This year, Every Sunday Evening, Album Rock WXYG, The GOAT will be featuring a full album at 8:00 PM from the halcyon musical days of 1976. 1976 was one of the top Years in Album Rock history. Another year of tough choices every week. So many great ones to choose from. After 52 Weeks of featuring so many of the great albums that debuted in 1975, next Sunday we will be moving on to another amazing year of ALBUM ROCK EXCELLENCE, 1976.
We hope you’ll tune in at 8:00 PM, Next Sunday, April 19, 2026, for “Desire” the seventeenth studio album by Bob Dylan, released on January 5, 1976, through Columbia Records.
It is one of Dylan's most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year (later documented on The Bootleg Series Vol. 5). Many of the songs also featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley. Most of the album was co-written by Jacques Levy, and is composed of lengthy story-songs, two of which quickly generated controversy: the 11-minute-long "Joey", which is seen as glorifying the violent gangster "Crazy Joey" Gallo, and "Hurricane", the opening track that tells a passionate account of the murder case against boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, whom the song asserts was framed. Carter was released in 1985, after a judge overturned his conviction on appeal.
A well-received follow-up to Blood on the Tracks, Desire reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart for five weeks, becoming one of Dylan's best-selling studio albums, and was certified double Platinum; the album reached No. 3 in the UK. It claimed the No. 1 slot on NME Album of the Year. Rolling Stone named Desire No. 174 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was voted number 761 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).
“Desire” finds Dylan returning to topical songwriting and folk tales for the core of the record. Musically, it captures Dylan at the beginning of the Rolling Thunder Revue era, which was notable for its delicious chaos. And so, it's only fitting that Desire fits that description so well, as it careens between surging folk-rock, Mideastern dirges, and epic narratives. It's little surprise that Desire retains its own character -- really, there's no other place where Dylan tried as many different styles, as many weird detours, as he does here. And there's something to be said for its rambling, sprawling character, which has a charm of its own. There are some real masterpieces here. "Hurricane" is the best-known, but the effervescent "Mozambique" is Dylan at his breeziest, "Sara" at his most nakedly emotional, and "Isis" is one of his very best songs of the '70s, a hypnotic, contemporized spin on a classic fable. This adds up to a masterpiece, and results in one of his most fascinating records of the '70s and '80s -- more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.
No other Dylan LP sounds like “Desire” – thanks to the contributions of Scarlet Rivera. It’s the mysterious, Eurasian gypsy vibe of her violin that conjures up past lives...that makes it feel like we’re wrapped inside every story-song on this album. It's also interesting to note that aside from Bob’s writing collaboration with members of The Band during the Big Pink/Basement Tapes sessions, “Desire” marks his first real foray into co-writing. Dylan composed seven of the LP’s nine songs in partnership with songwriter/theater director Jacques Levy. This is one great Bob Dylan album. It will take you away to another time and place.
Tune In and Turn On Sunday evening, April 19th, and every Sunday evening at 8:00 PM for The GOAT'S "The Long Play with Al Neff”.
