Blonde On Blonde

The man won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and this album is the reason. It's an accomplishment of a lifetime, even before the lyrics are set to music. I don't think I have the words for this one. It's great. It's great. Best track: Visions of Johanna

Honestly I can't really stand Bob Dylan, his music, and his voice.

Well now, I expect you're all reading this waiting for some crude blonde on blonde story that has nothing to do with this album. So, here goes... I once met these two blonde, lesbian twins. They were so in love with their own image that they, as you've already guessed, started banging eachother. They would scissor so hard against eachother , that one day they caught fire and burnt to death. The end.

Assault by harmonica

I wanted to give an impartial listen to this one, I wanted to know if I know Dylan because my parents love him or because the music... I even read the generational warfare that are the reviews prior to the listen which make some good points but, caught myself humming and closing my eyes enjoying this gem. Even before I understood English language I loved Dylan. This to me, is another 5/5.

Dylan said: "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up."

Well over two decades ago was the night that caused my hearing problems. There was a fabulous show upstairs at the El Mocambo that evening. My ears were rInging for two weeks after that show and the moment when they started ringing was during the song Absolutely Sweet Marie and more specifically when the lyrics "to live outside the law you must be honest - Dawlin!" were whaled into the mic and the inbred drummer thrashed the cymbal with superhuman strength - he was trying to show his manliness since he was quite obviously sweet on my friend Julie - a fact which her husband found more entertaining than  the concert.  No it wasn't a Dylan concert. It also wasn't George Harrison's much better known but painfully boring cover version. It was none other than Jason and the Scorchers. My brother probably doesn't remember sending me a tape of Jason's music during university and  probably hasn't thought about that band for decades.  I, on the other hand, think of the band every time I say "pardon".   If I had to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing We've had so many Dylan albums I really didn't think I had a five left for him, but I dug one up thanks to Jason, Warner and the inbred drummer.

It's impressive that Bob Dylan is so successful in music with a voice this horrible

Whiny, nasal, overrated

The surreal nature of Dylan lyrics always surprises me - they approach a feeling of laziness in how simple they are, but so much colour and fantastical imagery is evoked that it's hard to believe they just came outta nowhere. The musicality in this record is surprisingly diverse, from raucous blues stompers like Rainy Day Women, and Most Likely You Go Your Way, which is still a staple in his live shows over 50 years later, to the Norwegian Wood 'homage' of 4th Time Around. It's fun, it's sad, it's whimsical and a little bit magical.

Gawd, his voice may be distinctive and cool and all that, but his singing style makes me want to gouge out my ears. Pick a note and stick with it, buddy. What is with all this pitch wandering mid-syllable? Eh-EEEEEH-verybody must not copy this guy. Lyrics are probably pretty good though. And musically… sure! So a solid three st-AAAA-aaars.

very large amount of harmonica. in a bad way. it was very loud and annoying. i mean don’t get me wrong, he has talent, but this album did nothing for me.

It’s bob dylan

Bob Dyldo.

Songs too long-winded for my liking. The lyrics are good but not sure I need quite so many verses per song.

I went out with a Johanna... this song was probably longer than our date.

This is clearly Dylan more mature and complex than on ‘Freewheelin ’, the other Dylan album I’ve listened to on this list. I still don’t get the fascination with his music. There is no sense of melody and his voice in goddamn awful

First time on this, but I'm a civilised man, I can tell a masterpiece, pick up the presence of other greats behind the man, and again over this run have challenged my murmuring prejudice that Dylan's all about mystic words rather than music. Today I feel that Dylan's songs are mostly set in a sort of medieval Hell; there's a grotesquerie to his images, a laconic callousness to his conversational declarations about love and other big things, and a sarcasm to how he deploys the instruments, whether cheerful or sad. I like this, and I like how his harmonica interrupts bands like a UFO swooping in over a highway.

Dylan is one of those rare artists who I don't like to write or say too much about because whatever I have to say feels so, I don't know, unoriginal. It's not even based upon how much I like his music; it's more about how and what he wrote, recorded, performed, etc., and the immeasurable impact he had upon such a massive amount of music that followed. Regarding this particular album, although I did own it at one point, I didn't know it was his seventh studio album, and it was still only 1966. Makes me realize there is so much to his catalog (preceding and following this record) that I really don't know at all, so it will be great to explore it all deeper. This album has a lot of great stuff in it. Man, what a freaking writer.

Personally, I consider this album to be the Bob Dylan's, magnum opus. Blonde On Blonde is one of the greatest double albums of all time, right up there with Exile On Main St., The White Album and The Wall. Essential!

It's daunting to thoughtfully take on any Bob Dylan album, even one I've listened to numerous times. Blonde on Blonde is more than a little intimidating in that regard. Other albums are mere collections of songs. This album is a whole universe, encompassing 14 other universes. People try interpreting his lyrics all the time, but I think Dylan resists that sort of analysis. It's like the album cover, it gives a hazy impression of the man, but focus in too closely, and it's increasingly harder to see. Blonde on Blonde is one of the most beautiful, perfectly crafted albums ever made. It's Dylan at his peak as a songwriter. When you realize how many of these songs were written as they were being recorded, it's pretty mind-boggling. This is some of the best songwriting ever done, and Dylan just kind of spun them out in the moment and called in the band when he needed them. No songwriter comes close to touching the quality of these lyrics and they flow from him so naturally. The album is full of gorgeous compositions, due in no small part to the brilliant work of Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson, as part of a crew of seasoned studio musicians. It’s full of languid, melancholy songs that somehow blend perfectly with the irreverent, blues-based ones, even though on paper they shouldn't. The lyrics run the range from delicate and vulnerable, to jocular and obtuse, to acidic and surreal. The scenes he paints with his words are masterful, as I said, universes unto themselves. Every song here individually is a gem, there is no filler. Put them all together and you have one of the greatest 72 minutes of music you will ever hear. It gets better every time I hear it. Fave Songs (All songs, in order from most to least favorite): One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later), Visions of Johanna, Temporary Like Achilles, Just Like a Woman, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, Obviously Five Believers, Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine), Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Fourth Time Around, Absolutely Sweet Marie, Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat, I Want You, Pledging My Time, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

The thin, wild mercury sound.... the culmination of a year and a half that changed not just Bob Dylan's trajectory but the face of rock music. Never has it become so literary, so surreal, so grounded in it's New York meets Nashville trek. A undeniable peak on a mountain that would contain many peaks, Blonde on Blonde is one of the few descriptors of the year 1966 that can be seen as accurate; such was the sprawling scenes shown in the songs that felt lived in from the moment it was heard. Bob may have been hopped up on whatever poppers that came his way but even that version of Bob was miles and leagues ahead of almost anybody in the ever changing rock and roll landscape. I hate to say that it was a good thing that he crashed his motorcycle and retreated into the radical world of homespun sparseness because, if he hadn't, we would have been treated to a world of diminishing returns in the follow-up to Blonde on Blonde. Change was imminent but nobody knew it at the time, not even Bob, which was why he gave us his then-best. Nearly sixty years and we remain in awe. Everybody must get stoned!

Dylan winds in and out of folk, a choice which elevates this work above the shorter and more straightforward layouts of the previous two albums. Less straightforward comes with a huge caveat: The lyrics, of course. On Blonde On Blonde there is still plenty of ambiguity, but the songs often extend their roots into familiar ground. The result is a set of songs romantic, wistful, at times bacchanalian, and with a killer set of closers. I'm still a bit cool on Dylan, I think because of his voice, but this is a prima facie masterpiece of his style.

While my favorite band has always been, and remains, the Beatles, my favorite solitary artist is, and always will be, Bob Dylan. Some of my earliest childhood musical memories are of my parents playing Dylan’s second LP, 'The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,' released right before my fourth birthday. My dad had a mahogany colored Gibson acoustic guitar and would strum along while singing these folk masterpieces. Later in college, my roommate turned me on to the outstanding 'Blood on the Tracks,' recently released. And before and after those two, there was the brand new electric sound of 'Bringing It All Back Home' and 'Highway 61 Revisited' in the 1960s, then at the end of that same decade the new country sound (and very new voice, literally) of 'Nashville Skyline,' the mid 70s Americana collaborations with The Band, the end of 70s/early 80s born-again Christian LPs, followed by the very un-Christian titled, 'Infidels,' and so on and so on. If you want to ride or die with Dylan, you better put on a helmet first. But 'Blonde On Blonde' is possibly my very favorite of the lot, partly due to an unexplainable experience I had while listening to its final track. I believe it must have been the winter of 2004, and I was sick with the flu. I don’t get sick, much, but when I do, it makes up for lost time. So there I lay in bed with a fever, aching all over, burning up one moment, freezing the next, dark yellowy green snot dripping out of my nose, dark yellowy green vomit projecting out of my mouth and, yes, dark yellowy green shit flying out of my ass. My ears were the only healthy functioning, dry orifice remaining on my body. I was ingesting some over the counter meds, but nothing that rendered me in an especially altered state of consciousness. I had the state of mind to drive myself to the hospital, if it had come to that, as long as there were plastic sheets covering the seat. Anyway, I had recently purchased a copy of 'Blonde On Blonde' on CD, already familiar with several of the songs, but having never listened to it in its entirety (the way LPs used to be formatted.) So, engulfed in blankets like a human burrito, I popped the CD into my Sony Discman and pushed play. I don’t really remember anything until the final song, 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,' which I very much recall with the clarity of John on the island of Patmos receiving what we now refer to as 'The Revelation,' coincidentally (providentially?) also the final track of the New Testament. I was transported for the next eleven minutes into some other plane of existence. I was in a near dream-like state of consciousness, yet not unconscious; totally unaware of any feeling in my body, while at the same time completely aware of the lyrics and music I was hearing. It was not so much an out of body experience as it was a kind of spiritual transcendence. After the song concluded, everything returned to normal like Jesus’ disciples own experience on the mountain following his transfiguration as witnessed in the gospels. I immediately replayed the song, but nothing happened. And I’ve never been able to duplicate the moment, although I’ve played that song and this LP countless numbers of times over the almost two decades since. Quantum physics is confirming the claims that mystics and shamans from all the religious traditions have been making for eons: the existence of a universal consciousness or ‘field’ from which anyone may access wisdom, guidance, and inspiration concerning things as varied as the invention of mechanical instruments to the composition of a song. I believe this is what I tapped into on my sick day, as well as what Dylan tapped into when he wrote his songs. I know this somewhat through my limited understanding, but much more so from my own personal experience. All my good ideas come from elsewhere, beyond me, when I get out of the way. The only shitty ideas are the ones that my own mind constructs independent of inspiration. Watch some of these documentaries featuring Dylan’s early years and observe how he sits and taps away on a typewriter composing lyrics while people are partying all around him, sometimes even playing their own songs! It’s incredible. He’s not thinking. He’s channeling. The thinking part comes later during the editing process, when the mind serves its rightful purpose. But the mind needs to be corralled for the initial inspiration. I know this to be absolutely true. And Dylan has said as much himself in interviews, if you can decipher his evasive, contradictory answers from one interview to the next, often accompanied with a gleam in his eye and a slight grin, as if to echo Jesus’ equally ambiguous remark ‘let those who have ears, hear.’ Now, its one thing to have this gift (but by that I don’t mean to suggest that its only available to the few- it’s yours for the receiving, too); but, its another thing altogether to be able to then communicate it musically in an enjoyable, accessible way, solo, or in a band. Once Dylan decided he wanted other players, he would simply go from one to another, inviting those who were in current communion with the muse and dismissing those who had temporarily fallen out. Didn’t matter so much how well one played necessarily; rather, how well one’s vibrational frequency was in alignment with his own, which in turn was in constant fine tuning to the Field’s. Therefore, sometimes you get Al Cooper’s uniquely organ work, the little fills throughout ‘I Want You.’ That’s a very popular and easily recitable song. But have you ever been aware of how important Cooper’s part is in the overall sound? One minute Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins is tinkling some blues piano Fats Domino shit (and I’m using that to indicate high respect) in the background of ‘Pledging My Time,’ or ‘Temporarily Like Achilles,’ then, out of the blue, on ‘One of Us Must Know,’ Paul Griffin is now doing all these Gershwin-esque fills. Lead guitarist, Robbie Robertson shares his thin, wild, searing blues guitar solos on ‘Obviously 5 Believers’ and especially ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,’ only to find Dylan himself, in a response to John Lennon’s ‘Norwegian Wood,’ just softly finger picks his way through ‘4th Time Around,’ while Robbie takes five for a cigarette. Too much thinking and overdub guitar-ing would have killed that song. And was Dylan’s voice ever more beautiful than on this LP, soaring on ‘One of Us Must Know,’ then softly lamenting, longing on ‘Visions of Johanna.’ Filled to the brim with mirth, he can’t help but chuckles occasionally at the double (at least) entendre, not to mention the general hilarity of the party encircling him, on ‘Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.’ If anyone ever tells you Dylan can’t sing, crack ‘em over the head with your copy of 'Blonde On Blonde.' No, on second thought, save that to play. Hit ‘em instead with one of those awful Britpop records. Dylan purposefully slides up and down one note to the next, and purposefully changes the cadence to fit where the lyrics have taken him. He’s not in the least concerned about making verse number three longer than the preceding two, if that’s where the muse has traveled. ‘Visions of Johanna’ is one of many examples of this. The only genre of music that’s more liberated then Dylan’s is ‘free’ jazz. Finally, the lyrics. There’s a reason why he was awarded the 2016 Noble Prize in Literature. This review is already way too long, so I’m not about to start quoting the wonder captured in every single song on this LP from ‘balancing a mattress on a bottle of wine’ to ‘Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles’ to the famous and oft quoted, ‘to live outside the law you must be honest.’ His gift for pictures, scenes that are first heard through the ears and then painted across the inner eyes are absolutely stunning. And unbelievable contemporary. The rhymes on the bridge of ‘Just Like a Woman’ read with a cadence to rival any modern hip-hop master. Remember, now, this is the year 1966! (By the way, it’s very helpful to see these lyrics printed, so one may catch the nuance of his referring to the subject of ‘Just Like a Woman,’ as Baby with a capital ‘B’ rather than baby. The latter is a term of endearment. I think the capital ‘B’ Baby is something else entirely.) Sagacious, tender, and viciously hilarious, like my favorite of the bunch from ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie’: ‘Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously. But then, now again, not too many can be like you… fortunately.’ That one lyric alone is worth the cost of the whole thing, at least as far as I’m concerned. But in addition to its figurative meaning, I also hear this quite literally. Anybody can be just like Dylan, obviously. I mean, he is just a human, like you and I, and thus just a drop in the universal ocean, also like you and I, obviously. But then, now again, as the 13th century Persian poet Rumi also expressed to the contrary: maybe we’re not really just a drop in the ocean, you and I, and Bob Dylan, but instead are the entire ocean in one drop. The fact that so many are caught in the delusion of their perceived differentiation is rather 'un'fortunate.

One of the most culturally significant albums. He's a poet and a storyteller. By most accounts the guy can't sing, but it really doesn't matter. His music and this album illuminates in such a deep inexplicable way that surpasses judgement of conventional skill.

I'm not going to get into whether this is Dylan's BEST album. That just feels like too weighty of a proclamation for anyone to make, and I'm pretty sure that personally, there's one or two I'd pick over this one. Probably. Depending on the weather and the day of the week. That said, there is almost no potential for argument that this is among his best and most important work, and that he is one of the most important musicians and artists of the past century. So, no way I'm rating this anything less than 5 stars. One thing I love about this one is the variance in the tracks included - which feels pretty different than, say, Blood on the Tracks or Desire. There's epic ballads like Visions of Johanna or Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, there's raucous romps like Rainy Day Women and Leopard Skinned Pill-Box Hat, there's the more likely radio friendly singles like I Want You, Stuck Inside of Mobile.., and Just Like a Woman, and also the sleeper tracks, songs like Fourth Time Around and Obviously Five Believers, that are maybe less memorable or iconic, less likely to make a greatest hits comp, but still very strong and interesting songs on their own. It's worth clicking through to the Wikipedia link, assuming you're listening digitally, to take a look at how the track listing splits up over four sides of a vinyl double album. The whole flow works pretty amazingly, with the bulk of the album switching up tempo and feel nicely, bookended by some of the more rocking songs (Rainy Day Women and Obviously Five Believers open side one and end side 3) and then Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands tacked on as the fourth side all by itself, feeling almost like a "hidden track" on a CD release, an interesting and epic coda on the whole thing. Look, if you are into Dylan, you can feel one way or another about where this album fits into his body of work, but I'd be surprised if anyone who likes him thinks it's crap. If you aren't into Dylan, it's worth making some effort to dig a little deeper into his music, and if this doesn't work as your starting point, I'd say it's well worth checking out some of his other stuff.

I love this album very much. It was the first Bob Dylan album I properly listened to when I was about 15 and it blew my little mind. The structure of the songs was so different to anything else and the lyrics were supreme. God bless Bobbles.

The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face. Where these visions of Johanna, have now taken my place.

Blonde on Blonde integrates traditional blues material with modernist literary techniques to form a cache of songs which tread a fine line between surrealist and literal, earnest and flippant, delicate and course, and manage to teeter on the brink of lucidity, offering plenty of questions, but, unlike Dylan the Folkie, Dylan the Modernist gives no answer. By utilizing repetitive, craggily abstract compositions, blending blues, rock, country, and folk, driven by cutting guitars, honeyed organ, and crisp piano riffs, the music matches the inventiveness of the songs. A rich, careening, dense album of unending revelation driven by witty wordplay, a fusion of the literary and the conversational, at once vague and precise, filled with bizarre imagery and excellent music. Standout Tracks: Visions of Johanna, One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later), Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, Just Like a Woman, Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine), Absolutely Sweet Marie, Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

The last of his rock trilogy, Blonde on Blonde might be Bob Dylan's best album as well as his most sweeping and expansive. Backed by a host of studio musicians as well as members of his live band, Dylan delivers a wonderfully produced and arranged album that is stunningly cohesive. Dylan's storytelling and songwriting is also at its best on this album with a forward driving feel that carries the listener from one song to the next.

It's a masterpiece. He spends too long on the harmonica and if you're not using good speakers his voice can be nails on a chalkboard but it's song after song of depth, beauty and perfection. It's not even his best album but there are songs here that are just timeless. If you don't respect Dylan, you don't like modern music.

Do you know what perfect pitch is? It’s when you pitch an old sofa into a dumpster and it lands on a box of harmonicas. #jokes Harmonicas aside, I like the ballad-y tunes on this album a lot. “Just Like a Woman,” “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” and “Fourth Time Around” all work for me so much better than the bluesy uptempo stuff like “Temporary Like Achilles” decidedly does not. I probably would’ve been one of the jerks who went to see Dylan and booed when he got out his electric guitar. Kidding, I would do that when he got out his harmonica, so I would’ve been booing the whole show.

Pick a note and sing it.

Iconic shit, man. Dylan achieved what he set out to more than any other record. Great range of songs. Great lyrics, great instrumentation and production. I enjoy every track. It’s a double disc, but I see no reason to cut any songs. It’s beautiful and damn near perfect. 5/5

Finally m. Absolutely one of his greatest

Classic album by an all-time great. What's not to like? Dylan has one of the most distinctive, if not strangest, voices of all time.

Dylan is a contrast unto himself. Lyrics both dense and ephemeral, sound both melodic and grating, tongue in cheek while being deadly serious.

Will never forget first hearing Visions of Johanna

One of the first double albums in the history of rock music and boy does it pay off. This is one of the most expansive musical statements of all time, simple as that

Not quite as good as the two preceding albums (Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited), but a great album, one of the first double albums. I don’t remember my brothers bringing home any Dylan albums in the 60’s, so didn’t really know this fully until I was an adult. Elizabeth had Dylan’s Greatest Hits with Rainy Day Women #12 and 35, I Want You, and Just Like a Woman. She also had Volume 2 of his Greatest Hits with Stuck Inside of Mobile from this album — Volume 2 is a quite cool collection of Dylan songs well worth a listen. Soon after the release of BOB, he had his motorcycle accident and his next few albums were more introspective, not great, but interesting to hear.

Fantastisk plade med mange stærke sange.

Undeniably one of the greatest albums of all time from one of our most important and influential artists ever. Dylan is a poet and a genius. I didn’t know Visions of Johanna until now. It’s instantly one of my new favorite Dylan tracks. Also love all the blues tracks here (Pledging my time, pill-box hat, temporary like Achilles, and Obviously five believers). Thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in every bit of this for the past couple hours (listened twice).

I loved him when I was young and bright-eyed. I mocked him when I was on top of my world and arrogant. Now that I am older and wiser, I recognize and love his views of life. Bob Dylan is a poet and a treasure.

What can I say? These songs here have pretty much managed to tap directly into both the tradition and the future of American counterculture. This continues to inspire, close to 60 years after it was released. Everything was exploded. Everything was allowed. This album does not capture the feeling of whatever reality Dylan was living in. It frees it. Dylan took the constraints of songwriting of the time, digested them and created for himself a whole new rulebook. And then he did again. Over, and over. He don't look back. And when you see him there, he's gone. He made freedom a verb, and a practice.

I bought this on CD in my mid teens, after liking the Bob Dylan track on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. I remember thinking that all the copies in stores were bootlegs because of the weird camera shake effect that makes it look like a bad print.

One of my favorites. One of his best. The guilty undertaker sighs The lonesome organ grinder cries The silver saxophones say I should refuse you The cracked bells and washed-out horns Blow into my face with scorn But it’s not that way I wasn’t born to lose you I want you, I want you I want you so bad Honey, I want you The drunken politician leaps Upon the street where mothers weep And the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you And I wait for them to interrupt Me drinkin’ from my broken cup And ask me to Open up the gate for you I want you, I want you I want you so bad Honey, I want you How all my fathers, they’ve gone down True love they’ve been without it But all their daughters put me down ’Cause I don’t think about it Well, I return to the Queen of Spades And talk with my chambermaid She knows that I’m not afraid to look at her She is good to me And there’s nothing she doesn’t see She knows where I’d like to be But it doesn’t matter I want you, I want you I want you so bad Honey, I want you Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit He spoke to me, I took his flute No, I wasn’t very cute to him, was I? But I did it, though, because he lied Because he took you for a ride And because time was on his side And because I . . . I want you, I want you I want you so bad Honey, I want you So. Damn. Good.

*Blonde On Blonde* is not only a work of genius. It's also an album filled with surprises. Oddly enough, this *long* record opens with what are probably the relatively "weakest" cuts in it ("Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" and "Pledging My Time" ). Guess Robert Zimmerman here personifies the jester that makes a sly joke on you right before offering a masterpiece whose scope is potentially infinite. Postmodernist, "carnival-like" art rarely gets better than this--intended "flaws" included. Besides, as "weak" as "Rainy Day Women" is compared to the myriads of stunning gems following it, it's still an instantly iconic opener for this double album, with its tongue-in-cheek, abrasive, free-flowing-harmonica-enhanced marching band shenanigans and its biblical/druggy double-entendre "Everybody must get stoned!", bellowed during the chorus. I wonder if this is where Cypress Hill got the idea for their song of the same name, by the way. Associating Bob Dylan and Cypress Hill in the same sentence gives me giggles, but with Dylan, unexpected connections will unavoidably surge, so vast is the scope of references and striking turns of phrase used in his songwriting, leaving an imprint in collective consciousness like very few artists ever did. I've only adressed the first song of this record as I'm writing this tentative review, and I've already penned two paragraphs. Quite odd when "Rainy Day Women" is not even my favorite song in the album, I have to say... No wonder so many authors produced mammoth essays, articles and books about Dylan. No wonder some university teachers can spend a year-long syllabus just talking about the man and artist. You see, the genius of Bob Dylan does not only lie in his stellar songwriting and performances--it also lies in the way he inspires others to write striking turns of phrase in their turn, and how his songwriting elicits so many interesting interpretations and memories. Take some of the 5-star reviews written for this app: "It's like a folk-rock *Ulysses* or something" says one reviewer. Also referencing James Joyce, and addressing Dylan's notoriously "difficult" and "unprofessional" singing, another reviewer wrote: "I really want to give this record 4 stars to punish it for having the vocals of an out of service oscilloscope, but fuck, it is too damn good. It would be like marking down a James Joyce novel because of his punctuation style." And concluding this comparison between *Blonde On Blonde* and Joyce's literary skills, one last reviewer tagged the record as a "poetic odyssey". Those comparisons involving Joyce are not only brilliant--they also sound legit, deserved, and totally heartfelt. The best homage you can give to the winner of a Nobel Literature Prize. Yet those raving reviews are not only about literary references, they also movigly evoke their writers' deep relationship with Dylan's body of work. As when this reviewer described a mystical, transcendent experience he went through as he listened to *Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands* while bed-ridden with the flu... Or when that other reviewer reminisced about once listening to the whole LP on a jukebox in New York and how such a mundane act might change your whole life... So rich is this album, so fecund, that it soon becomes a hall of mirrors where each and every listener can recognize their own soul being reflected in them. Truly "universal", in the first meaning of the word. Rather than "muttering small talk at the wall", I will abstain from attempting to describe how good *all* of those tunes are, and most especially *why* they're so good. Many reviewers using this app have already done so. You would have to pick one particular line, and say why it's so witty / hilarious / moving / interesting / mysterious / ominous / poetic / wonderful for another lengthy parargraph. You would have to compliment each excellent and effective guitar or organ or piano fill as played by Robbie Robertson, Al Kooper, Paul Griffin and all the other wonderful players in the album. You would have to praise the way in which Dylan uses certain arragements and smart chord changes in a large chunk of those compositions to make them go beyond their initial bues-rock / folk-rock templates, and this in a way that always enhances his vocals and lyrics. But as I said, other reviewers did this better than I could ever do it myself. All I can do is list the most legendary songs in this double-album (the first one ever in the histroy of "rock") and leave it for others to elaborate on them. It's true that the record only hits its *real* stride with the third track musing between the differences between impossible, ideal perfection and the all-too-human yet also "humane" frailty of life experiences--it's that simply terrific song "Visions of Johanna", with its incredible narrative arc (how striking are those lines from it singled out by another reviewer, by the way: "The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face / Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place"). But if the *first* real gem comes up on track number three only, it's neverending fireworks after it: there's "One of Us Must Know"--probably one of my favorites Dylan tunes ever--, but also "I Want You", "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", "Just Like a Woman", "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine", "4th Time Around" and "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowland"... And the songs I haven't quoted here are excellent as well anyway. Even "Rainy Day Women". As I said earlier, this review is tentative at best. It's hard to put into words what this record does, and this with *both* words and music. You can return to *Blonde On Blonde* for years and find new things to admire in it each time. Others have pointed this out elsewhere, but the cover of this LP nicely sums up how you can only approach this behemoth of an album through the most "oblique" ways. Just like that picture of Bob, sightly unfocused, everytime you think you're nailing what makes the record great, something else turns up, and the picture becomes slightly muddled again. Yet you can't help look at it, as mundane as the picture is--just like some of the music on it may seem mundane at first glance, only to reveal its treasures during the hundreds of subsequent listens that will inevitably follow. 5/5, what else? Number of albums left to review: 295 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 311 (including this one) Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 169 Albums from the list I won't include in mine (many other records are more important to me): 228

I've already gushed about Bob a few times here, so I'm not going to chew my cabbage twice or thrice, or even quatrice. I love this man, I love his music, I love his poetry. So many of the songs on this record are staples in his prolific catalogue. He's a genius, simply put. He's a 5-star man.

Hugely important album. It is timeless, like a Beatles album. Nothing in music was the same after it came out. I’ve owned a clean vinyl copy of Blond On Blond since it first came out.

Amazing folk rock, kinda melancholic and happy at times and cryptic which I like

opening song about how women are in danger kinda anywhere plus sick ass harmonica, sign me up

Other than some track lengths, this was pretty good! Many people don’t like Bob’s voice but I think it’s great here. Great lyricism in every track, every single one is stacked. The backing tracks were amazing as well with the tone and mood they brought to the table. I liked this a lot!

This could possibly be my favourite album of all time. It’s definitely the best double album in my opinion. Opening with Rainy Days Woman and ending with Sad Eyes Lady of the Lowlands the record is sprawling with classic Dylan masterpieces such as Visions of Johanna, Just Like a Woman, Stuck Inside a Mobile and Fourth Time Around and I Want You. My favourite track on the album is Visions of Johanna.

Wikis on other albums often have things like 'they wrote too many verses and struggled knowing which ones to cut out.' Bob Dylan has avoided this problem by never ever cutting out a verse.

Probably my favorite Bob Dylan record. Really beautiful instrumentation and mysterious lyrics. A very appropriate follow up to Highway 61 as it still has a lot of lush instrumentation but lays off the electric sound. Kind of combining the best aspects of all his music from that point to the blues influences, the guthrie folk and his generally nasally voice. A definitive work.

A classic. One thing about Blonde on Blonde that strikes me is the sense of fun - he literally almost laughs out loud on the first track and songs like "I Want You" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie" have a jolly vibe I don't associate with a lot of Dylan's work. On the flip side though, it's hard to imagine another artist could conceive this album, the rambling storytelling of "Visions of Johanna" to me is archetypal of some of his tropes (I mean that as a compliment). Easy 5 stars

Rating: 10/10 Classic album, possibly Bob Dylan's best. Instrumentally this album is absolutely fantastic, nice blend of folk, blues, and rock. Production and mixing sound amazing as well, each song has a warm feeling to it which makes this album a pleasure to listen to. And of course Bob Dylan's lyrics are fantastic, the storytelling on this album is phenomenal. Favorite songs: Pretty much all of them. Least favorite songs: Temporary Like Achilles, Fourth Time Around.

In which 24-year old Bob invents the double album and secures his future Nobel prize in Literature. More than any other album, this is the one I wish I was born 30 years earlier to experience in real time. Two brief anecdotes: i) I once met a Hollywood hipster who told me "Visions of Johanna" was written about his mum. Such an audacious fib, perhaps it was true? ii) I put both "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" and "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" on a road trip mixtape once, in full, to initial objections from my fellow passengers, followed by grudging acceptance of their endless verses making a great accompaniment for the endless Mojave desert Pro tip: start your version of Blonde on Blonde with "Positively 4th Street", then you can skip "Rainy Day Women" (Dylan's "Yellow Submarine" but worse; probably the only song of his I wish would just fucking end already) and realize the perfect album So ahead of the game in 1966. Magnificent

9/10 honestly felt some trepidation about listening to dylan for an hour straight but you get used to the voice and the songwriting is fun and mostly varied

A dapper looking Dylan stares at you, practically through you, suggesting somehow that he knows that you know that he knows that he is funnier than you, more interesting than you, probably smarter than you, and most definitely wittier than you. The blurriness indicates the wall between your world and his, the hazy boundary between a normal life and Dylan's extraordinarily mythic one. His eyes are bleary, another night of partying and playing music with a cast of weird and legendary characters of the day, not to mention world-class musicians and sometimes even the damn Beatles, all while you sleep somewhere down the street, knowing even in your dreams that you must wake and go to that job you hate. Your feelings improve though as soon as the needle hits the record and those first notes of controlled chaos ring out. So what if you can't play like Dylan, can't sing like Dylan, and sure as heck can't write like Dylan. You fix yourself up, and say proudly, 'Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music.'

Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde," released in 1966, is a magnum opus of folk-rock and lyricism. This double album is a poetic odyssey, featuring tracks like "Visions of Johanna" and "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," where Dylan's abstract yet vivid storytelling shines. The music, influenced by blues and rock, complements his lyrical complexity. "Blonde on Blonde" captures a moment of transformation in both Dylan's personal and musical journey. With its timeless relevance and intricate compositions, the album deserves an unequivocal 5/5, standing as a pinnacle in the evolution of both folk and rock music.

Very fun will revisit so that I can discover more of the meaning within the lyrics.

A damn near perfect record. Instrumentally it was perfect. Lyrically it was perfect. Vocally it was trying to play basketball but each bounce changed the psi by a random level so you can never really get good at dribbling. I would love to see actual notation of his vocals then have an opera singer, who never heard Dylan sing, perform one of his songs. I really want to give this record 4 stars to punish it for having the vocals of an out of service oscilloscope, but fuck, it is too damn good. It would be like marking down a James Joyce novel because of his punctuation style.

Album 217 of 1001 Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde Rating : 5 / 5 Love it when I get to start my day with an album like this. Dylan is near the top of my favorites, though this album is one I've listened to less than most others. Hearing some songs I haven't heard in many years was like hearing them for the first time. Great stuff here. A true wordsmith. Was a pleasure to listen.

Outrageously great.

You know, I was prepared to give this one 2 stars and concede Dylan is not for me. This son of a bitch has a record that can’t be hated though.

I don’t fawn over Dylan like some as his thin sing-talk voice and excessive use of harmonica aren’t easy on my ears, but I can’t deny his songwriting brilliance. Best lyricist of a generation. I prefer Dylan covers (Hendrix, Clapton, etc.) to the songwriter himself, but he still gets 5 stars.

My all time favorite of Bob’s. Just a great album.

stellar

This is a masterpiece. Great memories of day drinking in a bar on the Lower East Side 20-some years ago and playing this whole album on the jukebox.

Haven’t listened yet but will and want to come back and rate.

A classic.

it’s like folk-rock’s Ulysses or something. the sheer literary weight of this album is overbearing. like most great Dylan albums—and this is surely among the best if not the best—it cannot be appreciated in just one Tuesday. I’d like some singer—Jacob? DJ?—to explain to me why Dylan sings the way he does; always rising at the end of words. Is that a known technique? Does it just build tension and/or keep a song afloat when it might otherwise feel long-winded? In any event I love this album. That these songs can be enjoyed even without listening to the lyrics is evidence of its greatness. And what the lyrics hold is even greater.

Echoing Charlie completely… how unfair is it that we get one day to absorb Blonde on Blonde. This feels like speed-reading that Shakespeare play you were assigned in high school, the night before a pop quiz. It’s a real book we’ve got here. I never got Bob Dylan until I was 29 years old. The year I started listening to the words the musicians were saying. As for Dylan, the nut finally cracked for me with Time Out Of Mind, one whose production drew me in enough, made me play it enough, that I had to listen in. And whenever I do listen in— which is not my forte— I find layers of play and irony and sarcasm and valor and archetype. Real mythic stuff. It’s gonna be a long time before I hit the center of this one. It’s like a book you want to read slowly, to savor the ending. 5/5

/Stuck inside of Mobile/, absolute banger, suffirait à donner un 5 à elle seule, mais en plus y'a tout le reste de l'album qui est superbe.

Toujours bien (mais à quand du leonard cohen pour compenser ?) J'aime beaucoup ce Dylan là, avec beaucoup d'harmonica, et pas mal de chansons que j'aime bien sur cet album

Listened to it while Im on the trunk of my dad’s car on a Sunday morning, 10/10 experience would do it again

Might be the best album of all time. Some songs are comforting, some songs are sad, some songs are thought provoking and some songs are just hilarious. One has to listen this album more than once to really understand what's going on here. Also I'm not a long time dylan fan so in the span of 4 months I probably listened this more than 10 times and I discover something new everytime I listen it.

This has been my least favorite of his "electric period" for a long time, but I now think it's his pinacle. It just has more of everything and in this particular case, more is better. It's ambitious but lazy, it's chaotic but focused, it's cocky but passionate. It's everything.

"Blonde on Blonde" is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was the first double album in rock history and also completed his trilogy of rock albums after "Bring It All Back Home" and "Highway 61 Revisted." Numerous backup musicians contributed including members of The Hawks (soon to become The Band). The writing and recording started in New York City which was unsuccessful and eventually moved to complete in Nashville. "Blonde on Blonde" is widely considered one of the best albums of all time. The wacky and wonderful "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" kicks things off. A demented marching band with the drums, trumpet, harmonica and people yelling in the background. A brilliant dual pun in "Everyone must get stoned," of getting high and actually persecuted. Dylan and the musicians had trouble getting "Visions of Johanna" on tape. 14 takes. They nailed it eventually. It's about two women, carnal Louise and unattainable Johanna, and about attaining perfection. The piano just builds in the first single "One of Us Most Know (Sooner or Later)." Failing relationship and failing to admit abuse. And then we come to the second side. Woah. Just woah. An outstanding musical chorus drives "I Want You." Very happy sounding with the guitar, organ and piano. The lyrical tension between the repeated "I Want You" and the host of complex characters Dylan rambles on about. One of my favorite Dylan songs is "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again." I love the way the musicians are following the tone and pace of the lyrics. Your debutante (girl) knows what you need; you know what you want. The second Chicago Blues style song in "Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat." Two searing Robbie Robertson guitar solos. Great acoustic guitar picking in "Just Like A Woman." Lilting melody. Dylan was criticized for sexism and misogyny. Is it about Edie Segwick? Joan Baez? A highlight of side three is "Temporary Like Achilles." Another Blues number. Double-barrel piano. Harmonica. Organ. He's spurned by his lover for another guy who is ending up just like him. Dylan goes uptempo Memphis Blues in "Absolutely Sweet Marie." More pop. A great melody. The entirety of side four is the epic 11-minute poem "Sad Eyes of the Lowlands." Apparrently a wedding song for his bride Sara Lownds. Great organ by Al Kooper and drumming by Kenny Buttrey. What can you say about about this classic. One of the best album sides ever in side two. The mix of several different types of blues styles, rock, pop and a waltz. His lyrics. One of the few albums wear you actually can hear the musicians trying to match the singing and lyrics and achieving it. Fantastic.

what a silly opening to an insightful and gorgeous masterpiece of a record bob dylan is, obviously, one of the greatest talents the world of music the world has ever seen, despite sounding very silly most of the time. there is a reason why he's allowed to sing that way - he is the greatest lyricist to ever exist. we start with a silly opening in rainy day women, followed by a traditional blues track in pledging my time. the first traditional "dylan-y" track is visions of johanna. it's got a soulful organ and understated guitar, and paints a beautiful lyrical picture (with some real silly shit in there too) one of us must know is one of my favorite songs ever - it is quintessential dylan. it wraps you in a warm sound hug while making you shed a tear with what it's saying to you. i fucking love bob dylan man. this album has a couple of REALLY popular dylan songs on it - i want you and just like a woman. i want you is catchy as all hell. just like a woman is sad as hell. they are both amazing. i could list out every song and why i love it but i don't really want to. i'm just gonna listen to one of us must know over and over again for the next few days. he's BELTING that chorus. the words he writes mean so much to him, and you can really tell. love you bob

Bob Dylan is a prolific song writer as evidenced by this album. He is the most covered artist of all time in terms of the number of his songs that have been covered [4th most in terms of total number of cover versions of his songs]. https://247wallst.com/special-report/2021/12/08/most-covered-artists/11/ His voice isn’t the best, well not close, but it is an acquired taste of mine. I think this stands out the most of Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands. Still a good song but his voice is strained in the beginning and it gets better throughout. If I were to be allowed to only listen to one song for the rest of time, it might be Visions Of Johanna. I can’t get enough of this song. Even though it’s 7+ minutes, I am always disappointed when it’s over. I love so many other songs on this album, too many to name. This album is a masterpiece. Of the 350+ albums we’ve had so far, Led Zeppelin’s II is the only one I would put ahead of this and it’s verrrry close. And this isn’t even my favorite Dylan album.

I am more of a casual fan when it comes to Bob Dylan and this album is in my opinion one of his finest.

A classic Bob Dylan album. One of his best and probably the one I listen to the most. It could be a greatest hits. It’s also the one I think gives the best sampling of his style and talents. It’s got everything: storytelling folk songs, more hard-rocking numbers, blues, harmonica solos, long drawn out vowels that he rhymes one after another. There’s a lot of lyrics that pack a major emotional punch. And an equal number of lyrics that make me go, “Wait, huh? What is this song about?” I love that. So many great songs but “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” is one of my all-time favorites. I love how the piano amps up the drama. And “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” is one of his funniest songs.

This is one of the most inspired and inspiring slabs of vinyl ever dreamed up by a human. Incredible from start to finish. Can I give it a 6?

This is probably the Dylan album I already knew the most tracks off, from various greatest hits compilations, covers and whatnot. Happy memories of many childhood evenings listening to the likes of Just Like a Woman and I Want You while playing Lemmings... I think the lush production and poppier structures of these songs really suits him, and was happy to discover a couple more that fit this mould, like Stuck Inside of Mobile. You could squish this into a 9-10 track single album and it'd be a legit 5 stars - no rounding necessary - but it loses a bit of momentum towards the end. 4.5.

I don't know what can I say about this one

Wow, I get why Bob gets talked up so much, I’ve never heard an album where some elements felts decades ahead while others felt perfectly plucked from the early days of recorded music. Great lyrics although the rhymes can come off as a bit silly sometimes. Didn’t expect so much harmonica but it worked well. My only major complaint is that it ran a bit too long, the song mobile in particular feels like it could’ve been cut in half. That being said I think this will only grow on me on continued listens

read every other review of this album. especially read Paul Williams review in the Fourth Issue of Crawdaddy in August of 1966. this is genuinely special music. i didn't care for some of the bluesier, stranger tracks like Rainy Day Woman but at it's best Blonde on Blonde is unmatched in rock. the things Dylan can make you feel with a single phrase are magical.

I only knew the words to the first song, but the album made me feel very nostalgic for all the Dylan that was played while I was growing up.

I believe “rainy day women” was my first exposure to Dylan, from the Forrest Gump soundtrack. To this day, I don’t get it. Even by the standards of this album, which feels relaxed, loose, improvised, free, that song is a bridge too far. And lyrically, come on. Not the best way to introduce Dylan’s “genius.”

This deserves more time and attention than I gave it. It’s one I’ll come back to. Does anybody really like his voice? No one sounds like him, however. There’s no mistaking Dylan.

Working both sides of the veil with loosey goosey rhymes drawled through a mouth coated in rubber, and flanked by a band that whips around like a 240 volt cable gone wrong, this is a spectacular mess of barely contained chaos magic. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's hard to believe "Rainy Day Women" was a smash radio hit back in '66. I don't remember hearing it in Sudbury. I like the story that Bob sent someone out to round up a brass section and vocalists (shouters) in the 2 in the morning and he insisted that they all must be intoxicated. That explains a lot. He dabbles with a bluesier sound on this LP here with songs like "Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat" and "Pledging My Time". The album is like his version of "Rubber Soul", introducing a different styles and longer songs. I've always been a fan of "Stuck inside of Mobile, and of course "I Want you" and "Just Like a Woman" are the signature tracks. "Visions of Johanna" I have never been as crazy about as the critics.

The least accessible Dylan album but most rewarding. By the time I'm leaving this review, this is only the 4th time listening to this album, and it hasn't quite clicked like his other albums. This is the last of his golden age, with his next masterpiece not appearing for nearly a decade with Blood on the Tracks. At this point, he has matured his sound, knowing what he's capable of and delivering exactly that... I believe he called it the "wild mercury sound" whatever the hell that means. Very strong tracks, some bluesy, some just plain romantic in acoustics. It's all beautifully arranged, not once did I feel any segment was off or excessive, which has happened for previous albums. I say this is his most inaccessible because the songwriting is arguably his best. There's just a significant shift from the instrumental focus of his previous albums to his lyrical genius. I mean obviously, his sound is perfected here, each track is colorful and full of personality, but it's not as flashy as before, and you really need to pay attention to this one. With its double-length, it's really difficult to "get it" in just a few plays, you really need to break it down and digest it all. But I was thoroughly impressed by the insane imagery he plays in many of these tracks. Some songs you have full humour ("Rainy Day Women"), seriousness ("Sad-Eyed Lady"), but more often than not a fair mix in between. I hope to appreciate this one more over time.

This list is kind of making me a Bob Dylan fan. I never really was one before this - not sure why exactly. I get it, okay? I get it.

I could listen to Dylan forever and never quite grasp the meaning of his lyrics. Perhaps the elusiveness is deliberate; maybe we will never get it but the intrigue keeps us returning. On Blonde on Blonde, there are times when Dylan seems to push the listener away - Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 is an irritating in-joke amongst the band; harmonica solos blast the ear drums; Dylan’s voice lacks any gravitas. But then tracks such as Visions of Johanna, I Want You, Stuck Inside of Mobile… and Just Like a Woman make you reconsider; beautifully performed, produced exquisitely and rewarding on repeat listening. So keep listening forever and try and fail and fail better to understand the twentieth century’s most elusive musician.

I had a classic rock phase in high school where i started getting into all of the big names, but Dylan eluded me a bit. I ended up going to a concert around 2002 of his and it was a bit of a disaster, I barely recall it but reviews were that he was out of it and his voice was a disaster. I still made an attempt to get to know his music and became familiar with some of his more popular songs; so from this album I knew "Rainy Day Women" though I thought it was just called "Everybody must get stoned" and as a teen discovering cannabis I thought it was the funniest song ever. I also knew Just Like a Woman but otherwise these are new to me. Dylan never really grasped me, I heard he was this amazing poet and songwriter and I could hear hints of it in the songs I did know but still it never clicked. Now on my 2nd full Dylan album since starting this process I'm starting to see it. I think you need to really sit and get into a groove, not just pick up one song on a playlist with a bunch of other guitar rock, it's not going to land well, but if you can get into an album and listen to it through you really do get into the right mindset. I can appreciate this music a lot more, still not something I would go out of my way to seek out, but I appreciate it and its place on this list.

Blonde On Blonde, a highly misleading album title that. There's no hot Scandanavian girl-on-girl (or Scandanavian boy-on-boy) action to be found here.

I love Dylan and think this is a really good album but he does need to learn when to shut the hell up sometimes and finish a song before it ends up 15 days long