Bob Dylan 40: Greatest Hits Vol. 3 and Unplugged

He wasn’t exactly in a career renaissance, but Bob was a little more top of mind in the mid-‘90s, between aging fans who followed him from tour stop to tour stop and younger fans looking for a reason to smoke pot in public and cheer every harmonica solo.

Since it had been over twenty years, Columbia decided they could finally put together a third greatest hits album. We wonder if they’d even tried to find a recent photo to match the blue-tinted ones of the covers of the previous two, but that’s a petty concern considering that he really hadn’t had many “hits” since the last installment. Granted, the obvious ones are here—“Tangled Up In Blue”, “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, “Gotta Serve Somebody”, “Hurricane”, “Forever Young”, and “Silvio” (to appease the Deadheads)—but the set is also bolstered by some more clever additions. “Changing Of The Guards”, “Jokerman”, and “Series Of Dreams” are all excellent, but again, not exactly hits. “Ring Them Bells” was hardly one of the more played songs from Oh Mercy, but the inclusion of “Under The Red Sky” and all eleven minutes of “Brownsville Girl” are just plain bizarre. (At least they didn’t try to squeeze “Joey” on there.) “Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar” is always welcome. For collectors there was one new song, “Dignity”, left over from the Oh Mercy sessions and all but rerecorded by producer du jour Brendan O’Brien.

By the end of the decade, when things had changed (foreshadowing!) for him, Sony would put out a number of “best of” collections that attempted to cover his entire career, but none would include each and every one of the songs previously deemed his greatest hits. 2007’s deluxe DYLAN came closest, though 2000’s The Essential Bob Dylan does a better job with only two discs. But back to our story.

To promote the album, Bob consented to an official MTV Unplugged performance, naturally followed by an album and home video. The program itself is pleasant enough—twelve songs, some familiar, some not so—featuring not only a performance of his latest so-called hit “Dignity”, plus the first-ever album appearance of the protest-era nugget “John Brown”.

As a Dylan concert it’s okay; some would insist that his similar shows recorded a year earlier at New York City’s Supper Club deserve wider exposure. What’s ridiculous is that his most recent “new” albums both featured bona fide unplugged accompaniment, unlike the Hammond organ and pedal steel-fueled performances here.

For keeping Bob’s image in front of new listeners, these albums did the trick. However, fans old and new would have much rather had something truly substantial to ingest, and not half-baked rehashes.

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 (1994)—3½
Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged (1995)—2½