Hi Matt,

"Desire" is a mixed picture...some very good stuff and some that is a little odd, depending on your point of view. It's also a different sound, with Scarlet Rivera's "gypsy violin" very evident and Emmy Lou Harris's vocals with Dylan...so it sounds very different. Hard to say what your reaction might be.

I can thoroughly recommend "Street Legal" from 1979, but some people don't like the 3 black girls singing backup. I like 'em. The lyrics are wonderful.

"Slow Train Coming" sounds terrific, but you might not like the religious themes...I don't know.

"Infidels" from 1985 is a superb album, on the whole.

"Oh Mercy" from 1989 (I think) is a great album...very personal and revealing.

"World Gone Wrong" from the early 90's is a superb acoustic folk album of old trad tunes, mostly, rather than Dylan originals.

The recent "Time Out Of Mind" is a great blues album, but you might find it depressing. It's very dark. Bob'd feeling the weight of time bearing down on him, and he doesn't like it...says he'd change places with any of the young kids in the park in a moment if he could. I don't feel that way myself, but he seems to. I don't wish to change places with anyone at all.

Back to classic Dylan...all the early stuff is entirely worth getting from:

Bob Dylan (1st album)
Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (truly great collection from around 1962-3)
The Times They Are A-Changin' (severe sound, but classic)
Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964....personal reflections)
Bringing It All Back Home (a lyrical tour de force beyond estimation...possibly his most brilliant lyrics ever)
Highway 61 Revisited (extraordinary, and hard-edged)
Blonde On Blonde (exceptional)
John Wesley Harding (a religious/spiritual album of personal parables about Bob's own struggle and the world)

Not one of them is really like Blood On The Tracks. That one stands alone. But they are all really quite remarkable, and all a unique experience. Dylan is the songwriters songwriter, and the one and only. He changed the world, although he will insist that he did not. He doesn't want that label or the responsibility for it.

Good luck...

- LH