Album of the Week: “Highway 61 Revisited” by Bob Dylan

July 25th, 1965 – Bob Dylan is set to perform at the Newport Folk Festival alongside fellow stars of the folk music genre. A year prior, Dylan appeared at the 1964 edition of the festival, experiencing huge national exposure for the first time. His folk ballads and protest songs from “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” had built up Dylan’s reputation as the voice of a new generation of artists, leading the revival of the genre through the early 1960s. All was set for a night full of folk music in Newport, with thousands of fans gathering at the festival grounds to revel in Dylan’s solo acoustic sound.

Yet, the crowd must’ve sensed something amiss as Dylan strutted out on stage in front of a full band, sporting a black leather jacket with an electric guitar in hand. The night before, Dylan rehearsed a fresh set to debut a new era for his sound as an artist, one that instantly divided fans at the festival. A rock and roll rendition of “Maggie’s Farm” opened the set, launching the audience through the first few stages of grief, prompting boos and jeers that nearly drowned out the distortion heavy music coming from the stage. After the live debut of his newest single “Like a Rolling Stone”, Dylan cut the set short after three songs, leaving parts of the crowd electrified and the rest electrocuted.

Critics were quick to label him a sell out, opting to abandon his roots in folk music to pursue mainstream success with his new sound and look. A slap in the face to his early supporters that made up his core fanbase, giving him a platform to perform his music; a relationship now tainted after Dylan brought rock and roll to a folk music festival. Shocking the music world, Bob Dylan “went electric” – his (in)famous performance living on as an important milestone in his career and one of the greatest live music events of all time, ranking up there with Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, Daft Punk’s 2007 Coachella performance, and James Charles’ rendition of “New Rules.”

A month after his Newport Folk Festival performance, Dylan released “Highway 61 Revisited” which became an instant classic. Confused critics and crowds alike were proven wrong with his new record as Dylan’s subject matter and lyricism remained true to his folk roots despite its rock and roll luster. “Like a Rolling Stone” became his first number one hit, an ode of loneliness and despair framed by playful organ choruses and piercing harmonica riffs. He questions Mr. Jones’ aloof ignorance on “Ballad of a Thin Man”, chastising popular media’s inability to understand counter culture and its ideals, aging finely for today’s cultural landscape. On the title track of the album, Dylan retells the history of mankind through the prodigal Highway 61, a road that picks up its captives in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth, Minnesota and pulls them South through the story of Abraham and Isaac at the dawn of humanity and the impending nuclear war at its end. Throughout “Highway 61 Revisited” Dylan’s signature voice of protest rings clear, now amplified with his new electric sound.

Despite the album’s historic importance and success, it’s easy to imagine a world where critics and audiences didn’t warm to Dylan’s new sound. Many artists throughout history have faced that same dilemna, receiving the same backlash for “selling out” – but what does that really mean? Is it signing to a major label after starting out independent (Green Day)? Changing genres entirely to reach a new audience (Taylor Swift, Black Eyed Peas)? Adopting popular aesthetics for radio or streaming appeal (Metallica, every Tiktok artist, Bob Dylan)? And amidst all of that, where do artists acclaimed for “experimenting” with their music fall when that experimentation leads to greater commercial success?

The definition of a sell out bends and stretches so much in spite of the rigidity that music criticism forces upon artists in the medium. The sense of ownership that listeners develop over the music they listen to is emblematic of the often toxic relationship between artist and audience which locks musicians away in a creative cage, chained to a single sound or genre. As Bob Dylan cried his first verse at the Newport Folk Festival, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm, no more,” he broke free of those chains; expectations thrown on him through his glorification at the hands of the folk-centered audience. A man made famous through folk songs of protest, now protesting his old self and the fandom so attached to it, freed with a screaming electric guitar.