Some of my favorite Dylan records – Oh Mercy, Infidels, Shot of Love, Saved, and Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 – are from the ’80s and I’ve been listening lately to a lot of stuff I’ve neglected for too long (aside from a few tracks here and there) – Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded, Down in the Groove, and Under the Red Sky. Looking forward to this tribute. Jonathan Lethem’s liner notes are killer.

“Most of these choices were likely to disenchant a thousand fans for every one they enchanted – specifically, of course, these gestures were destined to disenchant those who’d begun listening to Dylan in the ’60s and hung on through at least the first half of the ’70s. In retrospect, they were gestures of freedom as well as confusion, gestures of self-possession and self-reinvention, explorations of what exactly it meant to be an Icarus who’d survived and now had to become part of a small tribe inventing what it was to be an aging rock ‘n’ roller.” -Lethem on ’80s Dylan

Update 3/19: CBC is streaming the Dylan in the ’80s tribute album (h/t Largehearted Boy).