Bob Dylan returned to the Columbia Label after releasing one studio and one live album for Asylum. While there had been a great deal of animosity between him and Columbia, the lure of controlling his vast catalog of recordings, and especially the unreleased tracks proved to great to pass up. Given the quantity and quality of numerous live albums and especially the Bootleg Series, Dylan got the better of the deal.
Blood On The Tracks was Dylan’s first release under his new contract. It would prove to be one of the best albums of his career, or that of anyone else for that matter. Rolling Stone Magazine would rank it as the 16th greatest album of all time. The public would embrace it as it went multi-platinum and became his second number one release. It would become the standard against which all of Dylan’s future releases would be measured.
I remember buying this album and playing it over and over again. From the opening notes of the first song it was apparent that it was special. Dylan had embraced his folk and acoustic heritage but there was still a rock ‘n’ roll aura about it.
Blood On The Tracks is a personal journey of a life in turmoil and a relationship disintegrating. It is a look into the heart and mind of a man through the use of imagery, poetry and music. The ten songs that comprise the album contain no chaff and may be the overall strongest group that Dylan produced during his career.
‘Tangled Up In Blue” leads off the album and immediately sets the exceptional tone and standard of this release. The lyrics and the characters are open to interpretation. This is Dylan at his lyrical best as the listener is asked to draw his or her own conclusions. Later in his career Dylan would change the song from the first person to the third. “Simple Twist Of Fate” is a minimalist song of farewell. These two songs are worth the price of the album and they are just the beginning.
Article comments
1 - Dude Skoodle
bARACK oBAMA loves this album.
The outakes version is good- it is all acoustic.
2 - BigBoi
Ooooo, if Barack loves it, it MUST be good. PSYCHE!
3 - kevin cramsey
This review is pretty much spot-on. "Tangled" and "Simple Twist" make for one of the best 1-2 punches ever to lead off an album. Perfect songs, both of them. The only reservation I have toward this album is the inclusion of "Jack of Hearts." It is the one song which just doesn't seem to fit what is otherwise a concept album. Perhaps it was meant as an intermission of sorts, giving the listener a light-hearted respite from the business at hand. A great outtake is "Up to Me," a song which is often referred to as an early version of "Shelter from the Storm" a song with which it shares a melody. Of course, the all acoustic "Idiot Wind" available on the Bootleg series is also unbelievably great. I may be in the minority, but I prefer it to the rather angry version heard here. But why quibble? This is a great album.