—is the beginning of alt-country music. While his peers turned to psychedelia, Dylan defiantly turned to rustic, pastoral imagery, relaying allegories and tales seemingly ripped out of Western pulps and outlaw fan-fiction. The songwriting is crisp and the instrumentation is tight, with Dylan employing a startlingly efficient economy of words—every lineand isn’t just stream-of-consciousness poetry.
A reminder that Dylan’s best output wasn’t limited to the 1960s. This late-’90s tour de force kicked off his so-called renaissance period with a world-weary, plaintive look at mortality and lost love. Dylan reunited with Lanois here for a bleary blues sound, heavy on organs, pedal steel, and echo-drenched vocals—and the result was a Grammy-winning comeback that will hopefully be remembered as the defining record of Dylan’s late career.Visionary in countless ways.