Street Legal released: June 15, 1978 BUY

1978’s Street-Legal is one of Dylan’s most underrated albums. Most of the album seems to be about anguish and loss of direction, even dead ends, as in the fine “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” and “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat),” fueled by lust, regret, more lust, longing, and more regret. The titles alone – “No Time To Think,” “Is Your Love In Vain?” “We Better Talk This Over” – telegraph the pulse of anxiety that underlies the entire album. The album was the most slickly produced Dylan record up to that point; some critics greeted it with a degree of suspicion because the backup band included horns, background singers and keyboards. Whether or not a dead end was in fact being hinted at in the music, Dylan was reaching one, along with a breakthrough into a new arena of spiritual and creative possibility. Changing of the Guards | listen | New Pony | listen | No Time to Think | listen | Baby, Stop Crying | listen | Is Your Love in Vain? | listen | Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) | listen | True Love Tends to Forget | listen | We Better Talk This Over | listen | Where Are You Tonight? | listen |