Bob has pretty well buried "Blowin' in the Wind" these days, and "A Hard Rains..." not as great as I was hoping that it would be. This is, for me, the hardest Dylan album to listen to. How could it be great when it gets to its climax about Taylor and Burton? A little too optimistic, and a little too cute to be cool. "Masters of War" scared me, and I don't even know where that came from. "Don't Think Twice..." is a great tune, but it doesn't fit in with something like "Chimes of Freedom", which wasn't as great a song as it should have been. Again, there is intrusive harmonica and the bellowing vocal powerhouse of its creator, so it hardly sounds different than the rest. Although as he matured, his songwriting hit a creative and stimulating peak, which was a few years in the future at the time of this release. Check it out, but don't expect HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED.
Bob has pretty well buried "Blowin' in the Wind" these days, and "A Hard Rains... " not as great as I was hoping that it would be. This is, for me, the hardest Dylan album to listen to. How could it be great when it gets to its climax about Taylor and Burton? A little too optimistic, and a little too cute to be cool. "Masters of War" scared me, and I don't even know where that came from. "Don't Think Twice... " is a great tune, but it doesn't fit in with something like "Chimes of Freedom", which wasn't as great a song as it should have been. Again, there is intrusive harmonica and the bellowing vocal powerhouse of its creator, so it hardly sounds different than the rest. Although as he matured, his songwriting hit a creative and stimulating peak, which was a few years in the future at the time of this release. Check it out, but don't expect HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED.