Nashville Skyline

The album that I am reviewing this week is Bob Dylan’s ninth album, “Nashville Skyline”

History

Nashville Skyline was originally released in 1969 and saw great reviews and sales, reaching number one in the UK and number three in the US. The album Marked Dylan’s full immersion into country. He had recently quit smoking and listeners were surprised to hear a newer softer voice accompanying the songs. At the time of recording and releasing the album, Bob Dylan has been a significant cultural figure. This allowed him to weigh in on social and political events with a lot of supporters that could actually make a change. This is exactly what happened with the Vietnam war, which is the subject of many songs in the album. Dylan had helped to fuel and start a movement against the war. The album also massively helped country as a genre by bringing in a huge new audience and also re-shaping a mostly contemporary genre.

Review.

I love this album because it feels so innocent and charming. A lot of the songs only consist of a couple instruments and it keeps the whole thing nice and simple. Nothing becomes overly complicated or massive which just add to its charm. My only complaint is the mono recording that can be heard with head phones. Of course, this is a problem with 60’s albums in general and not just this album. It makes me feel deaf in one ear. Nonetheless, the album is still great and the recording technique doesn’t take away from the song quality at all. “Nashville skyline” is what country albums should strive to be.

Favorite song

My favorite song on this album, while a tough choice, would have to be “Peggy Day”. The song opens with nothing but a simple guitar strumming. Shortly after, it is accompanied by Bob Dylan’s signature twangy, blues-y guitar riffs. Dylan’s voice feels very old school and reminiscent of early blues singers. Much like the rest of the album, it is just so simple and charming. This song also has lap guitar, which adds just the perfect amount of country feel and spices things up a little bit. The song comes to close in an almost cliche blues ending which is just so satisfying to me for some reason.