2025 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the Grateful Dead, an American musical institution still thriving all these years later. Dead and Company, featuring original members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, just finished an extended run at The Sphere in Las Vegas. Bill Kreutzmann, the only other surviving original member, still gigs occasionally in Hawaii (where’s he’s retired) with Billy and the Kids. Boulder has always been Deadhead Central; we may not have the most fans by volume, but we’ve been number one in Deadheads per capita for a long time.

The Dead are marking the feat with Enjoying The Ride, a sixty-CD collection that includes twenty-five shows from some of their favorite venues (including Red Rocks, pictured above). There is also a smaller box set of excerpts, The Music Never Stopped, out in 6LP and 3CD formats. And Dead and Company is playing three sold-out Golden Gate Park concerts in August for (natch) 60,000 fans per night. 

So what is it about the Dead that makes them arguably the most successful American musical act of the last sixty years? Few artists have spawned more cover acts or been honored more. Last December the band was recognized at The Kennedy Center Honors, followed in January by a MusiCares tribute over Grammy weekend. Jam bands and non-jam bands cover their material and there have been numerous tribute albums. The stereotypical view of their music may be acid-fueled exploratory jams just as the stereotypical view of their fans may be long hair, but neither fully reflects what’s made the group the leading icons of the sixties counterculture.

When examined en masse, it’s easy to see an obvious thread running through their studio oeuvre: a consistent struggle to translate the group’s concert magic into a representative sound within the confines of a production setting. The Dead’s most unique skill was their ability to form a hive mind through improvisational jamming wherein the different components weaved in and out of each other to create an unique hybrid of jazz and rock. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Grateful Dead studio releases more often than not failed to achieve the liftoff accomplished when the members were clicking onstage.

To help newbies navigate a large and intimidating discography, here are their studio albums ranked from worst to first.

Built to Last (1989)

In the wake of Jerry Garcia’s near-death in 1986, the Dead experienced a huge boost in popularity, fueled by the huge commercial success of “Touch of Grey.” Suddenly the band filled stadiums with newbies cynically called “Touchheads” by Deadheads. So how did they follow up this long-awaited commercial success? Curiously, by making a record in which they greatly minimized intraband interaction. Built to Last was created largely by having the members exchange parts, each adding their contributions one at a time; maybe they thought this was cutting edge? They also opted to let keyboardist Brent Mydland–who would be dead from a drug overdose within a year–contribute four songs. And while two of those compositions, ”Just a Little Light” and “Blow Away,” are his strongest, the album still bombed. Like their performance at Woodstock, which included an abbreviated “St. Stephen” and a forty-minute “Turn On Your Lovelight,” Built to Last is notable primarily as an example of the group failing to take advantage of a huge opportunity to make an impression.

Go To Heaven (1980)

Go To Heaven features many tracks that became an essential part of the Dead’s eighties musical repertoire. Its horrific cover was inspired (I believe) by a lethal combination of disco, cocaine (the drug of choice at the time) and a failed attempt to be punny. Along with two soft-rock efforts by then-new keyboardist Mydland, the production wrings the life out of every song. “Don’t Ease Me In” dispenses with jamming in the hope of achieving radio play while “Lost Sailor,” a song highly reminiscent of  earlier Bob Weir composition “Looks Like Rain,” features a protagonist too easily imagined as one of the group’s more drug-addled fans. But the absolute low point is “Feel Like a Stranger,” an R&B song that sounds like the Average White Band on quaaludes with an abrupt ending that doesn’t come nearly soon enough. How something so good live could be rendered so insipid in the studio is no small achievement. 

Shakedown Street (1978)

Featuring a classic cover by underground comic artist Gilbert Shelton of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers fame, the last Dead album of the seventies was produced by Little Feat founder Lowell George. To aid in the continued search for commercial success, George watered down much of the material and substituted polish for heart. Opener “Good Lovin’” abandons the lengthy blues presentation from when Pigpen sang it for a radio-friendly gait closer to The Young Rascals hit (which was itself copied from The Olympics’ arrangement of the original single by Lemme B. Good). “Fire on the Mountain,” which usually lasted ten-plus minutes live, is squeezed into four minutes. The title track might’ve become an anthem in concert, but here it’s sped up in an attempt to capitalize on the disco fad. The remake of “Minglewood Blues” pales next to the high energy of the cover from the group’s debut, and album closer “If I Had the World to Give” is one of Garcia/Hunter’s weaker ballads and was only performed live three times. As is the case with so many Dead studio albums, Shakedown Street casts strong material in a weak light.

Aoxomoxoa (1969)

Perhaps no band is more associated with recreational drug use than the Grateful Dead. They got their start as the house band at Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, and their debut is noticeably influenced by the consumption of speed. Unfortunately, nitrous oxide was the drug of choice for Aoxomoxoa, their third studio effort. The result is a confusing mess that weakens the power of the classic “St. Stephen” and mires “China Cat Sunflower” in a flower-power jumble. “Dupree’s Diamond Blues” marries highly misogynistic lyrics to a calliope effect that sounds like something from a carnival sideshow. But the true nadir has to be the unlistenable “What’s Become of the Baby.” Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh soon realized the error of their ways, and in 1971 returned to the studio to remix the record and remove a number of its effects.

Terrapin Station (1977)

In 1976 famed record honcho Clive Davis signed the Dead to his new label, Arista Records, with the hope of helping them finally achieve mainstream success. To accomplish this goal he paired them with producer Keith Olsen, who had worked with Fleetwood Mac to create the eponymous record that would transform that band’s career. The result is a curious hodgepodge. While it contains some excellent material, most notably the title track and Bob Weir’s “Estimated Prophet,” it is horribly overproduced and applies a studio sheen that runs counter to the group’s spirit. The title track covers all of side two and is an enchanting, multi-part journey with some of lyricist Robert Hunter’s most evocative storytelling, orchestral and choral flourishes and a fiery, percussion-driven jam near its end. At the other extreme, the cover of Motown classic “Dancing in the Street” is simply embarrassing.

Anthem of the Sun (1968)

The Dead’s second album incorporated live recordings and is as psychedelic as they got in the studio. Producer David Hassinger famously exited after being asked to add “thick air” to the sound. After the dizzying speed of the debut, the band leaned into their stage persona and embraced long improvisational sections and Pigpen-led blues rave ups. The record is notable for being the first to entirely feature compositions written by band members. The opener, “That’s It For The Other One,” became one of their most oft-played live numbers in the ensuing decades, although other songs on the record made few if any onstage appearances after 1969. Anthem of the Sun introduced their psychedelic ethos to listeners unfamiliar with the live act and deployed studio effects that made it far ahead of its time. Sections feature multiple live samples interspersed and overlaid in a manner that brings the music in and out of focus much like the acid trips it was performed to.

Wake of the Flood (1973)

The Dead’s sixth studio release was the first on their own record label. In true hippie spirit, the band considered selling it via ice cream trucks as a new, unique distribution method. The songs on Wake of the Flood are uniformly excellent, foundations for long, extended jams that quickly became the highlights of any show in which they were performed. The problem with the studio versions is that the songs are shortened with emotionless vocals and questionable instrumentation. “Eyes of the World” is a shell of the jamming vehicle it evolved into live; “Stella Blue” contains some of  Robert Hunter’s most evocative lyrics but includes none of the pathos so endemic to Jerry Garcia’s vocals on his quieter ballads. “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” adds violin but similarly misses the potential it reached onstage. And Keith Godchaux’s only contribution to a Dead record, “Let Me Sing Your Blues Away,” is a novelty at best. 

Grateful Dead (1967)

The Dead’s debut is a curious concoction. Recorded in only four days in Los Angeles under the noticeable influence of amphetamines, seven of its nine tracks are covers. The lone group composition, “The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion)” is credited to McGannahan Skyjellyfetti, while “Cream Puff War” is Jerry Garcia’s sole attempt at writing lyrics (his partnership with lyricist Robert Hunter began with the group’s sophomore release). Yet the record still has its unique charms. Thanks to all that speed it is furiously upbeat, and even a slow ballad like “Morning Dew” gets played at a faster pace than its live renditions. The album culminates with a ten-minute jam on Noah Lewis’s “Viola Lee Blues,” first performed in 1928 by Cannon’s Jug Stompers, that spirals into the first extended improvisation the Dead committed to vinyl, with Garcia soloing at breakneck speed. Released in March of ‘67, Grateful Dead was the soundtrack to the Summer of Love.

In the Dark (1987)

In the Dark, released in the wake of Jerry Garcia’s near-death from a diabetic coma in 1986, contained mostly material the group had been playing for years before his illness. But the renewed interest in the group and their biggest/only Top Ten hit, “Touch of Grey,” spurred a popularity that has only increased in the thirty years since Garcia died from a heart attack at fifty-three in 1995. In addition to its lone hit, the record includes two of Bob Weir’s better compositions: “Hell in a Bucket,”  a straightforward rocker that opened many shows thereafter, and “Throwing Stones,” as close to a political song as the Dead got outside their cover of Bonnie Dobson’s “Morning Dew,” about the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

Ace (1972)

Ace is billed as a Bob Weir solo record, but his backing band on every track is the Dead, so it merits inclusion on this list (Jerry Garcia’s solo Reflections also features the Dead as backing band on a handful of tracks). Ace is 100% a Grateful Dead record, albeit with strictly Weir compositions. In fact, Ace features the track that sees the group come closest to capturing their live spirit in a studio setting, the nearly eight-minute “Playing in the Band” (the live version on Grateful Dead aka Skull and Roses has no jam at all). The album isn’t perfect thanks to the cheesy mariachi horns of “Mexicali Blues,” but still features some of the best collaborations between Weir and lyricist John Perry Barlow, most notably “Black-Throated Wind” and “Cassidy.” “One More Saturday Night,” the penultimate track, is one of Weir’s few attempts at writing his own lyrics.

Blues for Allah (1975)

Burned out by constant touring, in late 1974 the Dead embarked on a nearly two-year performing hiatus; in 1975 they played only three shows, all in their San Francisco backyard. They returned here with renewed energy. Side one is as good as anything they did in the studio. The trio of “Help on the Way,” “Slipknot” and “Franklin’s Tower” kick things off with a burst of energy, with complex, jazzy jamming and the infectious bounce of the last song in the triad. “The Music Never Stopped” and “Crazy Fingers” similarly match Hunter’s lyrical prowess to strong melodies; the latter is the closest the Dead ever got to reggae. Side two peters out somewhat in a series of more spacey explorations, but not enough to lessen its overall appeal. 

From the Mars Hotel (1974)

The group’s seventh studio release is the only one that comes close to reaching the heights of the one-two punch of 1970’s Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Apart from Bob Weir’s tepid “Money Money,” the album finds the group firing on all cylinders with notable contributions from the songwriting duos of Garcia/Hunter and Lesh/Petersen. The former’s “Scarlet Begonias” became one of the Dead’s most-beloved songs with its romantic lyrics and spirited, open-ended jamming, while the latter’s “Unbroken Chain,” never performed live until shortly before Garcia’s death, marries a hypnotic melody to a complex middle section that hinted at Blues For Allah‘s melodic fusion. Add classics “Ship of Fools,” “U.S. Blues,” “China Doll” and “Loose Lucy”–all songs that elicited strong fan responses in concert–and the result is one of the few studio Dead records that even a non-Deadhead will appreciate. 

Workingman’s Dead (1970)

As the seventies dawned, the folk-rock of Southern California was taking the world by storm. First hatched by The Byrds, The Mamas and The Papas and Buffalo Springfield a few years prior, the genre took a big step forward with the debut release by Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1969. That album’s three-part harmonies greatly influenced the Dead, who did a 180 from the extreme psychedelia of 1969’s Live/Dead, their first live album, and instead opted for shorter, harmony-drenched compositions. Workingman’s Dead surprised fans but also captured a lot of new ones with its anthemic “Uncle John’s Band,” lilting “High Time” and country-tinged “Dire Wolf.” “New Speedway Boogie” speaks to the carnage at Altamont, “Easy Wind,” the only song the Dead did with both music and lyrics by Robert Hunter, features a funky Pigpen lead vocal, and “Casey Jones” closes the album in memorable fashion. The Garcia/Hunter partnership took a giant leap forward here.

American Beauty (1970)

Workingman’s Dead may have been the album where the Dead took a sharp turn towards folk-rock and CSN-style harmonies, but American Beauty–released less than six months later–is where they reached their studio and songwriting apex. Three of their most widely-known songs–“Sugar Magnolia,” “Ripple” and “Truckin’”–are included. Garcia and Hunter also penned two of their most beautiful, resonant tracks, “Brokedown Palace” and “Attics of My Life,” while Hunter wrote the words for Phil Lesh’s album-opener “Box of Rain”  to help the bassist deal with the impending death of his father. Add in the David Grisman-aided “Friend of the Devil” and loping “Candyman” and you have a perfect record without a wasted second. If I was going to try to turn someone on to the Grateful Dead, this is where I’d start.

It was only a matter of time before Bob Dylan received the conventional Hollywood biopic treatment. The recently released A Complete Unknown is a thrilling romp through the first few years of his career culminating with his controversial 1965 Newport Folk Festival appearance, where he outraged folk purists by plugging in and rocking out. Telling Dylan’s true story has never been easy; the man himself plays around with how others perceive him every chance he gets. 

A Complete Unknown was directed by James Mangold, most famously known for his lauded Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. And while it unsurprisingly takes more than a few artistic and historical liberties in the service of accessibility and narrative, it largely hews to the reality of Dylan’s first few years of notoriety. This is in direct contrast to Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, the 2019 film about Dylan’s traveling caravan which “documented” the famous 1975-76 tour that included a Fort Collins stop by adding fictional elements, most specifically conversations with hangers-on who in actuality weren’t there.

Like The Beatles, that other leading musical force of the sixties, Dylan has been over analyzed ad nauseum. But unlike the Fab Four, who stopped putting out albums together in 1970, Dylan’s steady stream of new material and decades-long Never Ending Tour has kept him top of mind for sixty five years. His ubiquity makes him a relevant part of the musical knowledge of any one over a certain age, but hopefully A Complete Unknown exposes him to a younger audience. Much in today’s culture is influenced by him and he can legitimately lay claim to being the most important American musical artist of most living people’s lifetime. He is also the only songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Not counting live and archival releases–of which there are many–Bob Dylan has released forty (!) albums since his 1962 debut. With rare exceptions all have been original material. To help newbies navigate this intimidating discography, here are his five best albums. Picking just five is no small feat; while he has not always maintained his high standard, much more than half his output is highly rewarding and many critics count his misfires in the single digits. In chronological order: 

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

Dylan’s first four records were almost entirely acoustic affairs, and his eponymous 1962 debut features only two original compositions. Its follow-up, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, features twelve originals with only a single cover, and first demonstrates the skill that made him the greatest lyricist of the twentieth century. Some of his most well known, oft-covered songs are here, among them “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” The album also features the classic cover shot of Dylan and then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo depicted in A Complete Unknown.

Blonde on Blonde (1966)

The first double-album Dylan released was his third with electric guitars. After a failed attempt with The Hawks (later known as The Band) as backup, Dylan instead leaned on Nashville studio wizards to create the most sophisticated-sounding music he’d made up to that point. Al Kooper’s organ is a big part of the sound, an ironic touch considering Kooper only moved to the instrument after the much better Mike Bloomfield (who had accompanied Dylan at that famous Newport performance) showed up to play guitar at the session. Blonde on Blonde contains two of Dylan’s earliest cracks at long ballads, “Visions of Johanna” and “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” It kicks off with the raucous “Rainy Day Women #12 and #45” (with its chorus “Everybody must get stoned”) and also features the tender “Just Like a Woman” and uptempo “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.” With no weak spots among its fourteen tracks, many would argue this is Dylan’s finest hour.

Nashville Skyline (1969)

The Byrds and Gram Parsons may have trailblazed the country rock sound later popularized by The Eagles, but Dylan broke barriers less than a year after Sweetheart of the Rodeo by exposing his rock and folk followers to country. Starting with a duet with country legend Johnny Cash on his classic “Girl from the North Country,” which first appeared on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline is another effort recorded in Nashville using Nashville cats and features Dylan affecting a baritone previously not in his vocal arsenal (which he achieved in part by ending a cigarette habit). “Lay Lady Lay” was Dylan’s biggest hit since “Like a Rolling Stone.” Other classics including “I Threw It All Away” and “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” are part of the album’s too-brief twenty-nine minute running time.

Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Dylan’s “breakup” album, made in the wake of the dissolution to his marriage to Sarah Lowdnes (the subject of “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”), is arguably the best album ever about heartbreak. Blood on the Tracks cycles through the different stages of grief over love lost, from longing and sentimentality (“Tangled Up in Blue”) through anger and pain (“Idiot Wind,” “You’re a Big Girl Now”) to acceptance and  gratefulness (“Buckets of Rain,” “Shelter From the Storm”). Anyone who’s had their heart broken will recognize the emotions Dylan captures with such depth here, although it’s hard to imagine them being put into words more powerfully.

Time Out of Mind (1997)

Dylan’s stature naturally waned as grunge exploded and hip-hop ascended in the mid-nineties. This “comeback” album refocused attention on him and marked the beginning of an impressive second arc of his career that has flowered through 2021’s Rough and Rowdy Ways. Working with French Canadian Daniel Lanois, who’s produced popular records–sometimes in partnership with Brian Eno–by U2, Emmylou Harris, Peter Gabriel and many others, Dylan rediscovered his mojo in a haunting, swampy sound set to his best set of lyrics in years. Leading off with the desolation, weariness and menacing rhythm of “Love Sick,” the self-reflective shuffle of “Dirt Road Blues” and the heartache and resignation of “Standing in the Doorway,” Time Out of Mind was Dylan’s biggest success in decades.

The Next Five: Bringing it all Back Home (1965); Highway 61 Revisited (1965); The Basement Tapes (1975); Desire (1976); Love and Theft (2001)

2024’s comprehensive Rock ’N’ Roll Star! 5CD box set features a deep dive into David Bowie’s legendary The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars and is a great reason to celebrate a highly influential artist. Nearly eight years after his death, Bowie is still as important as ever and it’s easy to spot devotees across the full spectrum of music.

David Bowie may have borrowed from others (who hasn’t?) to create his unique synthesis of glam, rock and pop, but ultimately his chameleon-like style was wholly his own. The London native, born David Jones but forced to change his name because original Monkees member Davey Jones beat him to fame with that moniker, combined the androgynous spirit of Lou Reed, the pre-punk energy of Iggy Pop and the showmanship of Alice Cooper to forge his own musical fashion. The conventional wisdom is that Bowie made his best music in the seventies, but he reached peak popularity in the eighties and made great records right up until Blackstar, a powerful examination of mortality released the same month he died.

Bowie’s ability to shape-shift has inspired countless acts that followed, so picking five best records is no easy feat. Fans will have their own passion for which record touched them the most. While you can’t really go wrong anywhere in his catalog, here are the five Bowie albums that resonate the most with me, in chronological order (not including live albums, an entire sub-genre of the Bowie discography):

Hunky Dory (released December 1971)

Bowie’s first big hit in the UK, “Space Oddity,” came in 1969; it failed to land in the U.S. that year and only became a hit here upon its re-release in 1973. Bowie struggled to replicate his UK notoriety elsewhere before Hunky Dory was released at the end of 1971. His most focused effort to date, every song displays the pop sensibility that would find him a global audience. Hunky Dory’s leadoff track, “Changes,” quickly became an FM radio staple in the states, but the ensuing decades have burnished the popularity (and stream counts) of many other tracks. The anthemic “Life on Mars?” piano ballad is now one of his most favored and oft-covered songs, while the Velvet Underground-inspired “Queen Bitch,” the theatrical “Oh! You Pretty Things” and the breezy pop of “Kooks” each get better with age. Hunky Dory is a great place to start because it’s also the first time Bowie started to achieve stardom on both sides of the pond. 

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (released June 1972)

Bowie wasn’t nearly the first musician to pen a rock opera, but when he did he leveraged his androgynous, other worldly appearance for maximum effect. Aided by guitarist Mick Ronson, the album navigates a path through apocalypse-themed balladry (“Five Years,” “Rock and Roll Suicide”), pop (“Starman,” ”Star”) and rock (“Hang On to Yourself,” “Moonage Daydream”) while telling the story of a band that flames out as quickly as it flares up. Arguably Bowie’s finest work, this is a breathless romp that never gets old and flies by without a single weak moment. Artists have been paying tribute ever since to its Sgt. Pepper-like adoption of a new persona.

Station to Station (released January 1976)

Bowie first hit the top of the charts in the U.S. with “Fame” from Young Americans, his 1975 “plastic soul” album recorded largely in Philadelphia in late 1974. But it was that LP’s follow-up, the cocaine-drenched Station to Station, that revealed surprising new depths and variety. The ten-minute-long title track leads off  with a train whistle blow that dissolves into a funky, mechanical march before ultimately resolving into an frenzied, extended guitar-driven coda. Elsewhere, “Golden Years” and “Stay” build on the R&B of Young Americans but add more heart and energy without the plastic, while “TVC 15” prophesizes interactive media alongside an infectious, anthemic chorus. The album closes with a breathtaking cover of “Wild is the Wind,” the ballad first popularized by Johnny Mathis and Nina Simone in the fifties (Fun fact: Bowie was a huge fan of Simone and the two became close friends).

Low (released January 1977)

Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, helmed by producer Tony Visconti and featuring the cutting edge synthesizer effects and production style of Brian Eno, starts here. The first side is bookended by short, instrumental tracks that surround five songs of catchy synth-pop weirdness, while the second presents four tracks of atmospheric music. Bowie was hardly the first musician to travel down this path, but he was by far the most popular musician to expose his audience to the ambient genre and it was a radical departure from expectations. Low is forward-thinking enough to make it the most influential of his many records. The title track of its successor, Heroes, might be the most popular song to emerge from the Berlin Trilogy, but Low is where Bowie took his musical expansion to a new level and inspired punks, new wavers and ambient soundscapers to step out of their comfort zones.

Blackstar (released January 2016)

Bowie’s death from liver cancer powerfully coincided almost to the exact day with the release of his final album. Blackstar is a haunting, jazz-tinged effort that radiates the self-examination terminal illness forces (the title track, “Lazarus”), rues the passing of time (“Girl Love Me”) and concludes mournfully with “I Can’t Give Everything Away.” By making some of his best and most meaningful music while struggling through his final days, Bowie proved his art was timeless, evocative and capable of simultaneously inspiring sadness, hope and gratitude for a life well-lived.