I've started at 68 as I didnt realise that doing a blog would be the best way to document this, and I thought it may be a bit of fun.
Firstly I have a ratings system for albums. I write out each song in a little book (a little sad i know) then give each song a mark out of 1. 1 being a great song 3/4 being a good song 1/2 being ok and 1/4 being pretty poo. 0 is a rarety that most songs will never experience as I'm not that critical. I then divide the album by the number of songs e.g 100/12 = 8.33, therefore each "1" scored equals 8.33!
It's a little complicated I know so i'm just going to start talking about the album
BOB DYLAN. Folk Legend. Most of you know of him. He's a pretty cool cat. This was the first Bob Dylan album i listened to since deciding to do the list, the second of his overall (i listened to "the freewheelin bob dylan" a year and a half ago and I thought it was quite good!) Anyway i'd listened to "Highway 61" a little bit in the past and it's been on my ipod for ages so I felt I should give it the time of day.
The first two songs enter in a swirling 12 minutes of folk rock, two brilliant powerhouses of songs in "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Tombstone Blues" the former most people will have heard of before as it is a classic, classic song but I was still so very impressed with "Tombstone Blues," a kind of ramshackle of a song which has a choatic theme to it, especially with the lyrics and the fast-paced nature of the song. It has a few lyrical gems in it with perfectly non-sensical lines like "the sun's not yellow, it's chicken!" Classic Bob Dylan.
The album then moves into a slightly slower pacing with "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" and the next two songs "From A Buick 6" and "Ballad Of A Thin Man" the last one being a slow paced burner of a song which cuts to the heart of you over a the length of the song, as if Bobby is toying with you, before punching you in the face so that you suddenly think "MY GOD THIS SONG IS REALLY GOOD!" which he tends to do throughout the album.
There is but one blip of a song on here in "Queen Jane Approximately," a normal, folk song which doesn't really hit home like the other tracks. The final, fantastic song "Desolation Row" an 11 minute hollywood film of a folk song in which it's grim but brilliant lyrics lift it superbly into a class above almost all other folk songs.
The album as a whole was definitely a fantastic album, one that almost kept the attention up all the way through but it wore ever so slightly at the end unfortunatly and it lost it a bit but still the transformation of Bob Dylan from folk singer to rock and roll icon is completely appitomised is this album, possibly one of the greatest career changing albums i've ever heard.
SCORE= 8.6/10
Track Scores
1.Like A Rolling Stone = 1
2.Tombstone Blues = 1
3 It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry = 3/4
4.From A Buick 6 = 1
5.Ballad Of A Thin Man = 1
6.Queen Jane Approximately = 1/2
7.Highway 61 Revisited = 1
8.Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues = 1/2
9.Desolation Row = 1
1= 11.11
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