Bob Dylan has been releasing installments of his “Bootleg Series” since the 1990s, that offer fans to hear alternate takes, live versions of songs and hear gems Dylan never released for the public. It worked well the first time around, but those that followed have been usually hit-and-miss. Last time around, he cruelly released a six-album set of him tinkering for nine hours with The Band for the “Basement Tapes.”
They contained a lot of trash like this (I love the Hank Williams Sr. version, so this version just made me angry):
This time around, the folks who compile every fart, burp, wheeze, mumble and strum from all of Dylan’s recording sessions have compiled a collection from what is known as Dylan’s mysterious “good years” of the mid-to-late 60s, when Mr. Zimmerman actually made albums people might want to listen to and not just lie to their friends and call a hot garbage album a “misunderstood classic.” This collection is also literally promoted as containing “every note recorded” he recorded in 1965/1966.
The new collection, “The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12,” collects material from the “Bringing It All Back Home,” Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde” era, thus making it the first in the “Bootleg Series” since the first one that people just might actually be interested in.
Though who would actually have the patience to sit through 18-discs of Dylan from an era when he only produced three albums is up in the air. Hardcore fans will love it in their creepy, cultish way and of course, as with everything else Dylan farts out as a reissue or revisit of garbage albums of his past, the scribes at Rolling Stone will no doubt give this collection a solid four-or-five-star review because anything with his name on it — even the garbage years that gave the world the unlistenable “Self Portrait” — cannot be judged harshly for mysterious reasons by the aging boomer magazine.
The 18-disc collection includes:
- Limited, numbered edition of 5,000 units worldwide THESE WILL BE THE ONLY COPIES OF THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION EVER MANUFACTURED.
- Every note recorded by Bob Dylan in the studio in 1965/1966
- 379 tracks on 18 discs
- 170 page hardcover 11” x 11” book
- Certificate of authenticity
Also includes:
- The original nine mono 45 RPM singles released during the time period
- A leopard skin printed spindle
- A strip of film cells from an original print of the “Don’t Look Back” film
It will be available in 2xCD, 6xCD, and 18xCD editions.
The JOE-DOWN 