Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde (CBS, 1966)
Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, 2004
RADICAL AND then some: a double album in 66, with a blurred vertical Bob running horizontally across the sleeve and Nashville sessionmen playing behind a birds-nest-headed speedfreak. Blonde is everything it was supposed to be – Highway 61 times two, with raw blues routines giving way to flowing ruminations such as "Visions of Johanna" and "One of Us Must Know". Call it what you will – country punk, amphetamine folk, automatic rocknroll poetry – Blonde was the last of a sequence of mid-60s electric masterpieces that made Dylan a deity.
Total word count of piece: 91
Best Databases: RBP is Runner-up in Best Niche category
Video: Johnny Marr talks about Rock's Backpages
RBP on Spotify: The genius of Judee Sill
RBP Album Club in Chicago, June 30th: Paul Yamada and Liam (Plush) Hayes celebrate a Curtis Mayfield classic
Essential Listening: Roy Trakin meets the Replacements in '87
Essential Reading: Andrew Smith's history of the first dotcom boom
RBP Album Club, July 11th: Nick Hornby and Nick Coleman celebrate Southside Johnny's debut
Join the Facebook group now