These 51 songs--arranged in chronological order--track Dylan's development from Greenwich Village folk hero to surrealist rocker to grizzled bluesman. All the key tracks from his glory days are here, from "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," but perhaps more illuminating is the esoterica; anyone not paying close attention to Dylan's career left-turns could easily have missed such almost-lost gems as "Dark Eyes" (from the largely unremarkable EMPIRE BURLESQUE) or "Blood in My Eyes" from trad folk/blues album WORLD GONE WRONG. When the dust of history settles, the lesser-known tunes collected on DYLAN will be just as important as the "hits."

In 1985 Bob Dylan's Biograph established the blueprint for weighty rock & roll retrospectives, blending rare and unreleased material with classics over the course of a three-disc set that wound up being the template for rock & roll boxes for the next 20 years or so. Twenty-two years later, Dylan's second triple-disc retrospective arrived, and it's quite a different beast, bucking all the conventions that Biograph instituted. Simply called Dylan, thereby creating confusion with the 1973 rarities set Dylan that Columbia released in a pique of anger as he recorded with Asylum briefly, the set is nothing more and nothing less than a concise introduction to Bob, with all the rarities trimmed away. As befitting its companion status to Todd Haynes' impressionistic biopic I'm Not There -- where no less than six actors played the Bard, including actress Cate Blanchett -- Dylan comes in a multitude of forms, beginning with a terse single disc, then expanding out to a three-disc set, which is then offered in a variety of limited-edition sets. Although the single disc is good, it's the three-disc set that commands attention. It's truly a exceptional encapsulation of his work.

Yes, there are great, even significant, songs missing -- no other songwriter has quite as deep a catalog -- but the remarkable thing is that there is no dip in quality here, thanks to judicious selections from the '80s but also Dylan's remarkable comeback of the late '90s/2000s. It was the great third act that his great career needed, and while he is sure to make more great music, the 22 years not covered by Biograph but present here turn Dylan into a richer aural biography. It hits many, but not all, of the '60s and early-'70s highlights, soft-sells the scatteredness of the '80s albums by picking the best songs (including "Blind Willie McTell," unearthed on the first Bootleg Series; nothing can quite save those slick, cavernous productions), and in this context the '90s and 2000s work sounds even more impressive. This doesn't give you everything you should hear, but as an introduction to Dylan in his entirety, this can't be beat. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

The single-disc distillation of the triple-disc 2007 set Dylan weighs in at 18 tracks -- considerably shorter than the 51-track box -- but it covers the same ground, beginning with "Blowin' in the Wind" and ending with "Someday Baby" from his 2006 album Modern Times. That's a lot to cover in one disc, so it's inevitable that some details are glossed over. Still, this isn't intended to be a thorough introduction, the way that the triple-disc set is. Instead, this is a basic primer built upon the standards -- "The Times They Are A-Changin'," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Like a Rolling Stone," "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," "All Along the Watchtower," "Lay Lady Lay," and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." This doesn't make for a deep introduction, but it's not intended to be: it's merely a disc with all of the biggest Bob songs, the first ever to be released, actually. On that level it works as either the simplest introduction to Dylan ever, or as the best all-the-hits collection he's ever had. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine