Download Roundup – Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited

Highway 61 Revisited includes several of Dylan’s most famous songs, including “Like a Rolling Stone” and, of course, the title track. Unsurprisingly, given its status in rock’s pantheon, the album exists in a mind-numbing mélange of releases—in both mono and stereo. I shan’t attempt to catalog them all here. Let’s just say the various CD-format versions all capture the fresh brashness of a youthful, confident Dylan, while occupying a fairly narrow sonic spectrum characterized by a subdued high end and more or less midrange honk. Until, that is, you get to the DCC Gold Disc, which is markedly brighter and bouncier than what came before. The same is true of the hybrid SACD’s CD layer, and of this 88k download. These two are pretty much dead ringers for each other, and I find them both too tipped-up for comfort. My bottom line here is that the old CDs are just fine, but the DCC is also a good way to go.