If
Highway 61 Revisited
played as a
garage rock
record, the double album
Blonde on Blonde
inverted that sound, blending
blues
,
country
rock
, and
folk
into a wild, careening, and dense sound. Replacing the fiery
Michael Bloomfield
with the intense, weaving guitar of
Robbie Robertson
Bob Dylan
led a group comprised of his touring band
the Hawks
and session musicians through his richest set of songs.
is an album of enormous depth, providing endless lyrical and musical revelations on each play. Leavening the edginess of
Highway 61
with a sense of the absurd,
is comprised entirely of songs driven by inventive, surreal, and witty wordplay, not only on the rockers but also on winding, moving
ballads
like
"Visions of Johanna,"
"Just Like a Woman,"
and
"Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands."
Throughout the record, the music matches the inventiveness of the songs, filled with cutting guitar riffs, liquid organ riffs, crisp pianos, and even woozy brass bands (
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"
). It's the culmination of
Dylan
's electric
rock & roll
period -- he would never release a studio record that rocked this hard, or had such bizarre imagery, ever again. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine