Bob Dylan Album Reviews.
Bob Dylan albums rated by release date.
Classic Rock Album Reviews
BOB DYLAN
Five Favorite Bob Dylan Songs:
Desolation Row
Like A Rolling Stone
Stuck inside of Memphis
Its Alright Ma
Idiot Wind
What’s Your Favorite Bob Dylan Album? Click to vote in our poll below.
Bob Dylan Albums Ranked on a Scale of 1-5 stars.
Here are some of Bob Dylan’s albums reviewed in chronological order (by release date).
FREEWHEELIN’ (1963)
BEST-A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
2ND BEST- Blowin in the Wind
WORST- Talkin’ World War III Blues/Bob Dylan’s Dream
STARS- 3
A very dated sounding album. Bare boned and lacking the yet to be developed Dylan vocal sneer, this album presents a unique talent full of astute political observation. “Blowin in the Wind” started a whole new genre of social commentary songs. There’s some playful lyrics in “I Shall be Free” (“President Kennedy asked me what do we need to make the country grow-Briget Bardot” – fairly trite) but nothing that expresses the lyrical wizardry of Dylan’s mid sixties output. This is a fairly lightweight offering when compared to later Dylan albums. Still essential listening that helps map Dylan’s development as a singer/songwriter.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’ (1964)
BEST Only a Pawn in the Game
2ND BEST- Ballad of Hollis Brown
WORST- With God On Our Side
STARS- 4
A starker/darker album than “Freewheelin’” that probably reflects the post Kennedy assassination depression/pre Beatles arrival in America/impending nuclear doom zeitgeist. “With God on our Side” complains of the seeming hypocrisy of political alliances (Dylan rails against the genocide of the American Indian, questions the US alliance with Germany given the atrocities they committed in WWII-also implying that the alignment against the USSR was not justified) There’s harsh social commentary on the treatment of African Americans in “Only a Pawn in the Game”. No big improvement, however, musically.
This is a more honest and direct album than “Freewheelin” as it is openly a protest album.
ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB DYLAN (1964)
BEST-My Back Pages
2ND BEST-Chimes of Freedom
WORST- All I Really Want to Do
STARS-3
“The Music It Ain’t a Changin” album. Yet more in the vein of “The Times They Are a Changin” and “Freewheelin”” Bob strums the guitar, sings, hits the chorus, blows the harmonica and sings again. Some good tunes on this one though. “Black Crow Blues” breaks up the tedium by starring Bob on a boogie woogie piano. The song structure is still the same with the harmonica predictably following the chorus.
“I Shall be Free No. 10”, a throwaway, is perhaps Dylan’s most amusing song as he threatens to make Cassius Clay (later Mohammed Ali) as ugly as himself! “Ballad in Plain D” goes on and on to no great effect.
“Another Side” one can be passed without missing anything significant. If you want “It Ain’t me Babe”, skip “Another Side” and go straight to the fine “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” which puts together a good selection of Dylan’s best output from this period (meaning very little from the first few albums).
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME (1965)
BEST-Its Alright Ma (I’m only Bleeding)
2ND BEST-Subterranean Homesick Blues
WORST-
STARS- 5
A massive step forward as Dylan adds a real band and begins to rock. All the songs display less straightforward lyrics as Dylan begins to demonstrate his command of English while making no sense and tremendous sense often in the same verse. The social commentary is less topical but no less pointed (“society’s pliers” “rat race choir” appear in “Its Alright Ma”) and the band sounds great.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” is the first rap song with more lyrics per square minute than any other. (REM would later challenge this with “The End of the World as We Know it”) “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” is a great success especially compared against his earlier “Bob Dylan’s Dream” from “Freewheelin” This is the album where Dylan find his original voice (which he would lose and regain many times over his career) not given to simple protest but to trenchant observation. A clever sense of tune and song structure also is apparent. “Mr. Tambourine Man” could actually be called melodic-a term heretofore not used in describing Dylan’s work.
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED (1965)
BEST-Like A Rolling Stone
2ND BEST- Desolation Row
WORST-
STARS- 5
Highway 61 is the best Dylan album. Backed by a real rock band (I prefer the Bloomfield/Kooper backing to the softer sound of “the Band”), Dylan laces through some of his best material. “Like a Rolling Stone’ set a standard for literate and incisive rock and illustrated that such music could be backed by a full band sound rather than just a scruffy guy with a broken down two chord guitar.
“Desolation Row” expanded the boundaries of rock/folk with its familiar song structure (verse/chorus) but with unfamiliar and often incomprehensible lyrics. “Can’t buy a thrill” (the title of a later Steely Dan album) opens “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It takes a Train to Cry”-the title more an enigma than the lyrics of that song. “Ballad of a Thin Man” with its haunting refrain “there is something happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” sums up the confusion that the man in the street must have felt when reflecting on the “changin’ times” in the mid sixties.
“Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” highlights Dylan’s word play skills by evoking a confused blues rather than one with identifiable causes like “my woman done me wrong” or “I done lost my job.” The song gallomps along with a piano and guitar as a vast array of people (sweet St. Annie and Melinda ), places (“lost in the rain in Juarez and its Easter time too, and a return to New York City ) and situations (a doctor friend who won’t “tell me what I’ve got” and a choice to “pick one or the other but neither are what they claim”) whizzing by the narrator with the joke ending up being on him as everyone saying “they would stand behind him when the going got rough” but in the end they are all gone with “ no one even left there to bluff”.
The set up to Blonde on Blonde, but in some ways a more focused better album. An essential rock album.
BLONDE ON BLONDE (1966)
BEST-Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
2ND BEST- Visions of Johanna
WORST-
STARS- 5
One of the classic double albums of rock and a continuation of the peak reached on “Highway 61”. There’s gobs of material here and all of it worthy. The verse to album’s opener “Rainy Day Women 12 & 35” declares “everybody must get stoned” and well you should if you want to try to decipher or enjoy this album. “Visions of Johanna” (“ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you are trying to be so quiet?”) and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” are among Dylan’s most moving pieces.
The trademark Dylan contradictions abound “I’ve got a poison headache but I feel all right” in the slow blues “Pledging My Time” .Tales of love (“I Want You”) and broken relationships (“Most likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine”) compliment the inane pieces like “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat” and Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” If Dylan didn’t sing all the songs one might think they were written by a few different artists.
A diverse and stunning album teeming with something to say, the talent to say it and the band to play it.
JOHN WESLEY HARDING (1967)
Sound like a regression to me. Gone are the advances made on the last three albums. While not quite a return to his coffeehouse folk style, JWH certain reflects a toned down smoother Dylan moving towards a country sound and telegraphing his next album “Nashville Skyline”. JWH certainly sounds better than his early folk albums, but I don’t see the attraction of this album. It has no biting lyrics and no unusual arrangements or inspired playing. It does contain, however, “All Along the Watchtower” which is a fairly simple, mediocre song that Hendrix would later rework into a stunning epic. An O.K. album with consistently O.K. songs. Nothing stands out as very good or very bad. I had never heard any of this album before, (save “Watch Tower” and I’ll Be Your Baby tonight” as they are on “Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol II”). I played it four times this week. If I never hear it again, I won’t miss it.
BEST-Pick ‘em
2ND BEST-Pick’em
WORST- Pick’em
STARS-2
NASHVILLE SKYLINE (1969)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS- 3
If you like country/western this is a fine album. For rock fans it’s of limited interest. For that reason (and because Dylan made too many damn albums) I won’t review it.
NEW MORNING (1970)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
PLANET WAVES (1974)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
BEFORE THE FLOOD (1974)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS- 3
Dylan has never been known for explosive live performances or for creating a must experience ambiance.
But “Before the Flood” is an entertaining run through of plenty of Dylan’s best material. Its also less of a Dylan album than a joint collaboration with the Band as a few of Robbie Robertson’s (the Band’s guitarist) are interspersed (“Up on Cripple Creek” “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down”, “The Weight” And two others.)
Dylan’s vocals sound unlike (but not better) than the studio performances. The version of “It’s Alright Ma (I’m only Bleeding)” is raced thought at a tempo far faster than that on “Bringing it all Back Home” and in the rush, Dylan omits the best verse of the song “For them that must obey authority that they do not respect in any degree, who despise their jobs, their destinies, speak jealously of them that are free, do what they do just to be nothing more than something they invest in.”
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS (1975)
BEST-Idiot Wind
2ND BEST- Tangled Up in Blue
WORST-
STARS- 5
Sung mostly in the first person, there’s no denying that this is the most personal of all Dylan albums (the Bootleg series shows Dylan singing some the verses to this album in the third person). “ Idiot Wind” takes its musical cue from “One of Us Must Know” from “Blonde on Blonde” They lyrics are bitter, direct and intensely personal with little of the famous Dylan word play antics (except for the weakest cut on the album “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”).
“If you See Her say, Hello” shows Dylan as vulnerable and capable of simple heartfelt sentiments, while “Idiot Wind” and “You’re a Big Girl” are verbal assaults. For some reason “Buckets of Rain” follows “Shelter from the Storm” as the album’s closer. Logically, one might have reversed their order, but this is Dylan.
Tough listening for the already emotionally wracked, this album has great production and features Eric Weissberg and Deliverance.
THE BASEMENT TAPES (1975)
Better off left in the basement. A clever name (coined because Dylan and the band produced this music in the basement of the “Big Pink” house in upstate New York) does not hide some of the not too clever lyrics and shoddy performances.
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS- 2
DESIRE (1976)
BEST-Hurricane
2ND BEST- Romance in Durango
WORST-
STARS- 4
A good follow up to the epic, “Blood on the Tracks” where Dylan exorcised the demons of his former wife. A wide range of topics and musical styles are covered here. Dylan finds himself sympathizing with the criminal in “Hurricane” arguing (ineffectively) for the release of Rubin Carter (which did not happen until more than a decade later). In Hurricane, Dylan lays out the facts of the case and proceeds to show why Rubin was innocent. If you know the song you can easily spot the characters in the movie “Hurricane”
In “Joey”, Dylan attempts to gain our sympathy for gunned down mobster “Crazy” Joe Gallo.
The music on “Blood” is as rich as its ever been on any Dylan album to date with Dylan pulling off an credible Spanish/fandango style song in “Romance in Durango” Story telling songs “Isis” and “Black Diamond Bay” are well constructed. From “Sarah” a poignant look back at his ex-wife, we learn Dylan wrote “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” for her. “Sarah” doesn’t quite fit in with the mood of the album, but such an unforgiving portrait of his wife could never appear on “Blood on the Tracks”. We are lucky to have it here.
A near miss of an essential album.
HARD RAIN LIVE (1976)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
STREET LEGAL (1978)
BEST-Senor
2ND BEST- Changing of the Guards
WORST-
STARS- 3
A solid Dylan album representative of the best of his work with no standout tracks. Penned entirely by Dylan, there’s some good music here that offers a fuller sound to the normal sparse Dylan aural landscapes. There’s some tasteful strings, trumpet, sax & keyboards as well. This album is the definition of a three star album. If you like the artist, you will like this album.
SLOW TRAIN COMIN’ (1979)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
SAVED (1980)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
SHOT OF LOVE (1981)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
INFIDELS (1983)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
EMPIRE BURLESQUE (1985)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
KNOCKED OUT LOADED (1986)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
DOWN IN THE GROOVE (1988)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
OH MERCY (1989)
BEST-Where Teardrops Fall
2ND BEST- Most of the Time
WORST-
STARS- 4
Dylan back to complaining about the state of the world-its “political” (not much of an insight there) and “everything is broken”. This is no groundbreaking album but for Dylan fans its good to see him trying to be topical once again, after flirting with Christianity and “updated” sounding music (as on “Empire Burlesque”). The introspective ballads and love songs however, are the stronger material -“Most of the Time”, “Where Teardrops Fall” and “What Good Am I”
Produced by Daniel Lanois (U2, Neville Brothers, Emmy Lou Harris), this album is fairly slick but to .
MTV UNPLUGGED (1995)
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
TIME OUT OF MIND (1997)
BEST-Not Dark Yet
2ND BEST- Trying to Get to Heaven
WORST-
STARS-5
Just when you thought that Dylan had finally become irrelevant he hit us with “Time Out of Mind” a collection of straight forward songs with a bleak sounding production (Daniel Lanois again). On the opener “Love Sick” Dylan sums up his contradictory predicament “Sick of Love”-but “in the thick of it” other examples of his unresolved love “I wish I never met you, trying to forget you” but “I’d give anything to be with you” and “kiss you or kill you?” On “Its Not Dark Yet” Dylan observes “looks like I’m movin’, but I’m standin still”, “don’t even know what I came here to get away from”
The album sounds world weary yet teeming with smoldering nervous tension. Dylan’s insights are no less the wise and bitter than his earlier work but more than a tad resigned. A true synthesis of the various Dylan styles and attitudes.
A harsh bleak album (although the music is rich and complex) that for me sounds best in sunny climes. I first enjoyed this album in Antigua and later in Miami. Listenings in between in stone grey London, left me with a blank feeling. Where we hear music is a very underrated concept indeed! Pack this one on your next sunny vacation for a little perspective.
LIVE 1966
BEST- Like A Rolling Stone
2ND BEST- Ballad of a Thin Man
WORST-
STARS- 3
A good timepiece worthy for the “Judas” comment from one of the audience at the start of “Like a Rolling Stone”, prompting Dylan to sneer “I don’t believe you” and exhort his band to “play fucking loud”. Otherwise just a fair live recording of some of Dylan’s best material circa 1966.
BOOTLEG SERIES VOL 1
BEST-Tangled Up in Blue
2ND BEST- Talkin’ John Birch Blues
WORST-
STARS- 4
A very interesting collection of out takes and alternative versions of many of Dylan’s best songs from all periods of his career. Not essential for the casual listener as for the most part the released versions are better. The previously unreleased material is not of great interest other than “Talkin John Birch Blues” Essential, however, for the Dylan fan.
LOVE AND THEFT (2001)
Another excellent Dylan album in the mode of “Time Out of Mind” The material is strong as are Bob’s vocals with his new late career rasp. Love and Theft is a mixture of blues, banjo pickin and Bob Dylan.
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS- 5
MODERN TIMES (2006)
Not yet reviewed.
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE (2009)
Not yet reviewed.
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
TEMPEST (2012)
Not yet reviewed.
BEST-
2ND BEST-
WORST-
STARS-
What’s Your Favorite Bob Dylan album? Given Bob Dylan’s prodigious output you can pick three:
Further Reading:
The official Bob Dylan web site
The Rolling Stones Album Reviews
The Kinks Sum Up Life in the 20th and 21st Centuries
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