Bob Dylan - Love And Theft

Released, weirdly enough, on the exact same day as Jay-Z's The Blueprint (September 11th, 2001), this one caught me off guard from the first track. Dylan's voice has changed so much over the years - more of a guttural growl these days than the high, reedy whine I was expecting. Given that this is the album that helped land him a Nobel Prize in Literature, I went in expecting weightier, more "important"-feeling lyrics; instead it plays like nostalgic old-man music, decent poetry about a lost youth that might have felt urgent and timely if a young Dylan had written it in the 70's, but from a 60-year-old in 2001 it just feels wistful.

The more I sat with it, though, the more I came around. This is an album that gives longtime Dylan fans exactly what they want, and I doubt it would have landed the same way as a debut from an unknown artist - but the fact its themes about growing older don't relate to me yet doesn't mean they won't resonate with someone else. Drawing imagery from everyday, plainspoken things is a hallmark of folk songwriting, and my lukewarm reaction here is probably more a personal-taste issue (and maybe an underdeveloped ear for witty folk poetry) than a real flaw in the record. It's actually helped me spot a pattern in my own taste: I don't connect as well with music from older or end-of-career artists, no matter the decade - I tend to like artists more when I'm hearing them young, something worth digging into more in a future issue. I can forgive this album for being made by an older artist; I hope people forgive me for being an old man myself one day. Note to self: revisit this one again in thirty years.

For an artist most people my age only knew as "the guy your parents worship," Love and Theft is a genuinely great entry point.

From the roundup The Best Albums of 2001.