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Blonde On Blonde

by

Bob Dylan

 
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Blonde On Blonde
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Avg: 4.5 (619 ratings)

  • Date Released: May 16, 1966
  • Genre: Rock/Pop
  • Style: Rock
  • Label: Columbia
  • Copyright: Originally Released 1966 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
  • We Say...

    How loose could Dylan get? Loose enough to kick off rock's first double-LP with a stoned and staggering party anthem, played by the perplexed Nashville session cats with whom he cut most of it. (The album's front-cover photo is a little out of focus, and there's a certain smoked-up blurriness to most of the songs, too.) How tight could he get? Tight enough to end it with the spellbinding epic "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," which his admirers are still unpacking. The real joy of Blonde on Blonde, though, is that it's hard to tell its meticulously crafted jewels (and binoculars) from its casually thrown-together mules — most of its highlights, like the seething blues "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," seem to have accidentally stumbled onto their enduring power. Dylan's loopy free associations aren't just a tic, they're the centerpiece of his art. Anyone else would've called the jolly breakup tune here "You Go Your Way and I Go Mine" without the "Most Likely," which isn't even in the lyrics; anyone else would've thought twice about throwing in an apropos-of-nothing bridge involving a stilt-walking judge; anybody else in 1966 would have, you know, sung it, instead of magisterially drawling the lyrics like a drunken accusation. But Dylan wasn't like anybody else, and nearly every wild, counter-intuitive gesture he made on this sprawling album was a Zen arrow hitting a bullseye.

  • They Say...

    If Highway 61 Revisited played as a garage rock record, the double album Blonde on Blonde inverted that sound, blending blues, country, rock, and folk into a wild, careening, and dense sound. Replacing the fiery Michael Bloomfield with the intense, weaving guitar of Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan led a group comprised of his touring band the Hawks and session musicians through his richest set of songs. Blonde on Blonde is an album of enormous depth, providing endless lyrical and musical revelations on each play. Leavening the edginess of Highway 61 with a sense of the absurd, Blonde on Blonde is comprised entirely of songs driven by inventive, surreal, and witty wordplay, not only on the rockers but also on winding, moving ballads like "Visions of Johanna," "Just Like a Woman," and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." Throughout the record, the music matches the inventiveness of the songs, filled with cutting guitar riffs, liquid organ riffs, crisp pianos, and even woozy brass bands ("Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"). It's the culmination of Dylan's electric rock & roll period -- he would never release a studio record that rocked this hard, or had such bizarre imagery, ever again.

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