Six weeks into the project, it arrived. The Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection (volume one, it notes – ominously). A 47 CD compilation of his studio albums, including (I believe possibly for the first time on CD, Dylan – the album Columbia released out of spite when he left for Asylum Records). The set doesn’t include the Greatest Hits albums, nor Biograph, but it does contain the songs – like “Mixed-Up Confusion”, “Positively 4th Street”, and “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” – that never appeared on albums, but had been previously found on Biograph or the Greatest Hits albums.

Each little CD case replicates the look of the original albums, complete with teeny-tiny little type on the back of Bob Dylan that I would need a microscope to read. Fortunately there is an accompanying book that collects all of the liner notes, and includes an album by album chronology at the end.

I feel like I’m going to regret buying this thing the second that Dylan puts out another album, though ideally they would just sell it to me in the format that would fit into this box (there is space). I also wish that they had included all of the Bootleg Series albums, because those are indispensable and often better than what was officially released. Still, I’m glad that it has arrived.

I’ll have to listen to these in my car – I don’t actually own a CD player any longer, and even my laptop can’t play them…