Best Dylan album: 60s electric

Inspired by the “Bringing” vs. “Highway” topic, here’s a poll for Bob Dylan’s best 60s record of the “electric era”. Stuff recorded then but not released until later, like the Basement Tapes or the Royal Albert Hall concert, are not options.

I had a really hard time deciding between Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited. I went with Blonde, but I’m still not sure I made the right choice. Two simply amazing albums.

BTW, does anyone have any thoughts on the meaning of the title Blonde on Blonde? Somehow, I don’t think Dylan was referring to bathing beauties.

Given your user name, I thought that was a foregone conclusion.

Tough choice but I also had to go with Blonde on Blonde.

If I had to choose just one of all Dylan albums though, it would be Blood on the Tracks.

Checking Wikipedia, there’s a couple of theories out there - most people who worked on the album said Dylan just came up with it through “free association,” and that the initials spell out his name (BoB). He himself, of course, says someone else came up with it but he can’t remember who.

Blonde on Blonde — but then, I’m obviously biased there.

Surely there’s some mistake in the poll. The Dylan we’re talking about was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966. He didn’t make any albums after that. :stuck_out_tongue:

I have to go with Bringing It All Back Home. Jaw-dropping from beginning to end.

I was born in 1961, so I didn’t know anything about Dylan when he was at his peak- except for a few of his older folkie numbers that we had to sing at church or at camp.

In the early Seventies, I discovered ***Bringing It All Back Home ***in my Mom’s record collection, and it gripped me from the start. “Gates of Eden” was my favorite Dylan song then, and it still is… even though I still have no clue what it meant.

An impossibly good string of consecutive releases, and all have a reason to be chosen. Rolling Stone have two of the in the top ten rock albums of all time, Blonde On Blonde at 9 and Highway 61 Revisited at 4, but I have alot of affection for Bringing It All Back Home.

Love them all but going with John Wesley Harding. Love Drifter’s Escape!

I do agree with your assessment of Blood on the Tracks. My favorite Dylan album.

My thought (besides the use of the initials BoB) has been that it was a comment on his life at the time. Look at the cover - the picture is all in shades of brown, almost like sepiatone. He was touring constantly, using drugs, and having a hard time taking care of his family. Life must have been difficult, and he may have felt that he was fading away, in a sense. Life had lost its color, so to speak. Some have even speculated that his injuries in the motorcycle accident that occurred after BoB’s release were not as severe as advertised, and that he was actually using the accident as an excuse to fade from public view. I have no particular evidence for this view, nor have I heard anyone else put it forth, but it makes some degree of sense to me.

I can’t decide between BIABH, H61R and BOB. JWH is great, but a little less so than the prior three releases, and NS is a little less than JWH.

I went with Highway 61 Revisited but it was a tough choice between the first three. I like Nashville Skyline a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever listened to all of John Wesley Harding.

Hell of a run by Dylan though.