First thing's first, let's clear up any confusion. On August 30th 2005, Columbia Records released a 2 CD set of unreleased Bob Dylan material to serve as a soundtrack to the Martin Scorsese documentary about the singer which will be released in late September. This set doubles as the seventh installment of Columbia's acclaimed collection of Dylan rarities, The Bootleg Series. Now on the same day they also released a single disc of previously unreleased Dylan called Live at the Gaslight 1962. This second release is only available at Starbucks.

So what's what? Well, Live at the Gaslight is just what it sounds like. It's a live performance by Bob at the Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village recorded in 1962. It's one of three known tapes of Bob playing at the small, literally underground, café. I've owned this performance and one of the other two in the form of a bootleg for a few years now, and have always considered it one of the best discs of live Dylan in my collection. It's about time it's been spruced up and officially released. Eight of the ten songs are tunes you've never heard Bob sing before on an official release, and they are essential. And by the way, don't you just love the sly wink and nod of selling a recording of Bob playing a coffee house, only at coffee houses?

For those keeping track, Live at the Gaslight 1962, is now the oldest performance Columbia has officially released as a Bob Dylan live album. The other new, old release, The Bootleg Series 7, actually contains a few things older than the Gaslight Tapes, but it's more of a hodgepodge of tracks covering Dylan's music through 1966.

The set features 28 songs, and boasts that 26 of them are previously unreleased. It's not true, but it's close enough that I don't need to spend time pointing out all the non-bootleg, officially released, here and there CDs where you can find some of this stuff…like the special 2 disc edition of Bob's last studio album Love and Theft.

Bigger question…why 26 unreleased (for argument's sake) tracks and 2 that people already have? I don't get that one. I know they didn't run out of stuff; I'll get to that in a minute. Why throw obvious filler on the discs? Two discs with 26 unreleased tracks (again, argument's sake) and nothing else would've been just fine. We're not stupid.
Now, how do I know, other than common sense, that they didn't run out of material for these discs? Well, just like the Gaslight thing, I have bootlegs that feature a good amount of the stuff on here. For example, I have the so-called "Minnesota Hotel Tape," which two songs from disc one are drawn from. It's like an hour long. They could have easily used another track of this phenomenal stuff, which truth be told should be its own release instead of being Frankensteined into this collection. Instead they give us "Song to Woody" from Bob's first album; something most people buying a collection of previously unavailable stuff more than likely already own.

I found this frustrating before I listened to the album, and find it even more so after the fact. After the first seven songs, one of which is the aforementioned "Song To Woody" there isn't a single song in this collection that isn't simply an alternate or live version of something Bob has already released. Yes, there is appeal to hearing things they way they could have been, but lets call a spade a spade. This is not a collection of unreleased songs. It's more accurately a collection of unfinished songs, which eventually went on to become classics. This is the stuff that Bob didn't think was quite good enough…and for the most part, he was right. What I'm saying is yeah, it's interesting to hear "Highway 61 Revisited" without the siren whistle, but it's more of a novelty, than a revelation.

While I do personally enjoy the collection, I can say with certainty that this is the weakest installment of the bootleg series to date. The reason being it's the first volume where the informed listener can honestly say, "Yeah, I understand why they didn't release that."

The true bootlegs, "The Minnesota Hotel Tape," "Bob Dylan Live" and "The Freewheelin' Outtakes" all of which were chopped up to make up the beginning of this set would each have made a better addition to the series than this collection does. So in the end, if you're not a Dylan nut, I'd say steer clear of Bootleg Series 7, but run out and buy Live at the Gaslight, it's excellent. If you are a Dylan nut, like myself, just go buy 'em both. The less interesting of the pair surely trumps some of the other crap you already have buried deep in your collection, and the liner notes are nifty.