Bob Dylan has a had a long career spanning five decades and 33 studio albums (though counted by many 1975's Basement Tapes is left off the album list because it is clearly a bootleg of previous released material and not a new studio album). Of these albums several are considered some of the best music ever recorded, while others befuddle critics and fans alike. Here at Muse-Zach we are going to take a glance at these albums divided by decade to show the highs and lows of Bob's career, and the album sales that correspond with them.
Dylan's Top Selling Studio Albums
1. Blood on the Tracks 1975
U.S. 2X Platinum, CAN Platinum, UK Gold
2. Desire 1976
U.S. 2x Platinum, CAN Platinum, UK Gold
3. Slow Train Coming 1979
U.S. Platinum, CAN 2X Platinum, UK Silver
4. Modern Times 2006
U.S. Platinum, CAN Platinum, AUS Gold
5. Street Legal 1978
U.S. Gold, UK Platinum, CAN Platinum
6. Time Out of Mind 1997
U.S. Platinum, AUS Gold, CAN Gold, UK Gold
7. Blonde on Blonde 1966
2X U.S. Platinum
8. Highway 61 Revisited 1965
U.S Platinum, CAN Gold
9. Nashville Skyline 1969
U.S Platinum, CAN Gold
10. Infidels 1983
U.S. Gold, CAN Gold, UK Silver
Each decade is represented on this list with at least one album. Dylan's 70's albums far exceed any other decade with four albums (three of which are the top selling overall), even beating the 60s (three albums) where most critics say Dylan was at the peak of his genious. Showing his long lasting song writing power, Dylan's later masterpieces from '97 and '06 each made the list, and Dylan's least acclaimed decade, '80, had only one album barely making the list.
It should be noted that while Live and Bootleg Dylan albums additionally have high sales, complications of Dylan's song far exceed the sale of any other type of Dylan release (Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits vol. 1 and 2 have each gone 5X Platinum in the U.S. and 2X Platinum in CAN respectively).
Dylan's long career has hills and valleys, which can last for a few albums or an entire decade depending on which critic or Dylan fan you talk to. The charts below looking at each decade of Bob's illustrious career are comprised of Rollingstone.com, Allmusic.com, and Sputnikmusic.com's reviews of all 34 of Dylan's albums. While critics are definately not perfect (many are retarded) it should give an idea of Dylan's critical reception over his 40+ year career.
His first decade is generally considered his best, and a glance at the chart above shows that critics generally hold his sediment. Young Mr. Dylan's early masterpieces would garnish him world renownd, an unwanted voice of the 60s title, and the artistic freedom to do whatever he pleased in the decades to come. Allmusic.com is the most praising of Dylan's early work awarding perfect ratings to 7 of Dylan's 9 records from this era. Rollingstone follows close suite with 5 perfect albums, and both sites rate all 9 albums 4 stars or higher. Sputnikmusic is a little more realistic in their ratings (could Bob really make 7 perfect albums in 7 years; how does one define a perfect album?) but still rates this era incredibly high with all albums well above 3.5 in rating.
Highs and lows is the name of the game for Dylan in the 1970s. Seeing the end of the rebellious 60s and this commission as a folk hero, Dylan's next ten years are perhaps his most interesting. At the start he alienates fans and bewilders critics with Self Portrait and by the end he finds Jesus and becomes a born again Christian with Slow Train Coming. In between Bob changed recored labels, experimented in new musical directions, recorded with the Band, crafted a few new masterpieces, and lost the alligance of critics once so strong in his corner now would cry foul on works not reaching the bar Bob had set so high in the 60s. While Dylan matches the previous decades output with 9 stuido albums, Allmusic and Rollingstone award only one of them, Blood on the Tracks, a perfect rating. 1976's Desire, and 1970's New Morning to a lesser extent, is the only other album unnanimously celebrated from this era, with the rest of Dylan's works being rated middle of the road and a few far below par. It should be noted that it is this decade where are three critic bodies disagree the most from album to album. Rollingstone is the harshest on Dylan, giving two albums a 1 star rating and two more a 2 star rating, while Allmusic is the most praise worthy, giving 6 out of the 9 albums a rating of 3.5 or greater. Sputnik becomes sort of an equalizer raising the rating of whatever album Rollingstone and Allmusic condemn, and lowering the rating of whatever album they both champion.
Welcome to the valley, from the mountain of the 60s to the rise and fall roads of the 70s, here we arrive at the low part of a genious's career. Two more Christian albums out of the gate begins the 70s on a bad foot for Mr. Dylan, coupled with countiued experimentation removing him from the 60s sound that make him an icon (and what fans new and old continually identify with him giving the contiued release of Dylan compiliations and Classic Rock radio stations drawing mostly from his early hayday) Bob sheds fans and critical approval. In fact critics continually lambast the 80s albums, even after Dylan abandons his new religon and returns to secular themes. It is the first and only decade where neither critical body awards Dylan with a perfect album rating. As with the 70s, Rollingstone is the hardest on Dylan in the 80s. Out of the 7 albums Dylan releases in this decade, Rollingstone praises only 83's Infidels with a 4 star rating, every other album recieves 2 stars or less. Even Allmusic's praise of Dylan is waining in the 80's, they only muster the will to champion three albums from this decade; most surprisingly giving 85's Empire Burlesque 4.5 stars in face of Rollingstone's 2 and Sputnik's 3. Otherwise Allmusic gives 4 of the 7 albums a miserable rating of 2 stars. Sputnik follows the general pattern of the other two critics in the 80's, giving mostly low ratings only a hair higher than Rollingstone and Allmusic.
By the 90s few of Dylan's peers were still active and even fewer were relevant in the modern music landscape (one could proably argue that even Dylan's new music wasnt relevant at this point), but for any artist that can stay this popular for this long begins to see nostalgia start to pay off. Dylan's name continually resurged in the Rock community as he was bestowed with countless awards for his long career; tributed by fellow musicans young and old. Despite losing ground initially in the 90s as Under the Red Sky lost the ground his last 80's album Oh Mercy had established, Dylan capitalized off the nostalgia by methodically crafting three 90s albums that would begin his march out of the valley and back up the mountain. Though he released only four albums in the 90's, he capped off the decade with Time Out of Mind which won the Grammy for album of the year in 1997. Gone is the preaching convictions and vastly changing sound experimentation from album to album, as Dylan spends more time crafting songs and albums the critical body's approval unannimously rises with Rolling Stone jumping ahead in praise (awarding Time Out of Mind a perfect 5 star rating).
Thunder on the Mountain, as the 90's faded away Dylan had found a new commercial and critical peak. Ever on the road on his never ending tour, Dylan continued the methodic process that had yielded the success of Time Out of Mind and equalled it's success with his next two studio albums. Dylan also capitalized off new mediums to rise his album sales, doing a commerical for iTunes and headling summer festivals in England and the U.S. Three of Dylan's four albums from this most recent decade recieved high praise form all three critic bodies (Rolling Stone bestowed two of them with perfect 5 star ratings), and Dylan's final 2000 album, a Christmas disc, was even able to avoid strong critic criticism. Perhaps the devouts had returned.
Adding the scores from each of the three critic bodies Dylan's albums, best to worst, breaks down as follows:
Cleary Dylan's 60s catalog dominates this chart, six within the top ten and all nine within the top 15. The 70s gets two in the top 10, and the 90s and 00s each are represented with on album present. Infidels does the best for the 80s coming in at 16 but is so far out paced by all other decades. On the other end, the 60s is the only decade to escape Dylan's worst ten albums. The 70s and 80s tie with four present apiece, while the 90s and 00s each place one album loathed by critics. Splitting hairs, the 80s four albums in the bottom ten are ranked overall lower than the four from the 70s, but 1973's Dylan takes the prize as Bob's worst album.
Comparing the critics picks with Dylan's best selling albums, it would seem that 1975's Blood on the Tracks may be Dylan's best album as it was tied for #1 by critics and tied for #1 for best sales. As these are U.S. critics it may be worth while to look at U.S. sale certifications for each album, to see if the U.S. music buying populou agrees with critical sediments.
For the most part critics do fairly well when compared to album sales, though they have a strong tendency to favor any studio album from Dylan's early years. The top ten, if changed for sales, would basically just be musical chairs with all the important albums roughly in about the same position. Mid range would get the biggest shake up, and surprisingly some of Dylans worst viewed critic albums have decent album sales (them being awful or wierd may have caused Dylan fans to go out and buy these over the years; Dylan's horrific live album with the Dead did go Gold). Overall the biggest decrepency is that Dylan's debut album, while ranked #15 by critics, has failed to even garner Gold status whereas Dylan's 1979 album Slow Train a Coming, ranked #23 by critics, has gone Platinum. Adding to the debate of worst album, Dylan has gone Gold whereas Saved has no certification.
So that's Muse-Zach's look at the Bob Dylan discography, it'll be interesting to see what the genious does in the upcoming decade.
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