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Reader Survey Results

As of September 21, 2003, 238 people have responded to the Reader Survey.

Age

65 respondents are on the youngish side, between 20 and 30 years old.

And 61 respondents are actual teenagers: between 13 and 20 years of age!

54 are between 40 and 50 years old, just the right age to remember Dylan bursting upon the Greenwich Village scene and into fame.

34 respondents are between 30 and 40 years of age.

16 respondents admit to being Dylan's age—between 50 and 60 years.

1 respondent is less than 13 years old :)

4 people did not answer this question.

Concert Attendance: Quantity

A sizeable majority of respondents, that is, 143, attend 1 or less than 1 Dylan concerts per year.

But a respectable chunk—75 respondents—attend between 2 and 4 Dylan concerts per year.

9 people attend between 4 and 6 Dylan concerts per year.

4 very fortunate persons attends 6 to 8 Dylan concerts per year.

1 supremely lucky person attends more than 8 Dylan concerts per year.

9 people did not answer this question

You can draw your own conclusions, on the wall or elsewhere, from these responses, but two things should be noted:

Dylan's frequent touring enables many fans to see more than 2 concerts per year.
Dylan fans are nonetheless a devoted lot who often travel great distances to see concerts, camp out for 2 days to secure tickets, and plan their vacations around Dylan's performances.

Concert Attendance: Frequency

The majority of respondents, that is, 110, have seen Dylan perform within six months of their responding to the survey.

42 have been to a Dylan concert within a year of their response to the survey.

30 respondents have never seen a Dylan concert. Some may live in remote areas that have never been visited by the Dylan tour, at least, not yet!

29 have seen a Dylan concert within the last two years.

For 22 respondents, it has been more than two years since they have been to a Dylan concert. (Some may live in geographically remote areas where the tour does not often appear.)

6 people did not answer this question.

Although he is not reading this, I'd like to take a moment to thank Dylan for his frequent, nay, ceaseless, touring that brings enjoyment to so many. As long as Dylan is on tour, you can buy a thrill (although you may have to sleep on the pavement in front of the box office or take a day off work to get through to Ticketmaster).

Favorite Album

The idea here is to pick your most favorite at the time of your response to the survey.

No one album swept this category, but Blood On The Tracks is the winner with 50 votes.

Blonde On Blonde is the second favorite with 39 votes.

Highway 61 Revisited is third-favorite with 29 votes.

Bringing It All Back Home is fourth-favorite with 14 votes.

The Bootleg Series vol. 1-3 and Time Out Of Mind are fifth-favorite with 13 votes apiece.

Desire is sixth-favorite with 12 votes apiece.

Bob Dylan is seventh-favorite with 9 votes.

Street Legal is next with 8 votes.

The Basement Tapes is next with 7 votes.

Live 1966 and Oh Mercy are tied for eighth-favorite with 6 votes each.

Good As I Been To You and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan are next with 4 votes apiece.

John Wesley Harding, Another Side of Bob Dylan, and Biograph received 3 votes each.

Love and Theft, Planet Waves, Saved, Nashville Skyline, and The Times, They Are A-Changin' received 2 votes each.

The following albums each received 1 vote:

Infidels
New Morning
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Slow Train Coming
Bob Dylan at Budokan
MTV Unplugged
Shot of Love
Greatest Hits Volume I

1 person did not answer this question

I think it's fair to conclude that no one album from Dylan's impressive body of work is significantly more well-liked by fans than another. Among the general album-buying population, the biggest sellers are Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which have sold more than 5 million copies. Desire and Blood On The Tracks have sold more than 2 million copies apiece, and eleven other albums have sold more than 1 million copies. See the EDLIS Statistics page for more information on Dylan's gold/platinum/multi-platinum albums.

Least Favorite Album

Ah, the least favorite album—a subject more often discussed than the favorite album. Perhaps there are less "bad" albums than "good" albums to debate, thus narrowing the candidates for this category.

With 30 votes, Self-Portrait is the winner, or the loser, rather.

Dylan and the Dead, with 26 votes, is the second-least favorite album.

Saved is the third least-favorite with 24 votes.

Dylan is fourth-least favorite with 17 votes.

Bob Dylan is fifth-least favorite with 18 votes.

Knocked Out Loaded is sixth-least-favorite with 11 votes.

Under the Red Sky is seventh-least-favorite with 9 votes.

Bob Dylan at Budokan is eighth-least-favorite with 8 votes.

Down In The Groove and Nashville Skyline tied for ninth-least favorite with 7 votes each.

Greatest Hits and MTV Unplugged are next with 6 votes each.

Empire Burlesque, New Morning, Infidels, and The Basement Tapes are next with 5 votes each.

Shot of Love, Slow Train Coming and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid are next with 4 votes apiece.

John Wesley Harding, Hard Rain, Nashville Skyline, Another Side of Bob Dylan,, Planet Waves, Desire, and Before The Flood are tied for the dubious honor of the tenth-least favorite Dylan album, with 3 votes each.

The following albums received 2 votes each:

Time Out Of Mind (!)
Oh Mercy
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Saved
The Times, They Are A-Changin'

From hereon, it's a free-for-all, with the following albums receiving 1 vote apiece:

Blood On The Tracks (!)
Love and Theft (!)
World Gone Wrong
Good As I Been To You
Street Legal

1 person did not answer this question.

I don't think that one album is going to sweep the least favorite category any more than one album will sweep the favorite category. You know what they say, "Horses for courses", "To each his own", "One man's feast is another man's famine", and so forth.

Much thanks is due to all who responded. If you'd like to take the survey, follow this link to the Reader Survey, and your opinions will be incorporated into this page.

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