Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan On the Brain: My Top Ten

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I’m sure all of you Bob Dylan fans have a list of your favorite Dylan albums. I personally discovered several websites that ranked all his albums from best (in their opinion) to worst.

I’m not that dedicated, but I do have my own personal top ten favorites. Here they are ranked from #10 to #1 (more or less).

10. Oh Mercy (a bright spot in an otherwise less-than-stellar period from about 1983 to 1990)

9. Another Side of Bob Dylan/The Times They Are A-Changin’ (I picked both because hey, this is my list and I can do what I want)

8. Time Out of Mind (produced by Daniel Lanois, this one has a very unique vibe that I really like)

7. Desire

6. Saved (the second of Bob Dylan’s Christian albums and also the second to feature the famed Muscle Shoals sound)

5. Blood on the Tracks

4. Blonde on Blonde/Highway 61 Revisited/Bringing It All Back Home (again, I cheated a little because I like all three of these and they are pretty much around the same time period)

3. The Freewheeling Bob Dylan (it may not be his first album, but it’s the one that put his name on the map)

2. Slow Train Coming (the first and best of his Christian albums)

1. John Wesley Harding (maybe the first Americana album ever?)

Cover Front

I’m sure some of you who are more seasoned Dylan fans may take umbrage to my selections and rankings. Some of you reading this may think Bob  Dylan is the worst artist ever. That’s because art– any kind of art– is subjective. What some people consider a masterpiece may be what others might call garbage or noise.

But I like what I like (as I’m sure you like what you like). I realize that ol’ Bob is not the greatest singer I’ve ever heard, but I like his masterful way of penning lyrics that can be challenging, confronting, convicting, and at the same time, poetic and, for me at least, cinematic.

The Further Adventures of Bob Dylan on the Brain

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loveandtheft

“Well, there’s voices in the night trying to be heard
I’m sitting here listening to every mind-polluting word
I know plenty of people who would put me up for a day or two
Yes, I’m tryin’ to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you” (Bob Dylan)

As of this report, I’ve made it all the way to the year 2001. In Bob Dylan time, that translates to the album Love and Theft. By this point, his voice has lost whatever velvety softness it ever had and has picked up a growly quality, kinda like ol’ Bob’s been gargling with razor blades.

Still, his voice also has a lived-in quality, like it’s from a man who’s been just about everywhere, man, and seen just about everything and lived to tell about it. Not all of it was pretty, but just about all of it makes for some really good songs.

I have to add that I think the Daniel Lanois-produced album Time out of Mind would have made an excellent musical companion to the short-lived TV show Twin Peaks. Particularly the song “Million Miles” sounds like it could have fit perfectly in with a slice of apple pie and a “damn good” cup of coffee. I especially love the reverb on the guitars. (I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about, right?) I think the Grammys got it right when they made this the album of the year way back in 1997.

He also did a couple of throwback albums, entitled Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, that hearken back to when it was just Bob, his guitar, and his harmonica. I thought he did a fantastic cover of the old song “Tomorrow Night,” made famous by Sun Records-era Elvis Presley, among others. The plaintive song brings out the best in Mr. Dylan’s vocal abilities, at least in this writer’s humble opinion.

I only have five albums to go (six if I run across a great deal on his 2015 album or one of his bootlegs that I don’t have). I guess I’ll have to decide after that who to listen to next. Maybe Neil Young?