This is not strictly true-- I voted for “World Gone Wrong” in the ’ Best Bob Dylan Studio Albums (POLL) Part 2’ poll, but it looks like my vote was lost or discarded when that thread was merged into the Part 1 poll.
So I voted for WGW again-- a fine, underrated gem of an album of Dylan covering obscure and semi-obscure old Folk / Country / Blues songs, just Dylan singing and playing acoustic guitar. For those who don’t like his singing voice, I understand, but personally I think Dylan can put more feeling and shades of meaning into a sung line reading than many more technically ‘better’ singers.
There are three albums on this list that I rate among Dylan’s top ten or twelve albums, “Another Side”, “John Wesley Harding” and “Street Legal”. Out of these, “Another Side” gets my vote, especially knowing the story of its recording. It was one nightly, wine-fueled solo session in which Dylan recorded the whole album in one go, mostly first takes, and it contains classics like “My Back Pages”, “All I Really Want To Do”, “Chimes Of Freedom” (all three later beautifully covered by the Byrds) and “It Ain’t Me, Babe”. Who else could pull that off?
I was waffling between Another Side and Street Legal. Another Side is certainly brilliant, but I gave the (razor thin) edge to SL because it just…does something for me.
In a recent New Yorker consisting of republished pieces they ran Nat Hentoff’s article about sitting in on that session. Don’t spend a lot of time looking for it, Hentoff might have been a great jazz critic, but he had no idea of what he was hearing. Wasted opportunity.
Of course, I agree with every one of those, but may I respectfully add Motorpsycho Nitemare? It’s a side of Dylan that gets forgotten - he wrote some really funny songs, and this one is laugh out loud funny.
(Actually, I also really like Ballad In Plain D, as mean spirited as it is.)
(And I feel I should explain the extreme brevity of my earlier post: don’t post on the dope in your dentist’s waiting room.)
I concur wholeheartedly, I also dig the funny and absurdist songs from his early career, like also “Talking World War III Blues” and a special favorite of mine, “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”.
For me, there are a handful of albums that I first heard in Bob’s Basement… which was an oasis of hipness in a Kennedy-Era Suburb of Conformity.
I’m not exaggerating when I say our eyes were opened to the wide weird world out there by every new album that Bob played us. Everything from The Mothers to early Yardbirds to Townes Van Zandt …
… and the first Dylan album. So that one had the most effect on me. Of course, we bought every album as soon as they came out, and we lay around Bob’s Basement tried to figure out the lyrics, but mostly just basked in the genius.
Well, I rapped upon a house With the U.S. flag upon display I said, "Could you help me out? I got some friends down the way" The man says, "Get out of here I’ll tear you limb from limb" I said, “You know, they refused Jesus, too” He said, “You’re not Him”