I watched the Bob Dylan fictionalized biopic A Complete Unknown and loved it to pieces. Timothée Chalamet was fantastic and I still enjoy that era of Dylan’s work. My bread and butter Dylan is the Cutting Edge and Rolling Thunder Revue years. After watching the movie I needed to listen to Dylan and started over on his studio albums.

I used YouTube music’s ordering as my relative guide, meaning if an album fell in time even if it was a live album, I listened to it, I did not do best of or bootleg series.

I ended 2025 and began 2026 with his middle age years. After Hard Rain (Live) up to Infidels, there isn’t much of note. Some albums are a little better than others and all the albums seem to have a really good track or two.

Then from Empire Burlesque through Oh Mercy, it’s just forgettable. There are no stand out tracks, the albums are short, he does try a little new stuff, or at least doesn’t fall back on what he was, he goes through a conversion to Christianity. All things that don’t really beg a re-listen, not really.

Oh Mercy begins to pick up some decent music again. The 80’s were just a bad time for Dylan music.

I first got into Bob Dylan through Jimi Hendrix. I had a Jimi greatest hits cassette and All Along the Watchtower was an absolute favorite. Then I learned that Bob Dylan had done it first and Jimi’s was a cover. I went and found the Dylan album that had it and got my first proper taste of Bob Dylan. I listened to John Wesley Harding quite a bit. I decided to try to get other Dylan albums starting with the earliest I could find, though, I was finding them through Columbia House, which means not the most accurate information, though not bad either.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was my first introduction to the Bob Dylan that would blow my young mind, especially when I heard The Times They Are A-Changin’. What a world of difference in the person who made those early records to the person making Empire Burlesque. What a world of difference in the person who cared so much about things and the person who sits here writing.

From post-Desire through Good As I Been To You, there are only a handful of decent songs, there in the beginning, then it’s just forgettable. With World Gone Wrong, it’s as though Dylan tapped back in to that folk work that he started with. Not a complete throwback, rather a revisiting, as an elder. It’s a good album, with some good songs. Then comes Time Out Of Mind, which was my first “modern” Dylan record I listened to when it came out. I had been knees deep in that rich old folk Dylan at that time, and this album was good. I enjoyed it. Upon listening again, it’s great. It was a departure and an arrival. It was not groundbreaking, it was just full and well done, without relying on the past to have relevance. Maybe the last great Dylan record.