Will Bob Dylan’s Tempest join his other 13 albums in the top 1000 of all time?

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Bob Dylan has 13 albums in the DMDB’s list of the top 1000 of all time. Four of them are in the top 100. In many cases, even the most successful artists’ works come in the early part of their careers. That would seem to be the case with Dylan – 8 of his top 1000 albums were recorded in the 1960s. The next decade saw only two albums join that list.

However, Dylan had an unusual career revival more than 35 years after his first album. In 1997, Time Out of Mind joined the ranks of Dylan’s albums rated in the top 1000 of all time – and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. His next two albums, 2001’s Love and Theft and 2006’s Modern Times, have also secured spots in the top 1000 list.

Now 71 years old, Dylan releases Tempest, his 35th studio album in fifty years. Will it join the ranks of his other classic works? The Telegraph’s Neil McCormick called it “among his best ever” ^WK while Rolling Stone’s Mika Gilmore went so far as to suggest it might be the greatest album of Dylan’s career. ^PM Will Hermes, also from Rolling Stone, gave the album 5 out of 5 stars. ^WK American Songwriter’s Jim Beviglia’s called it “the kind of meaty offering that [Dylan’s] most ardent fans desire most.” ^WK

The New York Times says that “like Mr. Dylan’s other 21st-century albums, Tempest feels live and rootsy, vamping along in the zone where blues, country, and folk intersect.” ^NY Paste called it “one of the most cohesive, musically and lyrically intense records he’s put together in years.” ^PM In his Los Angeles Times review, Randall Roberts wrote, “Few American writers, save Mark Twain, have spoken so eloquently and consistently at such a stead, honest clip.” ^LA

Duquesne Whistle

Only time will tell if Tempest achieves the same classic status as the baker’s dozen of Dylan albums which rank in the top 1000 of all time. It looks to be off to a good start, though.

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Resources and Related Links:

• Bob Dylan’s DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry
• Dave’s Music Database: Top 100 Albums of All Time
• Dave’s Music Database: Top 1000 Albums of All Time
• The Daily Beast: The Rage in Bob Dylan’s Tempest by David Yaffe, 3 September 2012
• ^LA Los Angeles Times: Album review: Bob Dylan rides this Tempest by Randall Roberts, 5 September 2012
• ^NY New York Times: From Romance to Carnage – Review: Tempest by Bob Dylan by Jon Pareles, 10 September 2012
• ^PM Paste magazine: Bob Dylan: Tempest by Douglas Heselgrave, 11 September 2012
• ^WK Wikipedia: Tempest (Bob Dylan album)

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Bob Dylan released Love and Theft

Love and Theft Bob Dylan

Released: September 11, 2001 Charted: September 29, 2001 Peak: 5 US, 3 UK, 3 CN, 6 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.1 UK, 1.1 world (includes US and UK) Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum Mississippi Summer Days Bye and Bye Lonesome Day Blues Floater (Too Much to Ask) High Water (For Charley Patton) Moonlight Honest with Me Po’ Boy Cry a While Sugar Baby Total Running Time: 57:25

Rating: 3.882 out of 5.00 (average of 29 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “The blood and glory of 1997’s Time Out of Mind” RS’20 “was a legitimate comeback, Bob Dylan's first collection of original songs in nearly ten years and a risky rumination on mortality.” AMG It “was the first Dylan album in years that had to live up to fans’ expectations. He didn’t just exceed them – he blew them up. Dylan sang in the voice of a grizzled drifter who’d visited every nook and cranny of America and gotten chased out of them all.” RS’20 “Its sequel, Love and Theft, is his true return to form, not just his best album since Blood on the Tracks, but the loosest, funniest, warmest record he’s made since The Basement Tapes.” AMG It “was full of corny vaudeville jokes and apocalyptic floods, from the guitar rave” RS’20 of “the fabulously swinging Summer Days” AMG “to the country lilt of Po’ Boy.” RS’20 “There are none of the foreboding, apocalyptic warnings that permeated Time Out of Mind and even underpinned ‘Things Have Changed,’ his Oscar-winning theme to Curtis Hanson's 2000 film Wonder Boys.” AMG “Just as important, Daniel Lanois’ deliberately arty, diffuse production has retreated into the mist, replaced by an uncluttered, resonant production that gives Dylan and his ace backing band room to breathe. And they run wild with that liberty, rocking the house with the grinding Lonesome Day Blues…They’re equally captivating on the slower songs, whether it's the breezily romantic Bye and Bye, the torch song Moonlight, or the epic reflective closer, Sugar Baby.” AMG “Musically, Dylan hasn’t been this natural or vital since he was with the Band, and even then, those records were never as relaxed and easy or even as hard-rocking as these. That alone would make Love and Theft a remarkable achievement, but they're supported by a tremendous set of songs that fully synthesize all the strands in his music, from the folksinger of the early ‘60s, through the absurdist storyteller of the mid-‘60s, through the traditionalist of the early ‘70s, to the grizzled professional of the ‘90s.” AMG “None of this is conscious, it’s all natural. There's an ease to his writing and a swagger to his performance unheard in years – he’s cracking jokes and murmuring wry asides, telling stories, crooning, and swinging. It’s reminiscent of his classic records, but he’s never made a record that’s been such sheer, giddy fun as this, and it stands proudly among his very best albums.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Dylan AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/30/2008; last updated 4/27/2022.