What is the easiest Bob Dylan album to start with?
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(Credits: Bent Rej)
When recently asked online by The Film Stage managing editor Nick Newman for a movie recommendation, Bob Dylan tweeted that “I told him to try The Unknown with Lon Chaney and go from there”. For a lot of people, the question of “how to get into Bob Dylan” can now be answered with the phrase “try A Complete Unknown with Timothée Chalamet and go from there”.
But where you go from there is not such an easy question to answer. We’ve all got our own origin stories with Bob Dylan and his music, but one thing that is the same for everyone is the sheer amount of music he has got to explore. It can seem overwhelming, but really, it is a miracle and a blessing.
On top of 40 studio albums, there are six live albums (and plenty more besides, if you count the back-dated official releases which came out later), 17 volumes of wonderful archival releases, oddities, rarities and outtakes that make up the official Bootleg Series and countless other unofficial bootlegs beyond. Dylan has played almost 4,000 concerts throughout his career and most of them have been clandestinely recorded by superfans and tapers; passed around and shared for all to continue attending long after Dylan left the stage for the night.
His music has spanned the ages and the genres and changed the world. He has reconstituted the face of the folk movement, of rock and of popular music, and of country. He introduced poetry and politics to mainstream music, and he gave the everyman a voice to sing with. He has made albums of acoustic blues and folk (Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan), revolutionary political albums (The Times They Are A-Changin’), raucous rock and roll (Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde). He has both broken and healed hearts around the world with seminal works like Blood on the Tracks. He has topped the charts across the decades with the shamanic sounds of Desire and the elder statesman Americana of Modern Times. In between, he’s made albums full of glorious gospel (Slow Train Coming, Saved) and even brushed up against synthesized pop (Empire Burlesque, Down in the Groove). His most recent album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, stands up alongside—and in some cases, towers over—his most celebrated and genius works.
In short, Bob Dylan has done it all. He has songs and albums for everyone, and once you fall completely under his spell, you are never the same person again. Once you have a companion in Dylan, you’ll have someone to guide you Together Through Life. But where to begin? In the liner notes to his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, Dylan wrote an allegorical essay which contained the cryptic phrase “‘And just how far would you like to go in?’ he asked and the three kings all looked at each other. ‘Not too far but just far enough so’s we can say that we’ve been there’”. For some people, “not too far but just far enough so’s we can say that we’ve been there” is far enough when it comes to listening to Dylan’s music, but for others among us, we want to go all the way until the wheels fall off and burn.
So, where should you start if you want to get into Bob Dylan’s music?
Firstly, there is no right answer, but there probably are a few wrong answers. Some of his albums need a bit of a run up. You probably already need to be a long-serving fan to appreciate his voice on Tempest or the overall sound of Under the Red Sky. Both are full of great songs, but they’re not the easiest on the untrained ear. Similarly, Self Portrait is great but there is a reason that Griel Marcus opened his famous review for Rolling Stone of it with the immortal line “What is this shit?” having grown up on a steady diet of Dylan’s 1960s output. New Morning, Street-Legal and “Love and Theft” are all fan favourites, but they’re probably not the albums that will give you the keys to unlocking the rest of his catalogue without already loving some of his other albums first.
A safe bet when getting started is to try Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan and go from there. This album sees Dylan on the brink of changing the musical landscape. He has one foot in his acoustic past and one foot in his rock and roll future. It is full of ingenious wordplay, inventive and mind-bending use of the English language, and so many celebrated classics that it’s easy to forget you’re listening to a single album and not a greatest hits compilation.
This is an album that will make you laugh (‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’) and make you rethink your whole worldview (‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’). It’ll make you rejoice and exclaim (‘Mr Tambourine Man’), and it’ll make you despair (‘Gates of Eden’). It’ll make you want to revolt and burn the whole thing down (‘Maggie’s Farm’), and it’ll make you want to go and find your partner and tell them how much you care (‘She Belongs to Me’, ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit’). It’ll bring it all back home and make you want to move and groove your body and your brain (‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, ‘Outlaw Blues’). It’s got everything you’ll need to be best equipped to take on the rest of his catalogue, and set you up to travel through his vast and sprawling discography in any way you please.
Once you’ve taken it all in, it’s time to take a trip on down Highway 61 and revisit the best catalogue and body of work in modern music. Where you go from there, though, is up to you. Maybe back to the beginning, or maybe a little further down the line. It’s a trip with many twists and turns. Not all of it is an easy ride. Sometimes the path can feel like it’s made of rocks and gravel, but you just need to take the attitude like Bob Dylan himself as he sings in ‘What Can I Do For You?’, “I don’t care how rough the road is, show me where it starts”.
And so, now that you’ve seen A Complete Unknown and want to get to know the music behind the man, as Dylan sang onstage in 1981, “my new found friend, let’s begin”.
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