dylanbest

Bob Dylan and The Band – The Basement Tapes

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  • Boasting excellent Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides, this vintage copy will be very hard to beat
  • Side three was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • The recording may not be an audiophile dream come true, but these pressings are far better than most others we can ever recall playing, and lets the music come through in a way that we guarantee you have never heard before
  • 5 stars: “… the music here (including the Band’s) is astonishingly good. The party line on The Basement Tapes is that it is Americana, as Dylan and the Band pick up the weirdness inherent in old folk, country, and blues tunes, but it transcends mere historical arcana through its lively, humorous, full-bodied performances. Dylan never sounded as loose, nor was he ever as funny as he is here, and this positively revels in its weird, wild character… among the greatest American music ever made.”

This vintage Columbia Double LP pressing has some of the very best sound we’ve ever heard for this album.

Of course, given the nature of these recordings, you don’t get stunning sonics along the line of, say, Magical Mystery Tour or Dark Side Of The Moon, but at least you get to hear these great songs sound the way they were intended to, without the complications of bad mastering and pressing getting in the way.

Most of the copies we’ve heard wouldn’t be fit to list on the site at any price, but we felt strongly that this copy did justice to the music in a way that the typical pressing does not. While this may not be a Demo Disc, it’s MUCH better sounding than most copies we’ve come across. We’ve played a bunch of these over the years and most of them paled in comparison to this one.

This is of course a famous album, with The Band backing up Dylan (and adding some of their own material) in the famous Big Pink House which would later be the place where The Band’s 1st album was born. (more…)

The Traveling Wilburys – Volume One

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  • This original copy of the Wilburys’ debut album boasts two INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Proof that, when you put Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne in a recording studio together, something good is bound to happen
  • Certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, this album was Grammy nominated Album of the Year in 1989
  • 4 1/2 stars: “There never was a supergroup more super than the Traveling Wilburys… It’s impossible to picture a supergroup with a stronger pedigree.”

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Bob Dylan – Down in the Groove

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  • Down in the Groove appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original Columbia pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “big and weighty”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”…”fat kick and snare”…”vox breathy and present”
  • Both of these sides are big and rich, with remarkable clarity and three-dimensional space, the kind of sound that most other pressings only hint a
  • “It begins and ends with strong covers, opening with Wilbert Harrison’s ‘Let’s Stick Together’ (a good, raucous rocker with stuttering tremolo guitars and an aggressive Dylan vocal) and closing with the Stanley Brothers’ apocalyptic country hymn ‘Rank Strangers to Me’ (a simple, heartfelt guitar-vocal performance with fusionesque glissando bass). [And t]here is no mistaking the emotional vocal investment in his country-gospel treatment of the traditional folk song ‘Shenandoah’ or the eerie morbidity of his delivery in ‘Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street)'” – Rolling Stone

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Bob Dylan – Infidels

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  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from start to finish, this vintage copy could not be beat
  • Big and rich, with correct tonality from top to bottom, strong bass and plenty of space, this copy sounded just right to us
  • 4 stars: “… its writing is closer to Dylan’s peak of the mid-70s, and some of the songs here… are minor classics, capturing him reviving his sense of social consciousness and his gift for poetic, elegant love songs.”

This is one of the better sounding Dylan records from the 80s. It’s not exactly Blood on the Tracks, the only Dylan album we think is qualified to be on our top 100 rock and pop list, but it sounds good for a record from this era.
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Bob Dylan – New Morning

  • New Morning is back on the site for only the second time in three years, here with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • “If Not For You” was the big hit on this one, and we guarantee you have never heard it sound better than it does on this very copy
  • During our shootout we were reminded how surprisingly enjoyable this album is – it fits in nicely between Dylan’s country era and his later 70s works such as Blood On The Tracks
  • He’s also singing in his familiar Bob Dylan “nasally” voice, not the country croon he developed for Nashville Skyline
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… the overall quality is quite high, and many of the songs explore idiosyncratic routes Dylan had previously left untouched… Such offbeat songs make New Morning a charming, endearing record.”

There are some great songs here like “If Not For You” and “The Man In Me,” and when you find a copy that cuts through the murk and veil of the typical pressing it’s a lot of fun. Big Lebowski fans will be happy to hear “The Man In Me” on side two, one of Dylan’s under-appreciated gems.

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Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home

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More Vintage Columbia Pressings

  • This vintage 360 Stereo copy was doing pretty much everything right, earning superb Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • If this price seems high, keep in mind that the top copy from our most recent shootout went for $1200, and the vinyl was just as quiet
  • These early pressings can be killer when you find one like this – they’re clearly more lively, more transparent, and richer, with dramatically more immediacy in the midrange so that Dylan’s voice is front and center and in the room with you
  • You would be hard pressed to find a copy that sounds this good and plays this quietly – we should know, this was one of the better copies from our most recent shootout
  • 5 stars: “With Bringing It All Back Home, he exploded the boundaries, producing an album of boundless imagination and skill. And it’s not just that he went electric, either, rocking hard on “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Maggie’s Farm,” and “Outlaw Blues”; it’s that he’s exploding with imagination throughout the record.”
  • For those of you who are fans of the pop, folk and jazz music of the mid-sixties, Bringing It All Back Home (along with Highway 61 Revisited from later the same year) has to be seen as a Must Own Album from 1965.

It’s tough to find copies of this album that give you all the tubey richness and warmth that this music needs to sound its best. Too many copies seem to be EQ’d to put the vocals way up front, an approach that renders Dylan’s voice hard and edgy. Copies like that sound impressive at first blush (“Wow, he’s really in the room!”) but become fatiguing in short order. When you get a copy like this one that’s smooth, relaxed and natural, the music sounds so good that you forget about the sound and just get lost in the music.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Bob Dylan singing live in your listening room. The better copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Bob Dylan – Empire Burlesque

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  • This vintage pressing was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning superb (A++) grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Say what you want about Empire Burlesque – at the very least, it’s the most consistent record Bob Dylan has made since Blood on the Tracks, even if it isn’t quite as interesting as Desire. However, it is a better set of songs, all deriving from the same place and filled with subtle gems… this is as good as Dylan gets in his latter days.”

This is one of the better-sounding Dylan records from the ’80s. It’s not exactly Blood on the Tracks, the only Dylan album we think is qualified to be on our Top 100 Rock and Pop List, but it sounds good for a record from this era. (more…)

Bob Dylan – Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (Original Soundtrack Recording)

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More Soundtrack Albums

  • An incredible copy of Dylan’s 1973 soundtrack album with Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on both sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • This one is doing practically everything right – it’s bigger, bolder, richer and more clean, clear and open than almost anything else we played
  • Includes the hit “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which charted on the Top 20 and would be famously covered in later years by the likes of Eric Clapton and Guns N’ Roses
  • “This record also proved that Dylan could shoehorn his music within the requirements of a movie score without compromising its content or quality, something that only the Beatles, unique among rock artists, had really managed to do up to that time…”

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Bob Dylan – Desire

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  • This copy of Dylan’s 1976 release was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Both sides are exceptionally clean, clear, full and lively with excellent bass and lots of space around the instruments
  • Desire spent five weeks at Number One, mostly on the strength of the powerful and provocative “Hurricane”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…one of [Dylan’s] most fascinating records of the ’70s and ’80s — more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.

As I’m sure you know, Desire is one of those Dylan albums from the ’70s that generally gets less respect than his earlier work, except from the All Music Guide, who gave it 4 1/2 big stars. Not sure we would go quite that far, but it is clearly a more enjoyable and compelling album when the experience comes from a high quality analog pressing. This one should do nicely.

It’s probably not fair to lump it in with later ’70s albums like Street Legal (1978) and Slow Train Coming (1979). It is, after all, the follow-up to the brilliant (and very good sounding, good enough to make our Top 100) Blood on the Tracks. And it did spend five (5!) weeks at Number One. And Rolling Stone did call it one of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (#174 to be exact).

All of which makes it hard to deny that Desire has a lot going for it.

The album kicks of with the raging “Hurricane,” one of Dylan’s most passionate political songs, and doesn’t let up for a good twenty five plus minutes until the side is over. Most copies lacked the energy and presence that this music needs to really come to life, but not this one.

Drop the needle on “Hurricane” and you will quickly see how much the violin player (Scarlet Rivera) contributes to the song. I can’t think of another hard-rockin’ track from the era that has such a well-recorded violin. If you have an overly smooth copy (there’s tons of ’em out there and we’ve heard plenty of them) you aren’t going to hear the rosiny texture that gives the instrument its unique character.

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Bob Dylan – Street-Legal

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  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this copy is one of the BEST we have ever heard
  • You get clean, clear, full-bodied, lively and musical ANALOG sound from first note to last
  • We would be foolish to make claims for “audiophile quality” sound on this album – it is what it is, but the best copies are head and shoulders above anything else you’ve heard
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “In the UK…Michael Watts of Melody Maker proclaim[ed] it Dylan’s ‘best album since John Wesley Harding.’ NME’s Angus MacKinnon hailed it as Dylan’s ‘second major album of the ’70s.'” – Wikipedia

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