The 10 best Bob Dylan album covers according to Rolling Stone

One of the biggest names in music is also a legend when it comes to album covers

Bob Dylan He is a legend on and off stage. And if the image is a complement to his music, the artist has very well managed to build a surprising visual identity. Your ex-girlfriend Suze Rotolo he wrote in his memoirs A freewheeling time (2008) that “a lot of time was spent in front of the mirror trying on one wrinkled item of clothing after another until it all came together to look as if Bob had just stood up and thrown something in. Image was everything .”

With this in mind, the Rolling Stone rated all album covers by Bob Dylan and I placed them in a ranking. Here we separate the top 10 rankings. See below:

10. Street Legal (1978)

Dylan photographed by Howard Alk on the streets of Santa Monica: sleeves rolled up, looking for action, visibly without a wedding ring.

9. Nashville Skyline (1969)

In 1969, Dylan smiling seemed like a radical and sincere act. According to the photographer Elliot Landythis photo was not taken in Nashville, but in Woodstock, New York. From the book by LandyWoodstock vision: “‘Do you think I should wear this?’ he asked, starting to put on his hat, smiling because it was a little silly, and he was having fun visualizing himself in this silly looking traditional hat “‘I don’t know,’ I said as I snapped. It all happened so fast. If I had any resistance inside me, I would have missed the photograph that became the cover Nashville skyline. It’s better to be open to life.”

8. The World Gone Wrong (1993)

Dylan he remembered Dave Stewart (from Eurythmic) at 4 a.m. and asked him to arrange a shoot that day for his song “Blood in my eyes“. Stewart he accepted and a few hours later took him for a walk around London, filming him with an 8mm camera. Dylan he wore a top hat and interacted happily with strangers. Stewart he judged the day surreal enough to require further documentation, so he called his imperturbable friend, the Colombian photographer Ana María Vélez Woodwho only 48 hours earlier had been in the Amazon jungle. In a bar in Camden Town he took the photo which became the cover World gone wrong: An impromptu photo that seemed to have been carefully staged to show a man from a bygone era whose candle had not yet burned down to the wick.

7. The Basement Tapes (1975)

How do you capture the anarchic spirit of these famous and often pirated (but not photographed) sessions? For its release, eight years after their recording, Dylan and the band recruited the photographer Reid Miles because he liked the album cover Subway From Thelonious Monkfrom 1968. This cover was shot in the basement of YMCA of Hollywood; the musicians were accompanied by people dressed as circus performers and song characters, e.g Quinn the Eskimo. To add something to the board Fellini, Dylan and the gang also dressed up, some wearing military uniforms. Because the songs were conceived as demos for other artists, the album and its cover have the playful spirit of a Halloween party. Sometimes music can be a fantasy in and of itself.

6. The Times They Are a Changing (1964)

A year earlier, Dylan and the photographer Barry Feinstein they took a trip together from Denver to New York, driving a Rolls-Royce that belonged to the businessman of Dylan, Alberto Grossmann. (A photo of the feet of Dylan out of the window of the Rolls-Royce ended up on the cover of the 1970 album Delaney, Bonnie and friends on tour with Eric Clapton .) Then Dylan trusted Feinstein when the photographer took him to a friend’s penthouse in New York City and photographed him on the balcony, looking chiseled and intense. In your book Real moments, Feinstein wrote: “I didn’t need to take many photos because I immediately understood that it was a very unusual photo, an angle and a moment with Bob.”

5. Blonde on Blonde (1966)

This brown leather jacket makes the first of its three album appearances Dylan: we will see her again in John Wesley Harding AND Nashville skyline. The jacket wasn’t particularly warm, which was a problem on that cold winter’s day Dylan and the photographer Jerry Schatzberg I walked through New York’s Meatpacking District for this cover. They were both shaking from the cold, which is why this photo is blurry: Schatzberg I had trouble holding the camera still. This blur, however, gave the photo a slightly enigmatic and hallucinogenic appearance. Schatzberg I imagined that the Columbia Records I would never choose an out of focus photo, but Dylan he insisted on this. “It was amazing,” he said Schatzberg. “Because in general what Bobby he wants, Bobby you get.”

4. Desire (1976)

Source: Terra

Earl

Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.