Beautiful, Beautiful Music: Beth Orton's Favourite Albums | Page 9 of 14 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

8. Bob DylanBlood On The Tracks

It’s just so obvious – maybe I should’ve picked records that are more interesting to other people! I picked this because, again, I cannot fault a single song on that record. One song after another is just a perfect, classic song and I could listen to it till the cows come home. Every drop of it is just perfection, as far as my ears are concerned.

This is actually quite a late record for me – I found this after I had been making music, after my first record someone introduced it to me; it might have been David Roback from Mazzy Star, it would be right that he would play this. It’s a record that when I heard that I thought "okay, I get it". I understood how amazing Bob Dylan is, obviously – how can you not? – but this is the record where it really sank in, in terms of understanding him. I also love Desire, with ‘Mozambique’ on it, but then there’s Blonde On Blonde… I don’t know, it just grows and grows! What can you do, he’s a fucking genius!

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