inspired by @bergkamp’s heroic endeavour … is there any interest in a FULL DISCOGRAPHY listening club for Dylan this year?
we’re talking 40 albums in total, so basically running across this year for an album a week. Add a judicious summer break, and hold the Christmas album back to next winter for seasonal accuracy
Below is the full album list, listening dates, and links to discussion and voting posts
Aug 4 - Infidels (1983)
Aug 11 - Empire Burlesque (1985)
Aug 18 - Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
Aug 25 - Down in the Groove (1988)
Sept 1 - Oh Mercy (1989)
Sept 8 - Under the Red Sky (1990)
Sept 15 - Good as I Been to You (1992)
Sept 22 - World Gone Wrong (1993)
Sept 29 - Time Out of Mind (1997)
Oct 6 - “Love and Theft" (2001)
Oct 13 - Modern Times (2006)
Oct 20 - Together Through Life (2009)
Oct 27 - Tempest (2012)
Nov 3 - Shadows in the Night (2015)
Nov 10 - Fallen Angels (2016)
Nov 17 - Triplicate (2017)
Nov 24 - Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)
Dec 1 - Shadow Kingdom (2023)
Dec 8 - Christmas in the Heart (2009)
And the ongoing playlist of top picks from each album
Very up for this, I did my own mini version last year where I listened to 20+ albums that I thought were worth exploring. That was the first time I’d properly listened to a Dylan album. Keen to build upon that cursory knowledge.
If it were a voting situation, I’d probably go for a random order…however in this case I don’t mind going chronological because Dylan’s best stuff is largely front loaded, so I’ll keep with it at least initially. If I’m gonna drop out it’ll be during the dodgy 70s phase.
Oh awesome! I’ve been meaning to set this exact idea up for months, but there have always been other listening clubs going and it felt like another would be too many so I was waiting for the right moment.
I’ve got a few weird gaps here and there in Dylan’s discography that I’m keen to fill in.
Have a strong preference for chronological order in these things as I like to hear the evolution from album to album and would find a random order too unstructured to be enjoyable.
I’ve done the entire run through before, and I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to do it again. But I’ll start with the intention of doing it anyway.
Do think the Bootleg series, or at least significant chunks of it are pretty essential to the Dylan catalogue now. But can maybe do that at the end if there’s still appetite. It makes a massive discography even more unwieldy, so it’s not really worth trying to weave it in.
I fear we’ll look back wistfully at the three weeks we spent with the Christian trio once we hit the albums that don’t exist like Down In The Groove and Knocked Out Loaded a couple of weeks later…
