Expecting Rain

Okay folks - here it is, a collection of greats. which are spectacularly arranged by themed sides....oh, i'm sorry, were some of you expecting Oh Mercy?

This poll: Biograph

I've recently grown to appreciate the difference in attending to one side of a record, versus popping in a long CD that i pass in and out of attention with. and many dylan albums seem to be structured around these segments. so, i'm starting a poll series about preferred sides on vinyl. i'm not really centering on the value of any one song over the other, but rather how each side flows and stands coherently.

10 sides though....okay you can pick your top two.

A tough choice between side 6 and side 7. Both are almost perfect.

I bought this on CD when it came out. The 'album side' pov breaks down a bit once we hit the era of the CD - although, perversely, I bought Bootlegs 1-3 on vinyl (but later upgraded to CD, they work better on CDs). In the heyday of the LP, there was a real effort, with the best LPs, to create strong sides with a strong track closing Side 1 and opening Side 2. Once we hit the era of the CD, that kind of thinking falls away rapidly. As CDs encouraged more and more 70 minute albums, I don't think much attention was paid at all to how they would fit on vinyl sides. Modern Times must have four sides, I doubt there is any kind of particular coherence to them.

right, but the two sided cassette still was fairly present for the start of the CD era - i first had this on CD too, and found each disc to have their own character - i was blown away at how logically the were placed for the vinyl sides. i'm eager to see how those 90s and later albums play out. much harder to create a cohesive side with only 2 or 3 tracks on each i suppose.

Raylroad - you can pick both of those options - put your mind at ease!

i'm glad side 4 has been represented - such a dynamic range of excellence demonstrated on it....

Oh yeah, I forgot ... I eventually went with side 7 simply because those songs are rarer. "Caribbean Wind", "Up To Me", "Positively 4th Street"... that's three rare masterpieces. Side 6, on the other hand, contains only one rare masterpiece ("Abandoned Love"). Of course the rest of this side is fantastic as well, but it's not as rare as the other stuff.

Speaking of rare songs, I'd also miss "Percy's Song" which used to be one of my favourite tracks.

Side 2 is extremely powerful when one is angry at the world's ills. Percy is sublime.

6 and 7.

i don't know what's with me and caribbean wind...for my first 10 years of owning biograph on CD, i would skip the first track of disc three (CW). i like it when in particular moods, but it's never swept me away.

Must be fate, I just bought the album this afternoon, and I actually freakin loved it, I didn't think it was that perfect. Tough choice is tough. Maybe the 7th.. Or the 6th..

Jack Fate appears often in these parts 20thboy - and welcome to ER - seems like you are moving forward with your Dylan exposure with poise and diligence.

this poll is dedicated to TellMeMomma, who initially told me how nice this record collection is. the next day i found the set at a low key record store that was significantly reduced due to water damage on the box. the records looked like they've never been played. it was a nice day.

The first Bob Dylan record I bought was Slow Train Coming, in 1981. Though I was in high school, I was only allowed to buy gospel music from the "Christian Bookstore" at the time. The next Bob Dylan record I bought was Biograph, in 1986.

I was all about side 4. Lay Down Your Weary tune is still one of my top 5 Dylan tunes. Every Grain of Sand blew my mind and stung my heart. But it was that live Visions of Johanna that hypnotized me. I had pretty much all the rest of the records within a few years.

First heard "Weary Tune," the live version of "Isis" and "Up to Me" via Biograph. All of them were moments of Dylan epiphany for me. I voted for 4 and 7.

The title to this thread is somewhat of a mis-nomer... While many of these tracks had been previously unavailable in this form, most had been released officially years before and do not qualify (in my book) as released in the '80s... Saved, Shot of Love, etc... those are '80s releases and almost none of the Biograph material can really compete with Bob's '80s output.

Biograph, as it turns out, was the sign post for the very successful Official Bootleg Series to come.

UP, i respect your platform and all, but if i were to list all the songs on Biograph and put them up against the entire collection of songs recorded and released in the 1980s, I'm pretty sure how the poll would turn out.

If I remember something I read correctly, Biograph was the first Boxed Set. and there is no misinterpretation - the collection was released in the 1980s. That's like saying the NET is not entirely contemporary because the content wasn't all written in the last few years.

And hence, the limitation of polls. Its like popular elections... that's the way we get Presidents like George W. Bush. Polls can assess opinion but they are susceptible to missing beauty, quality, and the finer things of life.

As it turns out, I seem to be the only one standing on my platform.