My aforementioned 17 year old daughter is always keen to discover new old music. She loves the Beatles natch, Monkees, Paul Simon, Fleet Foxes and Abba (mum’s influence) and I’ve recently introduced her to CSN&Y (“like fleet foxes but not as good”). She came to me today asking which Bob Dylan albums she should listen to first. She had heard “Like a Rolling Stone” and astonishingly liked it a lot. So where to start. I’m thinking “Blood on the Tracks” as the best and most accessible . But then “Blonde”? – the early folky stuff? – “Desire” maybe? – surely not the new stuff. Anybody got an opinion? How do you introduce a newbie to the Bobster.
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The Jewfro trilogy (Bringing 61 Blonde) and Blood On The Tracks, that’s where I would start. She’s probably too young for Time Out Of Mind.
I initially I misread that as The Jethro Trilogy – Dylan doing a load of comedy songs in a Cornish accent, perhaps?
Haven’t you heard the bootleg?
Comedy, you say?
Desire is a good shout but maybe Nashville Skyline too.
Less sure about Nashville Skyline. My other half’s daughter likes that one purely because it doesn’t sound like Dylan, and I can’t say that its one I ever actively enjoy hearing. Desire is a glossier and more approachable option than most though.
Greatest Hits? (Seriously)
I probably agree as an intro. This is a good one, though on the steep side at least on the dodgers sites. It roughly breaks down into first disc olfpd folic, second disc big hair and drugs era, third disc everything since. It’s a beautifully presented package too.
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Bringing It All Back Home
Blonde on Blonde
If she likes those, she can be left alone to navigate the rest of his catalogue herself, in either direction.
The Complete Basement Tapes.
Only joking. Listen to mini but in reverse order.
Wrong. Mini’s three are correct and in the correct order (although an intro re almost any of Greatest Hits should be fine)
I wouldn’t start on Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, they should be anticipated and then rationed. Playing Blonde on Blonde too much reveals just how lousy now is.
Why not just start at the beginning? You’re into Mojo and Uncut 5-star territory by the second LP.
Actually, I’d start somebody new with Modern Times / Love and Theft. Its actually much more inviting, less of a gap to bridge. Rainy Day Women and Pledging My Time is a hurdle for some. I think JWH is easier going.
Highway 61.
I was 17 and unconvinced by claims about Bob Dylan’s brilliance.
A confirmed Dylanologist lent me Highway 61 Revisited assuring me it would change my point of view.
He was right, it did.
So based upon my own experience, that’s what I recommend as a starting place, though admittedly this was before Blood On The Tracks had been released. It was in fact during the the years when people thought Dylan had gone and was never coming back.
Me too, except I bought Highway 61 Revisited with a book token. As a thirteen year old I had no idea Dylan would be awarded a Nobel prize for literature. However, I won the book token as second prize in an essay writing competition. I figured I should take a punt on something ‘poetic’.
Controversial opinion. H61 is better than BOT.
Pile in.
Of course it is. All of 61 is good and it hasn’t got that tiresome Jack of Hearts song on it.
Damn right. Highway 61 remains my favourite. First love is always the best.
Blonde on Blonde is better though …
You may be right. Both have their heavy moments and their light moments but the BoB band is probably better.
Ballad of a thin man swings it for me.
It amazes me that those twerps who went to shout Judas at him evidently couldn’t hear the difference between that and Herman’s Hermits.
The Free Trade Hall version is basically the start of the late 60s.
The ‘tiresome Jack Of Hearts song’ is the best thing on it.
Cor. I will never understand Dylan fans.
Tangled Up In Blue is the best song on the album, but the others are all great too.
It’s a bit like when you ask that Zen butcher for his best piece of beef and he says “Every one of my pieces of beef is the best”.
I was sixteen and I bought a 12 track compilation that covers his early years (i.e. ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ to ‘Blonde on Blonde’) I liked the stuff like ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ best, so I then branched out to ‘Bringing it all Back Home’ and ‘Highway 61 Revisited’.
After that, it was just a case of going backwards and forwards, picking up albums that were recommended – ‘Blonde on Blonde’, ‘Freewheelin” , ‘Blood On The Tracks’ etc, and then filling in the gaps as and when I felt the need, including the Bootleg series.
More Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits ( double album ) .
This was the collection that really got me into Dylan when it was first released.
It will surely make her want to further explore his catalogue.
Freewheelin’
Highway 61
Blood On The Tracks
Wild card: New Morning
deffo Greatest Hits and More Greatest Hits
I can only speak for myself. but Like A Rolling Stone was the first one that I recall hearing too. I was about 13. At the next birthday/Christmas I got Bringing It All Back Home (because I had read in a Beatles book, presumably Shout, that this was Lennon’s favourite) and the first Greatest Hits package. And I’ve never looked back! Bringing It All Back Home is still in my all-time top 5 albums (by anyone, that is, not just Dylan).
Coincidentally, I’ve just finishing rewatching the Scorsese documentary a few minutes ago. I know some people would like to go back to Wings and erase Linda’s parts (not me) or Lennon’s albums/performances and remove Yoko (yep!), but those pale into insignificance when Joan Baez sidles up to the microphone and starts wailing alongside Bob when he’s trying to sing. I think Pete Seeger chose the wrong performance to take his axe to.
You’ve never looked back? well, you were told not to.
Come gather ’round people, wherever you be,
and come take a listen to these Dylan LPs
You’ll decide soon enough if he’s your cup o’ tea
for his songs are always changin’.
Yes, he found Jesus Christ in the late seventies,
but this next song is amazin’
Come doubters and critics who judge him too soon
and tell me you don’t like his odd country croon,
and how can you tell me this sounds out of tune,
it’s your head that needs arrangin’.
Did you notice the rhymes weren’t all moon and june?
Ok, but this next song is amazin’.
Come cloth-eared lovers of Magic FM,
who know nothing more than the stuff that goes top 10
who’ve not bought an album since Napster was in,
your resolve will soon be fadin’.
And you’ll soon be quoting Clinton Heylin.
Well, this next song is amazin’.
etc
👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
Give that man a Nobel Prize!
He’s a (brilliant) Lizard!
👏👏👏
That’s fantastic – better than the original
Most people’s “in” to Dylan, in the UK anyway, was the original 60s Greatest Hits album. Seems a bloody good place to start.
I wouldn’t bother though, he’s a bit rubbish.
*tiptoes away snickering in the manner of a pantomime villain*
My intro to Dylan was singing Blowin’ In The Wind at school. Seriously.
That was mine. Bought the song book too. Learned to play the guitar from those songs.
My folkie guru (already seventeen and already wearing a Bob cap) introduced me to Times They Are’a Changing. For several weeks (months?) I thought Dylan was a 75 year-old blues singer from Mississippi (wherever that was).
To be fair, so did he.
At that age I started with The Times They are a Changin’ moved on to Greatest Hits (released 1966), then Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited and Desire. Blood on the Tracks is a bit too intense at 17 I think. I also tried John Wesley Harding and was very disappointed.
Bringing It All Back Home was where I started. I feel it is a good start.
But do get her onto Live 66 “The Royal Albert Hall” sharpish. I can’t imagine anyone new to Bob who listened to those two and didn’t end up loving him…
That Greatest Hits with “Watching The River Flow” at the beginning is another cracker if you’re new to him. And I honestly think that The Basement Tapes is a good one for a newbie as well… I could be wrong there tough.
Ohhh careful with Live 66. I think you need to be familiar with the studio versions of the Hawks material first to fully appreciate what they were doing. Also to know what the words are. The words are important with Dylan, not like your modern pop music with it’s bitch-this and bottom-that.
I definitely concur with the view that BOTT isn’t the one to start with. I think you need to have experienced love and loss to really get that album. I’d suggest some kind of compilation, either a greatest hits or one or two of the Bootleg series, perhaps 1-3 which covers much of the first three decades, or the No Direction Home tie-in. Biograph is also good in this context. Of the studio albums, I don’t think anyone’s mentioned ‘Oh Mercy’ – I recommend this as very accessible, with gorgeous songs and production.
Laughed out loud at the “like fleet foxes but not as good” bit. But kids, right? I have a 12 year old frequently visiting the museum where I work. Once he glanced at my computer screen and seeing the In a silent way cover, said “Ah, Miles Davis, coupla good songs there. Thought you only listen to rock, but this is some awesome trumpet”. He’s 12 in three months, jeez louizz.
Could he become the youngest member of the Afterword?
… does he have his own teeth/hair/criplling debt burden?
As above, I’d recommend “Modern Times” and “Love And Theft” as an introduction. (It worked for our kid, so you know it can’t be bad…)
The songs swing, the band is ace, Dylan sings like a god, the lyrics are quite funny on the surface, but have a lot of depth when you start to think about them, and it’s all much more contemporary than the 70s and 60s stuff.
“Sings like a god”? I adore “Love and Theft”, and his singing is pretty good, but I think his 60s stylings are a lot easier to take for newbies.
Wot? No mention of Street Legal? Would have though that was a great way in for a noob. Choooons. Baaaaand. Lyrics. That or the Budokan live double.
Good shout. Budokan was my entry drug, in my teens.
Both pretty atypical, especially the bland Vegas review style of Budokan.
As a non fan, I read one of those ‘must have in your collection’ lists. So now I’m a non fan Blood on the Tracks and Blonde on Blonde owner.
Moles Jr here. As a young bob fan, also 17, my favourites are:
– Desire
-Nashville Skyline
-The Times They Are A-Changin’
-Blood On The Tracks
-Bringing It All Back Home
Father Moles claims I am deluded, but I am not sorry, I am right
It’s ok my son, your real father is here. Come on home
*daughter
I must warn you though, I like status quo. A lot.
…..and wears denim wherever she goes. This is how it begins…
Oh yeah!
I was 17 when Blood on the Tracks came out and it certainly worked for me. But it doesn’t strike me as the most accessible album to start. Given she liked Like a Rolling Stone, surely Highway 61 Revisited is the one to go for. I can’t imagine anyone who is going to like Dylan not loving that one. New Morning was one of my early albums as well, and whilst not his finest hour it’s an attractive sounding record. But I agree with the suggestion of the three CD compilation Biograph – it’s a terrifically eclectic mix and I think can be bought pretty cheaply these days.
Personally speaking, Bringing It All Back Home is the only Dylan album (thatI’ve heard) that I can sit through from beginning to end.
I just don’t ‘get’ him…….I’ll get my coat.
Burn the witch!
I became a fan via Freewheelin’, which I bought in 1982 because he looked cool on the cover photo… 🙂 It’s still my favourite Dylan album.
I’m going to guess that if you’re the sort of person that will love Dylan’s music, any album you hear first will be your favourite (except Infidels…and a couple of others of that period, before his resurrection).
I like Dylan in small doses. An LP’s worth of songs in a sitting. The first one I heard was H61 and that is the one most likely to be played in its entirety (apart from the toe-curling Ballad of a Thin Man, natch).
As for the OP, his catalogue is so vast, and (let’s face it) patchy that a greatest hits comp is surely the way to go.
I think it’s all been said above, but the sensible consensus must be to start in the 60’s imperial period, and it hardly matters where. I’d probably avoid the early acoustic ones for now except possibly Freewheelin’, and start with the 1966 Greatest Hits (or possibly selected Biograph) as a teaser and work out from there. The best advice is probably to tell her what to avoid for now (there’s plenty of time to delve later on if she’s interested enough), which is where we will all start arguing….mine would be everything between John Wesley Harding and Blood On The Tracks, everything after Desire up until Time Out Of Mind with the exception of Infidels and Oh Mercy, then all of the latest covers albums.
The 1966 Greatest Hits must be what I started with, considering it ends with tracks from ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and has nothing thereafter (i.e. no Tangled Up In Blue, Knocking On Heaven’s Door or anything else you’d expect on an up to date compilation.
I think you’re right on advising what to avoid. Dylan’s output is so vast that one misstep at the beginning could put you off him completely.
Nigel are you dissing Infidels and Oh Mercy ?
No @Junior-Wells !They are exceptions to the ones to avoid in the 80s in my opinion…I probably didn’t express myself very well!
aah gotcha. While there are some fine songs in that decade, as albums, yes they are his poorest decade.
I cut my teeth on Bob Greatest Hits Volume 2 and think it is a good selection without being overly expansive.