Rank #1. Highway 61 Revisited

(*****) August 30, 1965. Sixth Studio Album.

The amount of creativity flowing from Dylan over six albums in six years in the early to mid-1960s is staggering, but on Highway 61 Revisited just about every song can be considered among his best, and those that aren’t provide cohesion to an album that mixes bluesy electric and acoustic gems, from the rollicking title track to the ethereal ending number “Desolation Row.” Dylan’s writing has now moved beyond the topical to a poetic stream of consciousness that may not make sense by merely reading the words, but paints a hypnotic picture after hearing the music. So many of my favorite Dylan songs are on this record, it’s hardly worth pointing all of them out, but “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” and “Queen Jane Approximately” help form the apex of his early output and have stayed a part of his live repertoire in some form or another for the rest of his life.