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If you're going to get one Bob Dylan album, which one should it be?

The short answer is Highway 61 Revisited. That's probably the most fun, in-your-face, crowd-pleasing album he has.

But depending on your circumstances, you might want some other album. For instance, if you're a real music buff/accoustic guitar buff, you should get Blood on the Tracks. Lots of cool stuff in open D there.

If you're a typical Hippie college student, you should get Desire, mainly because it has "Hurricane" on it.

On a similar note, if you're a fan of Guns N' Roses or Jimi Hendrix, you should get The Ballad of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid or John Westly Harding respectively, just so you can hear the original versions of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" or "All Along the Watchtower."

If you're a folkie, get Bob Dylan's eponymous debut for rootsy stuff (you could also get that on Good as I Been to You, if you like his more lizard-like 90's voice) or The Times They are a Changin' for more socially conscious protesty stuff. The Freewheelin' gets you a pretty good mixture of the two, and is something of a cultural touchstone.

For a pretty good sampling of the different styles he works in (and some of his best songs, too) get Bringing it all Back Home, the album he made while transitioning between solo folk music and blues garage band stuff.

If you're an uptight conservative Christian-type who doesn't like the idea of buying an album from the Jewish-atheist unelected spokesman of the tide of indecent secular liberalism that nearly destroyed this country until Regan put it in it's place, good news: in the late 70's, Dylan was famously born-again and came out with a series of gospel albums like Oh, Mercy!; they're worth a listen; I'd recomend Slow Train Coming.

If you're actually Bob Dylan himself, or for some reason you like to think you are, get Blonde on Blonde; that's his favorite.