Self Portrait (Bob Dylan album)

Self Portrait
Studio album by
ReleasedJune 8, 1970 (1970-06-08)
RecordedApril 24, 1969 – March 30, 1970
Genre
Length73:15
LabelColumbia
ProducerBob Johnston
Bob Dylan chronology
Nashville Skyline
(1969)
Self Portrait
(1970)
New Morning
(1970)
Singles from Self Portrait
  1. "Wigwam"
    Released: March 1970

Self Portrait is the tenth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on June 8, 1970, by Columbia Records.

Self Portrait was Dylan's second double album (after Blonde on Blonde), and features many cover versions of well-known pop and folk songs. Also included are a handful of instrumentals and original compositions. Most of the album is sung in the affected country crooning voice that Dylan had introduced a year earlier on Nashville Skyline. Seen by some as intentionally surreal and even satirical at times, Self Portrait received extremely poor reviews.

Dylan has stated in interviews that Self Portrait was something of a joke, far below the standards he set in the 1960s, and was made to end the "spokesman of a generation" label that critics had put on him.

Despite the negative critical reception, the album quickly went gold in the US, where it hit No. 4, and was also a UK No. 1 hit. The album saw a retrospective positive re-evaluation with the release of The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971) in 2013.[1]

  1. ^ Ray Foulk, 2015 Stealing Dylan from Woodstock, Medina Publishing, London, ISBN 9781909339507.