1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 55. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

 

Further evolution of His Bobness here, with an album almost entirely using the backing band, and much more musically rounded once again. Quite a few of the songs on here skewer vanities, hypocrisies, and venalities in songs such as Like A Rolling Stone (about a socialite lost in a world of empty treasures), or Ballad of a Thin Man (about corporate bigwigs who understand money but not art).  

Other tracks are what are now becoming a Dylanesque staple of cultural figures mushed together into a surreal experience, like Tombstone Blues and the eponymous track. Some other tracks feature bluesy elements, notably the chugging rhythms of It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes  Train To Cry. And the album is rounded out with the 11 –minute epic Desolation Row. There's lots more lyrical play going on here, often with a sense of fun reflected in the music (the “siren whistle” in Highway 61 for example). This is also, so far, Dylan’s most melodic album). 

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