I’ve been listening to Bob Dylan’s Biograph over the last couple of days. Oddly enough, it’s my favorite Dylan album. Biograph is a five LP box set released in 1985, making it one of the earlier box sets in rock (but I’m not sure when the first box set was released). I think I like it because it’s not a greatest hits album, as not all all of his top 20 songs appear on it, and it’s not a retrospective, as the songs aren’t arranged chronologically.
So what is it? I think the best description of Biograph is that it’s five separate mix tapes (LPs, CDs) that Dylan put together for his fans. Each LP is like a new album even if it’s made up of previously released songs. They’re put together so well that even the songs you know sound different alongside these other songs.
Rock and Romanticism has three essays that cover Dylan (exclusively or with other artists):
- Matthew Borushko’s “Dylan and Shelley.”
- Matthew Lorenz’s “Seeking, Joining, Finding: Songs of the Open Road.”
- Luke Walker, “Tangled up in Blake: The Triangular Relationship between Dylan, Blake, and the Beats.”
Unfortunately, all of Biograph isn’t available on YouTube, but “Abandoned Love” is:
Rock and Romanticism 