dylan

Fifty years ago Bob Dylan released Highway 61 Revisited, which is arguably the best album ever. Some could defend a choice of one of three of The Beatles albums, or even Dylan's very own Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks. One point that cannot be debated, however, is that Highway 61 Revisited is the first album to be flawless in that it has no bad songs. Every record until then, no matter how good, contained at least one clunker. In the half century since its release, Highway 61 Revisited has been joined by just a handful of other albums that are flawless. Here are the ten, all perfect and from a wide range of the rock genre. Hunky Dory by David Bowie The biggest single from the album was "Changes," but each tune is a gem. There is a song honoring Dylan, another praising Andy ...

Over the past few weeks, the coronavirus has turned the country’s cultural spigot off, with sports suspended, museums closed and movies postponed. But the virus hasn’t stopped Bob Dylan, who, on the evening of March 26, released “Murder Most Foul,” a 17-minute long song about the Kennedy assassination. Many have pondered the timing. So have I. I’m a Kennedy scholar writing a book about how television handled coverage of the Kennedy assassination over a traumatic four-day “black weekend,” as it was called. I’ve also explored how Americans responded to the sudden upending of national life with the murder of a popular and uniquely telegenic president. NBC News anchor David Brinkley, as he signed off that first night, called Kennedy’s death “just too much, too ugly and too fast.” The corona...

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Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, The Elite Records That Followed Rock’s First Flawless Album

Bob Dylan brings links between JFK assassination and coronavirus into stark relief