So, I have always appreciated Bob Dylan’s music, but I know I hadn’t listened to everything, so last week I decided that I would listen to all of his studio albums start to finish. I listened to 39 albums in 4 days, a total of 33 hours of music, I believe. This was just his studio stuff, not the Bootlegs series or live albums.
So, the conclusion that I have come to is that the producer really matters. He had two albums produced by Daniel Lanois and they sound fantastic. Dylan may be his own best producer because his recent albums are self-produced and are probably his best. Tempest was my favorite album without question. The two Lanois produced ones, Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind are the best sounding, in my opinion. Interestingly, Dylan apparently didn’t like the way Time Out of Mind sounded, which might be why he started producing his own albums. Apparently Lanois is very particular in the studio about microphone placement to get certain sounds and mixing (I don’t know anything about audio production, but that sounds like something any producer would do). That info is from Wikipedia, so…
I know it has been expressed that it would be interesting to hear what Lanois could do with DMB. I feel the same way 100%. How DMB would even record an album in the same city as King Batson is beyond me.