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 Time Out of Mind released

Time Out of Mind Bob Dylan

Released: September 30, 1997 Peak: -- US, 10 UK, 27 CN, 24 AU, 15 DF Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.1 UK, 2.5 world (includes US + UK) Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Love Sick (7/11/98, 64 UK) Dirt Road Blues Standing in the Doorway Million Miles Tryin’ to Get to Heaven ‘Til I Fell in Love with You Not Dark Yet (23 DF) Cold Irons Bound Make You Feel My Love (12 DF) Can’t Wait Highlands Total Running Time: 72:50

Rating: 4.101 out of 5.00 (average of 28 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “After spending much of the '90s touring and simply not writing songs, Bob Dylan returned in 1997 with Time Out of Mind, his first collection of new material in seven years. Where Under the Red Sky, his last collection of original compositions, had a casual, tossed-off feel, Time Out of Mind is carefully considered, from the densely detailed songs to the dark, atmospheric production.” AMG “Sonically, the album is reminiscent of Oh Mercy, the last album Dylan recorded with producer Daniel Lanois, but Time Out of Mind has a grittier foundation – by and large, the songs are bitter and resigned, and Dylan gives them appropriately anguished performances. Lanois bathes them in hazy, ominous sounds, which may suit the spirit of the lyrics, but are often in opposition to Dylan’s performances.” AMG “Consequently, the album loses a little of its emotional impact, yet the songs themselves are uniformly powerful, adding up to Dylan’s best overall collection in years.” AMG “Lead track, Not Dark Yet appealed to sentimentalists because it felt like Dylan was revealing a truth (‘Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear/ It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there’) and bearing down for arts’ sake, too.” TL “Forget truth – Dylan always has – and focus on the sly, world weary atmospherics of Dirt Road Blues and Highlands, Dylan’s funniest song since the 60s. (‘She got a pretty face and long white shiny legs/ She says ‘what’ll it be/ I say ‘I don’t know, you got any soft-boiled eggs’).” TL This is “a better, more affecting record than Oh Mercy, not only because the songs have a stronger emotional pull, but because Lanois hasn’t sanded away all the grit. As a result, the songs retain their power, leaving Time Out of Mind as one of the rare latter-day Dylan albums that meets his high standards.” TL Interestingly, for Dylan’s first top ten album on U.S. soil in twenty years, and with a Grammy for Album of the Year to boot, “it was cover versions of To Make You Feel My Love by Garth Brooks and Billy Joel that generated the bulk of the cash Dylan made from Time Out of Mind.” TL

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Dylan AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/7/2011; last updated 5/16/2024.