Like many of his contemporaries, for some reason Bob Dylan has always been one of those album-a-year recording artists. His reasoning seems to fall under that Post-Elvis music industry logic that an album a year will ensure a popular musician's longevity, vitality, and almighty chart placement. Not that the charts even mattered to Dylan after 1976 anyway. And not that you could accuse Dylan of ever following any industry formulae—some years he would release two incredible records, while at other times, fans would wait patiently while their beacon seemed to fade into the foliage, for instance during Dylan's '93-'97 and '01-'05 songwriting droughts, the longest stretches between the release of any new material.
Those were hard times in Dylan Town, much to the chagrin of the critics, who had to find new quarry to fleece. But Dylan surprised everyone with his third big career breakthrough, 1997's Time Out of Mind, and again with 2006's Modern Times. Four years without new material? Twice? If it were anyone else, such a disappearing act would be career suicide. If you don't believe it, ask Mariah Carey who, once America's most-coveted pop diva, still hasn't gained a toehold in the charts a full decade after her 2002-08 Sabbatical. Is there a defibrillator on the plane? But Dylan is a different animal, from an entirely different epoch (even his musical peer, CCR's John Fogerty got away with not one, but two ten-year hiatuses and still came back to enjoy an surge of mass popularity in the 1990s). Yep, the times have certainly a-changed.
Between 1962 with his self-titled debut album, and 2009's Christmas in the Heart, Dylan boasts a sum total of 34 studio albums, 13 live albums, plus a fat handful of compilations (compare this to country stalwart George Jones, who holds the world record at 106 albums released). In this brave new age of quantity over quality, you can say what you will about Bob Dylan, but one thing is certain; out of those 34 studio albums spanning five decades, no matter where they fall on the greatness scale, the intention behind every one of them is unarguably pure. From Dylan's mid-'60s peak, when the muses danced around his head in a cascade of scintillating lyrics, to those frustrating impasses that forced a struggle, Dylan's hunger for excellence never waned.
Excluding imports, unauthorized bootlegs, singles, and collaborations (Traveling Wilbury's, Johnny Cash, et alia), what follows is Dylan's complete discography:
1962
Bob Dylan (Columbia, March 19)
1963
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (Columbia, May 27)
1964
The Times They Are A-Changin' (Columbia, January 13)
Another Side of Bob Dylan (Columbia, August 8)
1965
Bringing It All Back Home (Columbia, March 22)
Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia, August 30)
1966
Blonde on Blonde (Double LP) (Columbia, May 16)
1967
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (Columbia, March 27)
John Wesley Harding (Columbia, December 27)
1969
Nashville Skyline (Columbia, April 9)
1970
Self Portrait (Columbia, June 8)
New Morning (Columbia, October 21)
1971
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (Columbia, November 17)
1973
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (Columbia, July 13)
Dylan (Columbia, November 16)
1974
Planet Waves (Asylum, January 17)
Before the Flood (Live double LP) (Columbia, June 20)
1975
Blood on the Tracks (Columbia, January 17)
The Basement Tapes (Columbia, June 26)
1976
Desire (Columbia, January 16)
Hard Rain (Live LP) (Columbia, September 10)
1978
Masterpieces (Columbia, March 1)
Street Legal (Columbia, June 15)
1979
Slow Train Coming (Columbia, August 20)
Bob Dylan at Budokan (Live LP)(Columbia, April 23)
1980
Saved (Columbia, June 20)
1981
Shot of Love (Columbia, August 12)
1983
Infidels (Columbia, November 1)
1984
Real Live (Live LP) (Columbia, December 3)
1985
Empire Burlesque (Columbia, June 8)
1986
Knocked Out Loaded (Columbia, August 8)
1988
Down in the Groove (Columbia, May 31)
1989
Dylan and the Dead (Live LP) (Columbia, February 6)
Oh Mercy (Columbia, September 22)
1990
Under the Red Sky (Columbia, September 11)
1991
The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased) 1961-1991 (Columbia, March 26)
1992
Good as I Been to You (Columbia, October 22)
1993
World Gone Wrong (Columbia, October 28)
1994
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. 3 (Columbia, November 15)
1995
MTV Unplugged (Live LP) (Columbia, April 25)
1997
Time Out of Mind (Columbia, September 30)
1998
The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert (Sony/Legacy, October 13)
2000
The Essential Bob Dylan (Columbia, October 31)
2001
“Love and Theft” (Columbia, September 11)
2002
The Bootleg Series Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue (Sony/Legacy, November 26)
2004
The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall (Sony/Legacy, March 30)
2005
Live at Carnegie Hall 1963 (Columbia, January 1)
Live at the Gaslight 1962 (Columbia, January 1)
The Best of Bob Dylan (Columbia, November 15)
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home, The Soundtrack (Sony/Legacy, August 30)
2006
Modern Times (Columbia, August 29)
2007
Bob Dylan: The Collection (Sony/Legacy, September 29)
Dylan (Columbia, October 27)
2008
The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs (Sony/Legacy, October 7)
2009
Together Through Life (Columbia, April 28)
Christmas in the Heart (Columbia, October 13)
2010
The Original Mono Recordings (Columbia, October 19)
The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos, 1962-1964 (Sony/Legacy, October 19)