Top 5 Dylan Albums

duckworth

1. Highway 61 Revisited
2. Blood on the Tracks
3. Time Out of Mind
4. World Gone Wrong
5. John Wesley Harding

The early acoustic albums are too one dimensional politically and spiritually. Blonde and Blonde is too tinny and hasn't grabbed me as a collective piece of work for years - of course each individual song is great, but I almost never want to listen all the way through any more. Bringing it all back home has about 3 crap songs on it, which precludes it from being in the top 5.

Oh, and Time out of Mind is the best album to go jogging to at nighttime.

What do ye think?

bullpost

1. Blood on the tracks
2. Blonde on Blonde
3. Street Legal
4. Desire
5. Time out of Mind

Not a Dylan fanatic by any stretch and I realise Street Legal would not be everyones cup of tea but I love the songs on it and also the soulful sound he was using back then.
Honorable mention for Infidels.

zimovain

Time Out Of Mind
Bringing It All Back Home
Oh Mercy
Desire
Modern Times

Amazotheamazing

Impossible question tbh, but the ones I go back to continually would be

Love and Theft
Highway 61 Revisited
Bringing it All Back Home
Blood on the Tracks
Another Side of Bob Dylan (for To Ramona alone)

Tbh, on another day I might have included Empire Burlesque and Oh Mercy, or Blonde on Blonde or Freewheeling, almost every album has something to recommend it.

blastman

Tough one, but for me:

Blood On The Tracks
Desire
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Oh Mercy
Bringing It All Back Home

wow sierra

Very hard to pick - I got to know Dylan music on compilations like Budakon first so don't associate songs with albums as much as I would with someone like U2 for instance. Anyway -

1 Blonde on Blonde - (partly for my favourite song Stuck inside of Mobile!)
2 Bringing it all back home
3 Time out of mind
4 Desire
5 The times they are a changin.

henryporter

Hard to pick just five but I'm glad to see everyone going for original studio albums as opposed to compilations or bootleg series.
Top five would be:

Street Legal
Highway 61 Revisited
Time out of Mind
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Bringing it all back home

Just outside the top five would be
Oh Mercy
Slow Train Coming
Blonde on Blonde
World Gone Wrong
Good as I've been to you
John Wesley Harding
Planet Waves - for Wedding Song
Empire Burlesque - for Dark Eyes

Amazotheamazing

henryporter wrote: »

Empire Burlesque - for Dark Eyes

Also got When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky and Clean Cut Kid, good album, imo.

The problem with Dylan's 80's albums is the shocking production moreso than just having inconsistent quality of songs. Was listening to Knocked Out Loaded again and sometimes you feel there's a much better album there that doesn't come across. The outtakes to Infidels are better than what was released too, imo.

Parts of me wishes he'd redo them in his Jack Frost production style.

markesmith

Blood on the Tracks
Highway 61
Bringing it All Back Home
Blonde on Blonde
Basement Tapes

henryporter

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Also got When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky and Clean Cut Kid, good album, imo.

The problem with Dylan's 80's albums is the shocking production moreso than just having inconsistent quality of songs. Was listening to Knocked Out Loaded again and sometimes you feel there's a much better album there that doesn't come across. The outtakes to Infidels are better than what was released too, imo.

Parts of me wishes he'd redo them in his Jack Frost production style.

Yes - I often wonder what was going on in the 80's - too much coke for everyone maybe. I also wonder would Infidels have sounded better had Frank Zappa had produced it like he was reputedly asked. Its a strange album otherwise - an absolute stunner in Jokerman, a bewildering average collection of remaining songs and then omitting an albums worth of better material including of course the sublime Blind Willie McTell.

Amazotheamazing

henryporter wrote: »

Yes - I often wonder what was going on in the 80's - too much coke for everyone maybe. I also wonder would Infidels have sounded better had Frank Zappa had produced it like he was reputedly asked. Its a strange album otherwise - an absolute stunner in Jokerman, a bewildering average collection of remaining songs and then omitting an albums worth of better material including of course the sublime Blind Willie McTell.

See the issue I have with those albums is I can't really decide if the songs are that bad or if good songs are being crushed by poor production. The outtakes, that have avoided the worst of the production, sounder a lot fresher than what was released. Could be that I expect less of the bootleg stuff so I listen to it differently.

A Zappa produced Dylan album couldn't be anything other than amazing, right?

henryporter

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

See the issue I have with those albums is I can't really decide if the songs are that bad or if good songs are being crushed by poor production. The outtakes, that have avoided the worst of the production, sounder a lot fresher than what was released. Could be that I expect less of the bootleg stuff so I listen to it differently.

A Zappa produced Dylan album couldn't be anything other than amazing, right?

Hard to decide - 'Sweetheart like you' just sounds so pedestrian that you wonder what was going on in the writing department. Dylan is one of those people who makes production futile - the power of his words and phrasing make production redundant - have another listen to Another Side of Bob Dylan for proof - recorded in one night with a bottle of wine as a producer and he seemed to have nailed it pretty well. The 80's was simply Dylans tired phase, but still he managed to put together more amazing songs throughout that decade than most artists could provide in a lifetime. There's always the issue of audience expectancy - we always expect more of someone like Dylan; but he is human after all.