Tune in tonight at 7pm Atlantic for Tonight’s Listening Party Album: The Basement Tapes
(6pm Eastern, 5pm Central, 3pm Pacific, 11pm London, 10am Sydney)

The Basement Tapes is a studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and the Band, released on June 26, 1975 by Columbia Records. It is Dylan’s sixteenth studio album. The songs featuring Dylan’s vocals were recorded in 1967, eight years before the album’s release, at houses in and around Woodstock, New York, where Dylan and the Band lived. Although most of the Dylan songs had appeared on bootleg records, The Basement Tapes marked their first official release.

During his world tour of 1965–66, Dylan was backed by a five-member rock group, the Hawks, who would subsequently become famous as the Band. After Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident in July 1966, four members of the Hawks gravitated to the vicinity of Dylan’s home in the Woodstock area to collaborate with him on music and film projects. While Dylan was concealed from the public’s gaze during an extended period of convalescence in 1967, they recorded more than 100 tracks together, incorporating original compositions, contemporary covers and traditional material. Dylan’s new style of writing moved away from the urban sensibility and extended narratives that had characterized his most recent albums, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, toward songs that were more intimate and which drew on many styles of traditional American music. While some of the basement songs are humorous, others dwell on nothingness, betrayal and a quest for salvation. In general, they possess a rootsy quality anticipating the Americana genre. For some critics, the songs on The Basement Tapes, which circulated widely in unofficial form, mounted a major stylistic challenge to rock music in the late sixties.

Tune in tonight at 7pm Atlantic for Tonight’s Listening Party Album: Another Side of Bob Dylan
(6pm Eastern, 5pm Central, 3pm Pacific, 11pm London, 10am Sydney)

Blood on the Tracks is the fifteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 20, 1975 by Columbia Records. The album marked Dylan’s return to Columbia Records after a two-album stint with Asylum Records. Dylan commenced recording the album in New York City in September 1974. In December, shortly before Columbia was due to release the record, Dylan abruptly re-recorded much of the material in a studio in Minneapolis. The final album contains five tracks from New York and five from Minneapolis.

Blood on the Tracks was initially received with mixed reviews, but has subsequently been acclaimed as one of Dylan’s greatest albums by critics and fans. The songs have been linked to tensions in Dylan’s personal life, including estrangement from his then-wife Sara. One of their children, Jakob Dylan, has described the songs as “my parents talking”. The album has been viewed as an outstanding example of the confessional singer-songwriter’s craft, and it has been called “the truest, most honest account of a love affair from tip to stern ever put down on magnetic tape”. In interviews, Dylan has denied that the songs on the album are autobiographical. In 2003, the album was ranked number 16 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and in 2004, it was placed at number 5 on Pitchfork’s list of the top 100 albums of the 1970s.

The album reached #1 on the Billboard 200 charts and #4 on the UK Albums Chart. The single “Tangled Up in Blue” peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The album remains one of Dylan’s best-selling studio releases, with a double-platinum US certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 2015, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Tune in tonight at 7pm Atlantic for Tonight’s Listening Party Album: Planet Waves
(6pm Eastern, 5pm Central, 3pm Pacific, 11pm London, 10am Sydney)

Planet Waves is the fourteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 17, 1974 by Asylum Records in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom.

Dylan is supported on the album by longtime collaborators the Band, with whom he embarked on a major reunion tour (documented on the live album Before the Flood) following its release (the tour started a couple weeks before release—though Asylum had wanted the album out first). With a successful tour and a host of publicity, Planet Waves was a hit, enjoying a brief stay at #1 on the US Billboard charts—a first for the artist—and #7 in the UK. Critics were not as negative as they had been with some then-recent Bob Dylan albums (namely Self Portrait and Dylan), but still not enthusiastic for the album’s brand of laid-back roots rock.

The album was originally set to be titled Ceremonies of the Horsemen, a reference to the song “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”, from the 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home; the release was delayed two weeks when Dylan decided to change the title at the last minute. Another, earlier working title was Wedding Song.

Tune in tonight at 7pm Atlantic for Tonight’s Listening Party Album: Dylan
(6pm Eastern, 5pm Central, 3pm Pacific, 11pm London, 10am Sydney)

Dylan is the thirteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on November 19, 1973 by Columbia Records. Compiled and issued by the label with no input from Dylan himself, it contains no original Dylan songs, the material consisting of two outtakes from Self Portrait and another seven from New Morning. It followed the artist’s departure from Columbia for Asylum Records, and the announcement of his first major tour since 1966.

Although Dylan received very poor reviews, it managed to hit #17 in the US and become a gold record. It is the only Columbia Dylan album not to be reissued on compact disc in the North American market at the request of Dylan himself.

Tune in tonight at 7pm Atlantic for Tonight’s Listening Party Album: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
(6pm Eastern, 5pm Central, 3pm Pacific, 11pm London, 10am Sydney)

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is the twelfth studio album and first soundtrack album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 13, 1973 by Columbia Records for the Sam Peckinpah film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Dylan himself appeared in the film as the character “Alias”. The soundtrack consists primarily of instrumental music and was inspired by the movie itself, and included “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, which became a trans-Atlantic Top 20 hit. Certified a gold record by the RIAA, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid reached #16 US and #29 UK.

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