I like Together Through Life very much for warm, Chess-like production; I don't remember anything about the melodies, they were all okay! My Wife's Home Town is to the melody of I Just Wanna Make Love to You; Willie Dixon's credited alright! the bluesy ones on TTL are just amazing, I love the album. it's a little like Desire with exotic instruments and that's the worst part of it.

really I never care about melodies if they're new or old; judge for yourself. album's great.

i don't sit and pick out melodies or look for them in folk music but when i song starts and i know the tune i feel like i'm listening to rap, you know take another song and put your lyrics over it.

1. Blonde On Blonde
2. Highway 61
3. Blood On The Tracks
4. John Wesley Harding
5. The Freewheeling Bob Dylan

My picks, no particular order;

Highway 61 Revisited
Blonde On Blonde
Blood On The Tracks
Street Legal
Time Out Of Mind

...closely followed by Bringing It All Back Home and Love & Theft

1. Blonde on Blonde
2. Highway 61 Revisited
3. Bringing It All Back Home
4. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan Version 1
5. The Times They Are A-Changin'
6. John Wesley Harding
7. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan version 2

All in Mono

Quote
KeithNacho
I must admit i love the "christian period": slow train, shot of love, saved, infidels, empire burlesque.........................
But DESIRE + STREET LEGAL + OH MERCY + TIME OUT OF MIND are my favourites..........

Probably mine but I began listening with Desire and it's still my favourite and Bob's still telling it like it is!

There's an evenin' haze settlin' over the town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin' power of the proletariat's gone down
Money's gettin' shallow and weak

It's certainly looking shallow and weak at the moment

1. John Wesley Harding
2. Freewheeling
3. Hwy 61
4. Bringing It All Back Home
5. Blonde on Blonde

I have:

BoB
Time Out of Mind
Love and Theft
Modern Times
Together Through Life

Exactly five

1. Blonde on Blonde
2. Highway 61
3. Blood on the Tracks
4. Bringing It All Back Home Again
5. Desire

Nothing original about my list, but those are GREAT albums. Hard to crack that list.

Blood On the Tracks
Desire
Infidels
Time Out Of Mind
Highway 61/Blonde On Blonde

1. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
2. Bringing It All Back Home
3. Live 1966: "The Royal Albert Hall" Concert
4. The Basement Tapes
5. Blood On The Tracks

Breaks my heart to cut it down to five--Time Out Of Mind, John Wesley Harding, Highway 61? Even sleepers like Pat Garrett, Planet Waves and World Gone Wrong...go to Oh Mercy and listen to "Most Of The Time." Or to the electric "Shelter From The Storm" on Hard Rain.

But the five listed at the top seem to me to be essential and the place to start. What an incredible artist...

Blood on the Tracks
Blonde on Blonde
Highway 61 Revisited
Desire
Slow Train Coming

Blonde On Blonde
Freewheelin'
Bringing It All Back Home
Street Legal
Infidels

Quote
uhbuhgullayew
"The sun's not yellow it's chicken"

That's right up there with "the sunshine bores the daylights out of me"...

1. Blonde On Blonde
2. Blood On The Tracks
3. Freewheelin'
4. Another Side of
5. Nashville Skyline

1. Oh Mercy
2. Time Out Of Mind
3. Together Through Life
4. World Gone Wrong
5. Planet Waves

looks like JOHN WESLEY HARDING is my next purchase

1 Blonde On Blonde
2 Highway 61 Revisited
3 Nashville Skyline
4)John Wesley Harding
5)Blood on the Tracks

When He Returns

Whatever LP that one is one....great stuff

Quote
MrEcho
1. Oh Mercy
2. Time Out Of Mind
3. Together Through Life
4. World Gone Wrong
5. Planet Waves

Interesting choices...World Gone Wrong is kind of a lostr masterpiece. I loved Bob's slightly sloppy but very cool folk guitar playing on that one, and he imbued some of those old chestnuts with a real sense of mystery and darkness.

I like that one where he sings something like .... ""hheebrr shsgee sjsjdhehes skseuue"..... well, I couldnt really understand what the iphone he was trying to say, but it was so awesome...

he is such a genius...... and another great Dylan song is the one where he sings something like "Mea ruther guter anauth bugger she a being jjtst like a smuthrlot"... or something like that... those two are the best.... I'll think and come back with the other 3 because its hard to narrow it down to just 5.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-06 03:23 by Max'sKansasCity.

Quote
keefriffhard4life
looks like JOHN WESLEY HARDING is my next purchase

The total antithesis of the summer of love. Stripped down, lots of biblical imagery, parables with no choruses (unlike The Basement Tapes from earlier that year which was full of 'em) - and a piercing harmonica which will give you toothache.

And all recorded in three one-day sessions.

Quote
Gazza

Quote
keefriffhard4life
looks like JOHN WESLEY HARDING is my next purchase

The total antithesis of the summer of love. Stripped down, lots of biblical imagery, parables with no choruses (unlike The Basement Tapes from earlier that year which was full of 'em) - and a piercing harmonica which will give you toothache.

And all recorded in three one-day sessions.

I agree with Clinton Heylin that the death of Woody Guthrie a few weeks before the sessions had a lot to do with final outcome of JWH. And Dylan says he was going for the sound on Gordon Lightfoot's record.

Dylan's lyrics are so powerful, have such deep meaning.


so deep and so articulate





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-06 03:18 by Max'sKansasCity.

The amazing thing about Dylan (and other great artists - like say Neil Young, is how much he's changed over the years. The folk singer, early electric, Christian, the fallow period, the rebirth.

Not unlike with the Stones -- Early R&B, British music hall, Psychedelic, Golden period, comeback, the later years. Just as you can dig Out of Our Heads, so can you dig Undercover.

You can pick amazing albums from any Dylan period. The beauty is in discovering all the periods.

That said, I think "Love and Theft" is one of the single best American albums ever recorded. It's like taking a trip through a time capsule of American music.

Collect em all!
T@3

i went to barnes and noble and got JOHN WESLEY HARDING and NASHVILLE SKYLINE each for $7.99 plus 10% off each as a member and another 15% off 1 of them with a coupon. my total was around $13 for 2 albums. other titles by dylan barnes and noble has for $7.99 included:
love and theft
slow train coming
oh mercy
time out of mind
bob dylan
desire
highway 61 revisited
bringing it all back home
freewheeling bob dylan
times they are a-changin


if you are missing any dylan looks like a trip to barnes and noble will get you some cheap

If you add the outtake "series of dreams" to the "OH MERCY" album, here you have an absolute masterpiece

Blood on the tracks - the most concise. The first true comeback. "Love hurts!"

freewheeling- the early exuberance. As Neil Young would say "love and war"
street legal- changing of the guards, señor - bring it on
desire- fantasically exotic. play on holiday with glass of wine
blonde on Blonde - wonderful but a bit too "stoner".

I don't think anyone mentioned "Empire Burlesque" which was pretty damn good.
Five is almost impossible with Dylan.
There's the run from "Freewheelin" all the way to "Nashville Skyline"; and even there you really only got "Self Portrait" with a dip before the quality shoots right back up with "New Morning" for a few albums.
Then there is the other run from "Before the Flood" to "Street Legal" (except "Hard Rain").
I would say his last several albums, while not as stellar as his early work are surprisingly good. It is people like Dylan, Neil Young, Springsteen, Van Morrison, McCartney who prove that there is absolutely no need for a late career quality dip. In other words: the Stones have no excuse.

i can hardly name 5 great dylan tracks. sorry! it just never made click, no matter how hard i tried!