Bob Dylan fan calls Slow Train Coming the ‘greatest album of all time’ – though listeners are split

A fan of the legendary songwriter Bob Dylan has split opinion with their claim to what his “greatest album of all time” is.

A post to the r/BobDylan subreddit saw one user claim Slow Train Coming was his best effort not just of the 1970s, but from his entire career. Their post reads: “This is the greatest album of all time. Change my mind.” They also quoted lyrics from the title track. Fans of the songwriter behind hits like Mr. Tambourine Man, One Too Many Mornings and Rough and Rowdy Ways were not impressed with the suggestion of Slow Train Coming being the pinnacle of his work. One user wrote: “It’s like Dylan’s 6th best album of the 70s. It’s still undeniably great though.”

Another added: “It’s a beautiful album but the lyrics are so literal and preachy. Like suddenly he had all the answers and if you disagree you’re going to hell.” A third compared the “literal and preachy” writing of Dylan in the 1970s to that of his protest songs in the 1960s, saying the only thing that changed was the subject. They wrote: “In the early days, he preached against warmongering and social injustices in some songs, but his topics and messages varied and were often open for interpretation. His holy roller days, not so much.

“His message was clear, however imaginative the lyrics used to convey them. Don‘t get me wrong, there are all-time classics in there (Satisfied Mind, Every Grain of Sand) and I listen to these albums frequently. I just skip some of the more fire and brimstone cuts and hateful shit like Neighborhood Bully, a song young Dylan would abhor and elder statesman Dylan avoids.”

Some came around to the original poster’s way of thinking and called Slow Train Coming a “great album”. One wrote: “It is definitely a great album. But, it’s not even the greatest Bob Dylan album of the decade in which it was released. That speaks more to the quality of Bob’s work than anything about the album itself.”

This is the greatest album of all time. Change my mind.
byu/alfynch inbobdylan

Another added: “I would argue that it’s Dylan’s most ‘crisply’ produced album, if that makes sense. The sound is just perfectly balanced. It’s also probably the best musicians playing with Dylan (with the exception, perhaps, of Charlie, Larry, and Tony). And despite the preachy nature, it is one of Dylan’s most hard-hitting rock albums. Very overlooked due to the subject matter.”

A third wrote: “To me, it is one of his best. It took his gift for lyricism, poetry and proclamation and married it with a fervency that he, I think, was searching for for a long time. It’s a very potent album, and I think the religious content is what turns people away, but I think it’s focused and one of his best.

“His more current stuff doesn’t feel as much like songs with one topic, more like a lot of couplets put together with a lyrical hook every so often. Slow Train has lyrics, theme, purpose, etc.”