Discover Bob Dylan’s Favorite Bob Dylan Album

Bob Dylan has proved to everyone that he’s quite the contrarian. When people take their preemptive assumptions to the singer, Bob would show that they are wrong indefinitely. So it comes to no surprise when Dylan chooses Shot Of Love as his most favorite album of all time since many, not even his fans, wouldn’t expect him to pick one of his born-again biblical albums.

A lot of his admirers weren’t too keen on establishing their adoration to Dylan’s “born-again phase” in the late 70s, and Dylan wasn’t sure why. He had stood his assertion with Shot of Love as his favorite album to multiple interviews in the past, like on one occasion during the promotion of his abovementioned album, he had expressed that it was by far, “the most explosive album I’ve ever done”. Two years later, he commented that although he doesn’t like listening to his old songs, he is a fan of Freewheelin’, his first album, and Shot Of Love is his favorite.

Another moment where he expressed his admiration for his work was during a 1985 interview with Cameron Crowe: “People didn’t listen to [Shot of Love] in a realistic way. The critics wouldn’t allow the people to make up their minds. All they talked about was Jesus this and Jesus that, like it was some kind of Methodist record. I don’t know what was happening, maybe Boy George or something, but Shot of Love didn’t fit into the current formula.”

But, amidst the album’s commercial failure, it bore a definitive track that seemingly deserves to belong in Bob Dylan’s greatest hits. “Every Grain Of Sand” truly is exceptional among the rest.

Yet for whatever reason, people just couldn’t grasp the concept and Dylan’s masterful tweaks around the final album of his Christian trilogy. And perhaps that’s the reason why Dylan loved it so much: it’s a lowkey underrated classic.