After changing his sound to electric rock on his previous three albums, Dylan returned to his acoustic folk roots. The album was named after a 19th-century outlaw that killed a man over a game of craps, and that wasn’t the only thing that made it a far cry from mainstream pop. When psychedelic rock was taking over pop culture, Dylan released John Welsey Harding. The forlorn “I Threw It All Away” and sublime “Lay Lady Lay” continue to fill in love’s spectrum of emotions, while songs like “Peggy Day” and “Country Pie” take a more spirited and carefree approach to country living. On the heartbreaking leadoff track, “Girl From The North Country,” Johnny Cash joins Dylan for a strange but beautifully pastoral duet about a lost love.
He followed it up in 1969 with Nashville Skyline, which saw Dylan mellowing out even further and taking his most countrified approach to songwriting. Nashville Skylineĭylan took a lengthy hiatus following a near-fatal motorcycle accident in 1966, and out of it came the whimsically laid-back John Wesley Harding. It features all the characters and signature Dylan vocal stylings that is to be expected, but songs like “Honest With Me” and the fascinating shifting pace of “Cry a While” show that not only does Dylan have a lot of life left in him and his music, but that he’s still releasing some of his best music. Love and Theft is both predictable and completely surprising.
But there’s still a sense of optimism, and the proof is that he’s still tinkering around with his style after all these years. “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum” concludes with a man dying in a Mardi Gras like party, while “Sugar Baby” ends with the potential of death from a broken heart. Love and Theft begins and ends with worlds ending. Dylan gets back to the basics for this album, but Modern Times’ 10 tracks don’t ever feel like they could be tagged as just throwbacks. After stepping up as producer under his preferred “Jack Frost” pseudonym, Dylan again relied on a palette of bluesy slide guitars and a country-flavored backline. Modern Timesįollowing on the heels of two critically acclaimed albums, Love and Theft and Time Out of Mind, Dylan delivered once again with Modern Times. Lanois’ schedule-free, unconventional sessions lead to a sonically intriguing record that still brings Dylan’s songwriting to the foreground, and it only takes a listen to “Political World” or “Most of the Time” to showcase Lanois’ impact on the legend. Oh Mercy saw the re-emergence of Dylan as a darling among critics in the late ‘80s, although that might not have been the case without producer Daniel Lanois, best known for his work on U2’s The Joshua Tree. In celebration of the release of Dylan’s 35th studio album, Tempest, we’re taking a look at our favorite albums. Over the course of his career, the songwriter has wowed listeners with decade-defining singles (“The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Just Like a Woman”), timeless albums and notably potent lyrics. If you’ve been around a radio, turntable, CD or 8-track player that functionally operates in the last five decades, you know Bob Dylan’s impact on music is immeasurable.