Best Bob Dylan Studio Albums (POLL) Part 1

Cafe Society
1

OK, I guess I’ll be the one to do Dylan. These are his first 19 studio albums. Because of the large number, I am allowing 3 choices per poll. After a while I will take the best of the best and create a final poll. Don’t forget to vote in Part 2.

Best Bob Dylan Studio Albums (POLL) Part 1 - Select up to 3
  • Bob Dylan
  • The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
  • The Times They Are a-Changin’
  • Another Side of Bob Dylan
  • Bringing It All Back Home
  • Highway 61 Revisited
  • Blonde on Blonde
  • John Wesley Harding
  • Nashville Skyline
  • Self Portrait
  • New Morning
  • Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
  • Dylan
  • Planet Waves
  • Blood on the Tracks
  • The Basement Tapes
  • Desire
  • Street-Legal
  • Slow Train Coming

0 voters

These are Dylan’s most recent 19 studio albums. Because of the large number, I am allowing 3 choices per poll. After a while I will take the best of the best and create a final poll. Don’t forget to vote in Part 1.

Best Bob Dylan Studio Albums (POLL) Part 2
  • Saved
  • Shot of Love
  • Infidels
  • Empire Burlesque
  • Knocked Out Loaded
  • Down in the Groove
  • Oh Mercy
  • Under the Red Sky
  • Good as I Been to You
  • World Gone Wrong
  • Time Out of Mind
  • “Love and Theft”
  • Modern Times
  • Together Through Life
  • Christmas in the Heart
  • Tempest
  • Shadows in the Night
  • Fallen Angels
  • Rough and Rowdy Ways

0 voters

2

The 3 albums I’ve listened to most often in their entirety are Blood on the Tracks, Blonde on Blonde, and Highway 61 Revisited

3

^I think I can make the same exact statement!

And Happy Cake Day.

4

Huh, I thought Blood on the Tracks for one of my picks would be a bit of an outlier, but it’s the overwhelming favorite so far.

5

moved to OP by What Exit?

8

I figured those would be the top three, but I’ve always enjoyed The Basement Tapes a lot more than Blood on the Tracks. Sure, you can argue that it’s more a Band album than a Dylan album, but every time I hear it some new song I’ve never paid much attention to claims its place as my favorite.

9

Bringing it all Back Home is my favorite.

10

Thanks, I don’t know why I didn’t think to do that.

mmm

11

We need a Poll guide, I struggled to remember that to have more than one poll in a post you need to manually add a name to every poll in the post. I’m glad you added the public=true.
As shown below:

[ poll name=“1st” type=multiple results=always min=1 max=3 public=true chartType=bar]
[ poll name=“2nd” type=multiple results=always min=1 max=3 public=true chartType=bar]

12

Blood On the Tracks is the only Dylan album I still listen to all the way through. Desire is my next favorite, but that’s because of memories, not because it’s that great.

13

Avatars on the graph - cool, is that a new feature or do I just not get out enough?

No love for Another Side? - that was a toss-up for my #3 (Blonde On Blonde won out).

j

14

I looked at the songs. Man, he doesn’t even have a “bad” album. (Slow Train Coming exempted, don’t hate me)

15

The first list, it was hard to limit to 3. The second list, it was hard to pick 3 that I really liked.

First list-
Blonde on Blonde was the most polished of what I consider his epic albums. Visions of Johanna is a fantastic poem that happens to be set to music. The album is a good mix of what I consider serious and minor works.

Highway 61 Revisited has another masterpiece, Desolation Row along with Like A Rolling Stone and Ballad of a Thin Man. Great poetry all around.

Blood on the Tracks two masterpieces, Idiot Wind and Tangled Up in Blue. This album might well be the one he sang with the most passion.

16

Honestly I think BobLibDem’s list is probably right, but I wanted to register a vote for Desire, which I definitely consider his most underrated great album.

17

I always like The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan because it is so angry. And just when it lightens up a bit, it comes back even angrier.

18

In my teens it was my favorite, didn’t quite get 61 and Blonde at 16. You can’t argue with the Top 6 so far, but there are so many other albums after the 80s that are are as good as anything he has ever done.

Gotta say to the OP, you scared me. I thought he had died.

19

This makes me a little sad. I fully embrace the genius of Blonde, 61, Blood, Desire, and many others that have not even received votes yet.

But I would place some of his recent work right up there alongside these masterpieces.

Not arguing, but have you really given “TIme Out of Mind” and “Love and Theft”, for example, a good listen?

mmm

20

I confess that I have not listened to his later works nearly as much as his first. I’ve heard them all but only a few times. I guess I lean on the works on more familiar with.

21

I also agree with MMM’s vote for Rough and Rowdy Ways, that’s a gem.

I

22

I have to confess that I didn’t vote in the second part of the poll because I just don’t know the albums at all. It’s a function of my age and what was happening at the time - I was at college, punk was morphing into new wave, and Dylan released… Slow Train Coming. I think that turned a part-generation off his later work. And then, dammit, I had to get a job and grow up a bit and all that stuff, and music is never quite as much to the fore after that. I know it’s not fair on later Dylan, but it’s how it is.

j