So this year I have finally fully got into Dylan's music. I knew of his stuff but haven't really given any album that much time. As you know Columbia has remastered his albums and I have been buying them from Amoeba when ever I have found them used this year. Have come to the conclusion that Blonde On Blonde is the greatest American album ever released.

So how would you rank the Bob Dylan albums that really know? I'm curious because I want to know what to be on the look out next. This is the ranking from Rolling Stone magazine when they rated the Top 500 Albums of All Time:

1. Highway 61 Revisited
2. Blonde On Blonde
3. Blood On the Tracks
4. Bringing All Back Home
5. The Freewiheelin' Bob Dylan
6. The Basement Tapes (with the Band)
7. John Wesley Harding
8. Time Out of Mind
9. Love and Theft

Hard to go wrong with anything off that list. I personally extoll the virtues of Blood On The Tracks routiney, just because its a perfectly made abum with excellent songwriting. I think it better than BoB just due to the increased maturity and pure songwriting ability. It might be the perfect 'country' album for me.

1. Highway 61 Revisited
2. Blood On the Tracks
3. John Wesley Harding
4. Blonde On Blonde
5. Bringing it All Back Home
6. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
7. Love and Theft
8. Live, 1966
9. Oh Mercy
10. Time Out of Mind
11. Infidels
12. The Basement Tapes (with the Band)

But that's me.

Yep yep yep. Busty's girl and I both can put this album on, more or less anytime from now until we die, and be happy.

blood on the tracks is my favorite, after that i don't care to rank them.

also the bootleg series is essential.

That's a pretty good list actually. I might have the basement tapes a little higher, and move Another Side of Bob Dylan onto the list and kick Time Out of Mind off or maybe Love and Theft off. But Highway 61 has always been my favorite.

It's really hard to improve on that list but here's my personal list:

1. Blood on the Tracks
2. Blonde on Blonde
3. Highway 61 Revisited
(top three are practically interchangeable)
4. Hard Rain
5. Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
6. Desire
7. Time Out of Mind
8. Bootleg #3(?) - Live at Royal Albert Hall
9. John Wesly Harding
10. Bootleg #4(?) - Rolling Thunder Review

Blonde on Blonde would probably be my fave with Blood on the Tracks being 2nd. Another great Dylan album that doesn't get mentioned much is Oh Mercy. It has that song from High Fidelity "Most Of The Time."

Seconded. One of my favorite Dylan songs.

it's hard to really rank these albums - they are all masterpieces. I like Blood on the Tracks a lot though...that's probably my number 1. One of my favorite songs of his is on the Biograph compilation - "Up to Me"

Even though The Basement Tapes took the #1 spot in my Listmania, I'm (contrarily enough) not a huge Dylan fan. I don't mean to say his work hasn't been brilliant and revolutionary - just that I don't often listen to it.

The Basement Tapes
Blonde On Blonde
Highway 61 Revisited
Bringing It All Back Home

I can live quite happily without any others. And with Greatest Hits Vol. II I could cut that list down by half.

I actually don't have a lot of Dylan albums. Bloor just kindly hooked me up with the Basement Tapes, so I'm leaving that off until I can really compare it to the others.

From my own collection

1. Highway 61 Revisited
2. Blonde on Blonde
3. Blood on the Tracks
4. Bootleg Vol. 5- Live 1975
5. Bringing it All Back Home

I should probably hear John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline sometime. Maybe Planet Waves and Desire too. I've heard good things about those albums.

I am not a hardcore Dylan fan, so it should be interesting to see how you react to my, admittedly underinformed list.

1. Blood On the Tracks
2. Nashville Skyline
3. Freewheeling Bob Dylan
4. Another Side Of Bob Dylan
5. The Basement Tapes

I just bought the new bootleg series (No Direction Home Sountrack) and its pretty good. Contains some really killer alternate takes of some classics, and what looks to be bitchin' liner notes.

i want the first two dylan albums - have they been reissued with special bonus stuff or what?

bort

Not a diehard, but I listen to each at least once a year:

Nashville Skyline
Blonde on Blonde
Highway 61 Revisited
Blood On the TRacks
The Basement Tapes
Desire
Freewheelin' Bob Zimmerman

Freewheelin' has been reissued but it has no bonus material. I don't think that the first album was part of the reissues.

my top 6

Blonde on Blonde
Highway 61 Revisited
Bringing it all Back Home
Nashville Skyline
Blood on The Tracks
John Wesley Harding

Agreed, except for me its "Abandoned Love" That Biograph comp is absolutely essential for anyone who even remotely digs Dylan.

I'm not gonna put any live albums or comps on my list. The live albums actually deserve their own list/thread; Of the Dylan albums that I own:

Blonde On Blonde
Highway 61
Blood On The Tracks
Nashville Skyline
Bringing It All Back Home
The Basement Tapes
Another Side Of Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A Changin
New Morning
Love And Theft
The Freewheelin Bob Dylan
Slow Train Coming
Street Legal
Desire
John Wesley Harding
Time Out Of Mind

Desire above Freewheelin, and John Wesly Harding? interesting.

Soemthing about JWH has always rubbed me wrong.

John Wesley Harding is really tight and kind of sparse.
Planet Waves is loose, sloppy and fun.
Desire is loved by some, but not by me. the songs are heavily layered with sound with little room to breath.

i have Nashville Skyline but never listen to it.

On second thought, I think I did overrate Desire; I was thinking of 10 years ago when I really liked that album. Now its like "Hurricane", "Isis" and a bunch of crap.

such an underrated dylan album.

i thought i hated bob dylan until i heard this album in college. it forced me to rethink my opinion (which i had really no reason for in the first place) and really take a listen to his stuff.