(Relaxnews) – The 79-year-old singer-songwriter released “Rough and Rowdy Ways” on June 19, his first album with new songs since “Tempest”, released in 2012.
This critically acclaimed LP made it into second place in the Billboard 200 ranking, thanks to three million streams, the equivalent of 53,000 copies sold in the United States.
“Rough and Rowdy Ways” became Dylan’s best-rated LP since “Together Through Life”, which dated from 2009.
The arrival of this album was preceded by the release of the title “Murder Most Foul”, in which the Nobel Prize in Literature recalls the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
According to Billboard, this 17-minute song became the first Dylan single to rank number one in his own name in the history of Billboard. He took the lead in sales of Rock Digital Songs with 10,000 downloads between its March 27 and April 2 release.
Another surprise, Dylan became the first artist to reach the Top 40 with a new album in each decade from the 1960s to the 2020s.
Although the legendary musician entered the Billboard 200 ranking only at the 125th position in 1963 with “The Freewheelin ‘Bob Dylan”, he has since managed to rank eight albums in the Top 40 in the 1960s, 14 in the 1970s, seven in the 1980s, four in the 1990s, seven in the 2000s, nine in the 2010s, and one in the 2020s.
Given that the 2020 decade has just opened, Dylan could quickly be dethroned by Barbra Streisand who managed to rank at least one album in first place every decade from the 1960s to the 2010s. Her latest album, titled “Walls”, dated 2018.
Note that Bob Dylan was to perform on stage in Japan for about fifteen concerts last April, but that the tour had to be canceled because of the pandemic.
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