Consumer Guide Album

Bob Dylan: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume II [Columbia, 1972]
Yet another self-portrait. With all of Dylan's overexposed stuff relegated to Volume I, it unlooses one indubitable classic after another, and because it spans a decade without pretending to (or bothering with) thematic/stylistic coherence, the only overall impression it creates is a staggering, unpredictable virtuosity. Mixed into the star persona are protest ("Hard Rain") and antiprotest ("My Back Pages"), callow ass man ("All I Really Want to Do") and manly ass man ("Lay Lady Lay"). And just in case you think you already own it all, five of the twenty-two cuts are previously uncollected or unreleased. Three of them have been established as indubitable classics by other artists, and the other two begin and end the album. From "Watching the River Flow" to "Down in the Flood"--now what can that mean? A