#51: Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

Well, it happened. I did something I always dreaded and said I'd probably never do.

I bought a Bob Dylan album.

For as long as I can remember, I never understood why anyone gave a damn about Bob Dylan. I especially hated all the "oh he's such a brilliant poet" praise from the same people that try to put Jim Morrison in some transcendental pantheon of geniuses instead of just as a pretty decent singer for a band that had a few good songs.

But come to find out, Bob Dylan has at least nine good songs. Yeah, it turns out I liked Highway 61 Revisited. I'm obviously not saying anything earth shattering by saying I enjoyed one of the best-received albums...well, ever, but my downright scorn for Dylan has lasted though a few decades now, so this is a big deal for me.

And really, what did it for me was the music itself. His vocals, I can still take or leave, but they're not as annoying, white boy fast talk-rap as some of his other material, and I still don't give a shit about his lyrics whatsoever. But the songs themselves were pretty damn enjoyable, and it really reminded me that I'd probably rather go get a Band album than another Dylan album right away, and that I probably still won't enjoy his early, folksier stuff.

His band sounds pretty great, though, and I'd have to find new levels of curmudgeonly scorn to not get a kick out of the music on these tracks. This is kind of like seeing a teacher you always hated at a bar and finding out that they can be kind of awesome sometimes. I'm not sold on Dylan as a whole yet, and I still hate his smug demeanor and all the clowns that tried to follow him, but Highway 61 Revisited is all right by me.