Album of the day (#1232): Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan

[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1975.
Country:
Overall rank: 33
Average rating: 87/100 (from 813 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Tangled Up In Blue
2. Simple Twist Of Fate
3. You're A Big Girl Now
4. Idiot Wind
5. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
6. Meet Me In The Morning
7. Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts
8. If You See Her, Say Hello
9. Shelter From The Storm
10. Buckets Of Rain

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[Goodsir]

Brilliant. It was my favorite from him about a year ago, now it's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

[Mercury]

"Blood On The Tracks". It's an album almost synonymous with maturity and the absolute expression of all the nuances of love and loss. It's an album that I notice I love more and more as my life ticks along. When I first heard it at the age of 12 I didn't get it. I didn't see what was so great about it. And even now to this day, I feel their is a more relatable feeling I get from his 60s music. I am 24 years old as I write this. Dylan was 21 and 24 when he made my other 2 absolute favorite albums of his (Highway 61 Revisited and Freewheeling). Is that all it comes down to? Perhaps.

As for this album, well it's a legendary piece of art. It transcends my amateur description. There are just so many themes and details and emotions that are expressed here. The album is a roller coaster, it takes you through all the highs of love found and all the lows of regret. And in the end you leave this record wiser than when you entered.

To name the highlights is basically to name off every track. It's literally that great. The songs that just absolutely gut me every time I hear them are "Simple Twist of Fate" (perhaps one of the most sobering songs ever), "You're A Big Girl Now", "Meet Me In The Morning" (so simple and beautiful and the fucking steel guitar and slide guitar at the end is pure aesthetic perfection), "Shelter From The Storm", and the closer "Buckets of Rain".

Oh and about this closer...it's perfect. I use that word "perfect" too much, I know. But this song AS A CLOSER is perfection. It's like a little nugget of almost simpleton-level wisdom that floats in and soothes us after the emotional journey of the rest of the album that's just ended. It's so damn simple and playful and it feels so true.

This album feels so absolutely relaxed and natural. It's a grand example of the plain expression of very exact and thought-out art. It's an album that opens up more and more not only with each listen but also with each passing year of living. It's an album that is always there to help get me through life and relationship struggles. I just adore it.

Thanks, Bob.

Grade 100/100
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-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[drakonium]

It's so good it's not even funny.

[sp4cetiger]

Great comments, Mercury!

"Tangled Up in Blue" may be my favorite Dylan song... though I feel bad picking any one song from his brilliant catalog. I can't express unqualified adoration for this album, but it's still among his best.

[Cymro2011]

Rock solid release. Meet Me In The Morning and Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts are my favourites off of this.

[RockyRaccoon]

Omgomgomgomgomg this album.

It's my #2 all time and it's amazing. It means a lot to me, it feels like Dylan at his most honest and it's some of his best songwriting. "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go", "Simple Twist Of Fate", "Buckets Of Rain", "Shelter From The Storm" I mean damn, there's a ton of incredible songs here. Plus, the way it's produced, the way Dylan's vocals sound all reverbed, it just sounds beautiful. An absolutely flawless album.
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2023 Chart

Early Psychedelic Rock

Electronic Chart

[NickVolos]

Have you felt pain? I am sure you did...

Listen to this album...
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"And can’t you see you’re in on it?
You were born though you need not
And is that not some cause
For worship, being born among these trees?"

[WindowAbove]

My favorite Dylan album.

[Guest]

It's fucking Blood on the Tracks. Constantly somewhere in my Top 1 Bob Dylan albums, alongside all of my other Top 1 Bob Dylan albums (John Wesley Harding, The Freewheelin', Highway 61, Another Side of..., Nashville Skyline, Love & Theft, The Basement Tapes, The Bootleg Series volumes one through four, Blonde on Blonde). I think the greatest compliment you can pay this album is that it's so fucking great he could afford to leave 'Up To Me' on the cutting room floor. The cocky bastard.

But seriously, everything you ever read about this album is both completely true and completely fucking redundant (including this). Is it about pain? Fuck knows. I always think it's about some dude who fucked shit up because he always fucks shit up but he's such a fucking narcissist that he's already accepted he's gonna continue to fuck shit up forever and this is just him telling himself and telling the world, "look, I fucked shit up, I will fuck shit up again. I am so in love with myself that this shit is bound to happen, and fuck if I know how or even want to change it." It's all about him. Even 'Big Girl Now', in all its glory and its beautiful, depressingly true line about there being "no sense in changing horses in midstream", is just about him. It's not about the women/woman he loved, it's about the women who loved him. "Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm." Is he a prick? Yes. Is he just about the most talented prick who ever sat down with a guitar, a pen and a notepad? Yes. Is this his best album? Eh, I honestly ride for John Wesley Harding and Highway 61 sliiiiiiiiightly more; they're just more interesting to me musically. But is any record collection incomplete without Blood on the Tracks? It's fucking Blood on the Tracks.