Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs (Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006) (2008)

"Expanded Deluxe Edition." Includes a third CD not available in the standard two-disc version.

There's often an understandable wariness when it comes to criticizing Bob Dylan-- for one thing, he's better at this words stuff than we are. For another, inscrutability is pretty much his career's one constant and trying to get into his head is a fool's errand. Each twist in the man's art leaves you scrambling to re-assess the last. For instance, his brace of old-time covers albums in the early 90s were decried as evidence that Bob's flush was finally busted-- the well was dry. Now it seems like they were the work of a craftsman re-acquainting himself with some of his most basic tools before putting them to more remarkable use.

How to put his work into context? The Bootleg Series is your best starter kit. Tell Tale Signs is the eighth volume in Dylan's anthology of discards, alternate takes, and live performances, this time offering an alternative path through his last two decades' work. The series presents itself as an appendix, but it's more like a glossary-- offering crucial insight and definition. And if that sounds too dry, rest assured there's also some astonishing music here.

If a critic can't write Dylan off, there's a temptation to go in the other direction: This collection's remit starts with 1989's Oh Mercy, hailed at the time as a staggering return to form. Now it sounds relatively clumsy, its reverb-heavy production straining to fit Dylan into a modern rock mold. But the songs were there, and Tell Tale Signs is thick with tracks from this period, casting it in a far richer light. The familiar is transformed: "Most of the Time", a vista of shimmery regret on Oh Mercy, becomes a delightfully rueful acoustic bounce lent extra warmth and wistfulness by its staccato harmonica. "Dignity" shows up as a weighty piano ballad and as a jaunty full-band outing that brings out the humor in the song-- I like that version more, but if there's one thing this collection tells you, it's that "definitive" with Dylan is a trick of the release schedule.