Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde (side C)

1966's Blonde on Blonde is obviously a canonical record that is hard to write about.  What surprised me here is how far it feels from Dylan's folk roots.  The songs still hint at Dylan's troubador background.  While Highway 61 Revisited is fully electric and arranged, the song structures retain hints of feeling found, as much as created.  The historical referents, and the feeling of timelessness, have been largely abandoned by Blonde on Blonde.  Songwriting, arrangement, and recording quality here all borrow more from then-contemporary rock music than from any traditional folk influences.  Sonically, Blonde on Blonde nearly matches the bright, present quality of a Beatles album.  While the incredibly loose, unrehearsed performances do not match the polish of hits in 1966, it feels more like a rehearsal for a rock album than an impromptu folk session.  And songs like "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" borrow their structure and melodic feel from blues-based rock more than Dylan's folk background.  Even the cover image, which wraps around the gatefold and lacks any other design elements, abandons the white frame that brought an older feel to Dylan's previous albums.  As Dylan began to move back toward idiomatic folk elements after Blonde on Blonde, I find it easy to forget just how much the double-album fits into the rock of its day.