Some artists can have a "best of" album put out and nothing more would be needed from them; Bob Dylan is not one of these artists. If you are only a casual fan or just want some Dylan in your collection, I'd reccomend getting a real album such as Bringing it all Back Home, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, or Bob Dylan (a few of my personal favorite Dylan albums) instead of this "essential" Bob Dylan. It's true that Bob Dylan has re-created himself innumerable times but you can't really get a sense for that here, anyways, becuase there are only a few songs from the albums represented in this collection. There is only one song from Blonde on Blonde and it's Rainy Day Women #12 and #35 which is the only bad song on Blonde on Blonde and they skipped over some of the greatest songs from Bringing it all Back Home and don't have any from his first album, Bob Dylan. There's some stuff on the second disk that I would skip over completely as well. You'd be better off sticking with the aforementioned albums.