't need an introduction.

As of late there has been a great deal of crossbreeding between these types so I'll be annotating them accordingly. Also in my reviews I will be looking (or listening) at sound quality, packaging, and liner notes. So with that out of the way... welcome to The Compilation Compendium!