>decide to listen to Bob Dylan’s discography in order, cause I know he’s famous and influential but don’t know much about his music
>listens to Bob Dylan’s first album: “this is pretty good”
>listens to The Freewheeling Bob Dylan: “wow, this isn’t just good, this is great”
>listens to The Times They Are A-Changing: “wow, this isn’t just great, this is the greatest album I’ve ever heard”
>listens to Another Side of Bob Dylan: “holy shit he outdid himself”
>listens to Bringing It All Back Home: “this is incredible, every album is an order of magnitude better than the last”
>listens to Highway 61 Revisited: “I didn’t even know music could be this good. I could listen to nothing but this for the rest of my life”
>listens to Blonde on Blonde: “I have no words to describe how amazing this album is. Bob Dylan is an absolute genius”
>listens to John Wesley Harding: “okay, this is the peak of music. This is the peak of Dylan. I have listened to this album about a hundred times since I first heard it. I could listen to this album for eternity. Every time I relisten, I discover a new reason to love it. This album is inspiring me to create my own music. I can’t believe he topped every single album he did so far and was able to synthesize his different styles so perfectly. This is perfect, a perfect album. A true 10/10. It’s so good it’s making me dislike other music that isn’t it. I love this album”
>Listens to Nashville Skyline: “oh, well this is kinda sweet and comfy, but it’s really not as good as his others”
>listens to Self Portrait: “this is kinda hit or miss. Some of its wonderful, but it’s also got some legitimately bad stuff. Kinda disappointing.”
I guess my point is this: should I continue past John Wesley Harding? Have I reached the best Dylan has to offer? I don’t wanna get filtered and miss out on some great releases, but I also don’t wanna go through album after album of shit just cause I like the artist who made them
Decide to listen to Bob Dylan’s discography in order...
You haven't even listened to Blood on The Tracks or Desire you noob. Just keep listening.
Self Portrait is an intentional filter, I don’t know if anyone else who’s ever done it. Maybe Lou Reed with Metal Machine Music. Bob Dylan made Self Portrait so he’d lose the whole “voice of a generation” label. It filters out the people who are just gonna put pressure on him and talk about what they think Dylan “should” sound like. Immediately after, he released another great album. People who stopped listening after Self Portrait missed out on a lot of great albums. Blood on the Tracks and Desire are wonderful, as another user said, but he has a ton more great albums after that
Time Out of Mind is one of his absolute best
Blood on The Tracks is his best album easily.
His best is actually Bootleg Series Vol 2 and 5.
Those don’t count as albums though.
Would still go to those over any of the "official" studio releases any day.
For the love of god listen to Blood On The Tracks. It's one of the greatest albums of all time. There's less literary density than on his 60s albums but the emotions and the 'between-the-lines' subtlety of the whole thing make it a total masterwork.
Desire, Infidels, Mercy
And the late trilogy: Time out of Mind, Love and Theft, Modern Times.
Also Tempest
Anyone trying to say blood on the tracks is Dylan's best is just reposting consensus from here that has been posted this last few years by anons. Its probably his best 70s work and incredible but trying to claim it beats any of his 60s electric albums is quite a reach. Blonde on Blonde is his magnum opus and BIABH and Highway 61 are also contenders. The songs from 66-66 are just too good to ignore and they stand out more then Dylan singing about his marriage. John Wesley Harding is also an excellent album but I never understood how anyone could rate it higher then the 2 albums that preceded it.
Dylan is trash but you, OP, you are worse
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His lyrics are garbage on those albums.
You know nothing
I know everything. They suck cock compared to blood on the tracks.
Blood on the Tracks does have some excellent lyrics but the lyrics on Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited are some of the best ever.
Lol, Blood on the Tracks is a 10/10 album, but are you really saying everything made before that is garbage?
No they are pretty empty. What's are some lyrics you think hold up to BOTT
It's not a 10/10 album calm down friend. Anyways I meant compared to Blood on the tracks they are garabge.
"Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn"
IMO some of the best lyrics Dylan ever wrote are to be found in Visions of Johanna
Pretty good. It's not as good but still. It's just the words that are good. The song itself with the rest of the album is mostly meaningless masturbation unlike Blood on the tracks where he actually puts himself into the every song.
I get what you mean. I guess I just appreciate a lot of his wordplay rather than just dig for meaning because I know it may mean something, it may just be mumbo jumbo. I'll never know exactly what he meant or felt with the words on those albums so it doesn't mean much to me.
I agree with the wordplay. It's enjoyable to listen to. Isn't it more powerful though that the man who spent his entire career obscuring his music and lying about his past made one album in an emotional period of his life where he wrote nothing but the truth and also made some of the most poetic of his lyrics. Something he never did before.
For the record Idiot Wind and You're a Big Girl Now are two of my favorite Dylan songs and Blood on the Tracks is what got me into his stuff. I just have had a deeper appreciation for the 60s stuff as of late, as well as the live stuff that came from the Rolling Thunder era.
Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks are his best works.
Highway 61, BIABH, Freewheelin, and The Times etc are his next best (and by not much).
Nasville Skyline is is comfiest album, particularly Country Pie and Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
'Dylan' is low key underrated for cover songs, especially Ira Hayes, Big Yellow Taxi and Sara Jane.
Infidels has absolute fucking 80s kino and is legit up there with his greatest albums. He also kind sings really well in that album.
Desire is ok, but Hurricane is one of his top three songs.