Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan (1962) A–

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) A++

The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) B+

Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) A–

Bringing It All Back Home (1965) A++

Highway 61 Revisited (1965) A+

Live 1966 (1966/1998) B+

Blonde on Blonde (1966) A

The Basement Tapes (1967/1975) A+

John Wesley Harding (1967) A

Nashville Skyline (1969) A–

New Morning (1970) A

Planet Waves (1974) B+

Before the Flood (1974) A–

Blood on the Tracks (1975) A++

Desire (1976) B+

Infidels (1983) C

Oh Mercy (1989) B

Under the Red Sky (1990) A–

World Gone Wrong (1993) A–

Time Out of Mind (1997) A–

Love and Theft (2001) A+

1. A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall: More than any other song, this opened up pop music to pretentious lyrics. Bobby had been reading the Symbolists, and decided the best way to capture this in song was to pile on image after image. He knew his song well.
2. Tangled Up in Blue: Fully-formed short short stories, each with a kick to them. The compression is skilled; the slight fluctuations in tone as they're stitched together is Dylan.
3. Love Minus Zero/No Limit: His most beautiful straight love song is really that straight, as he his loaded double rhymes rise and fall twice a verse. Dig the way he vibratoes "broken".
4. Like a Rolling Stone: Because schadenfreude is OK when it's class war. You know it's really about the organ, but how about that piano?
5. Visions of Johanna: What do you mean best lyrics ever? "Fish truck", jeez.
6. Hurricane: His best really long song, partly because it's not really really long. Just about his last attempt at immediacy and his last moment of relevance, though he started making good records again in the Nineties.
7. Mr. Tambourine Man: Remember when drug songs were pretty? More proof they banned the wrong shit.
8. I Want You: There are only four songs from Blonde on Blonde on the list but they're all pretty high. If you still doubt he's a great vocalist, how many singers could make such a simple statement so seductive?
9. Idiot Wind: To some his great confessional (just because he starts off the tonic), this is where he admits he's been playing crooked all this time. Or maybe he really can't help it if he's lucky.
10. Shelter from the Storm: Yeah, another one from Blood on the Tracks. It's rare for him to be understated, but it makes his refuge alluring.
11. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream
12. Positively 4th Street
13. Knockin' on Heaven's Door
14. If You See Her, Say Hello
15. Po' Boy
16. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
17. This Wheel's on Fire
18. Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
19. Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
20. Blowin' in the Wind
21. Talking World War III Blues
22. Ballad of a Thin Man
23. Tears of Rage
24. Brownsville Girl
25. Mississippi
26. Workingman's Blues No. 2
27. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
28. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
29. Girl from the North Country
30. Spirit on the Water
31. It Ain't Me Babe
32. All Along the Watchtower (live, Before the Flood)
33. She Belongs to Me
34. I Pity the Poor Immigrant
35. Desolation Row
36. With God on Our Side
37. Bye and Bye
38. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
39. Nettie Moore
40. Honest with Me
41. Maggie's Farm
42. Lay Lady Lay
43. Masters of War
44. Highway 61 Revisited
45. Man of Constant Sorrow
46. The Mighty Quinn (Quinn, the Eskimo)
47. My Back Pages
48. One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
49. If Not for You
50. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (Bootleg Series version)
51. Love Sick
52. Watching the River Flow
53. Simple Twist of Fate
54. Tomorrow Is a Long Time
55. You're a Big Girl Now
56. Million Dollar Bash
57. Love Henry
58. The Man in Me
59. Blind Willie McTell
60. Sign on the Window
61. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dumm
62. Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat (Live 1966)
63. Queen Jane Approximately
64. Subterranean Homesick Blues
65. Jack-a-Roe
66. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You
67. Oxford Town
68. Tombstone Blues
69. Drifter's Escape
70. I Shall Be Free
71. Moonlight
72. 10,000 Men
73. Winterlude
74. When I Paint My Masterpiece
75. Catfish
76. Not Dark Yet
77. Song to Woody
78. On a Night Like This
79. I Threw It All Away
80. The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
81. All I Really Want to Do
82. Unbelievable
83. When the Deal Goes Down
84. Buckets of Rain
85. Goin' to Acapulco

After “Hurricane”, Dylan was shit for fourteen years, the only classic of this era being the Sam Shepard co-write “Brownville Girl” (like “Knockin' on Heaven's Door", best heard on the cherry-picking Greatest Hits Vol. 3). His most acclaimed album of this era was 1989's Oh Mercy, an uneven record. Though reviled at the time, the next year's Under the Red Sky was better, pointing to a return to simplicity: “Baby, thank you for my tea/It's really so sweet of you to be so nice to me.” This bore fruit in the second of two covers albums, World Gone Wrong, which features the prettiest version of “Henry Lee” ever. Time Out of Mind was his one last attempt at a major statement, remaking Blood on the Tracks with death-rattle vocals. Though inorganically produced, chilly songs like “Love Sick” and “Not Dark Yet” evoke a weariness from life in general and one woman in particular. You expected he'd get over the former.

He did, and that produced the minor masterpiece Love and Theft. It's an album of the Deep South: having stayed in Mississippi a day too long, there's now no reason to leave. On “Po' Boy” he employs the novel concept of playing the Fool for laughs, not tragedy. He sings like an old man, but a sprightly one, and if you don't believe him when he promises love, he's so alluring when declaring attraction you'll fall for him anyway. A major advantage over previous comeback was the quality of the playing, especially Charlie Sexton's ominous riff on “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum”, and Larry Campbell's slide on “Honest with Me”.

Modern Times has no such sure shot, but it's one of his most consistent albums. First and foremost it's a band album, and on the “Spirit on the Water" it sounds like he has his best band since the Band, though one far more languid. His theft of “Nettie Moore” sounds as justified and ancient as anything on World Gone Wrong. And “Workingman's Blues” might make you forget he hasn't been using the word “proletariat” all his life. (Neither did Chaplin.)