Bob Dylan, The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare And Unreleased) 1961-1991

The rock 'n 'roll bootleg album was actually invented for Dylan — the first documented bootleg LP was 1969's Great White Wonder, a collection of his unreleased material. That's because, well into the '80s, he recorded much more than he released — and was singularly perverse about what he released and shelved. His ongoing archive-raiding series began with this triple-CD set of outtakes, live tracks, demos and false starts down un-followed roads. The unreleased tracks from his acoustic era are mostly second-tier stuff and odd stabs at comedy like "Talkin 'Hava Negeilah Blues," although a few songs like "Eternal Circle" still put most of his contemporaries to shame. (There's also a long, rambling poem called "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie," which is what it sounds like.) But the set goes electric with a bang — a raucous Beatles pastiche called "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" — and from there on out it's at least interesting and at best essential, encompassing a waltz-time stab at "Like a Rolling Stone," the feverish Blonde on Blonde outtake "She's Your Lover Now," and some harrowing songs from the original, scrapped version of Blood on the Tracks. The last ten tracks, in particular, would've been his best album of the '80s, salvaging lost masterpieces like "Blind Willie McTell" and "Series of Dreams" from the scrap-bin.