blastingas10

The melody in "needle and the damage done" isn't any stronger than a song like "love minus zero". Just the fact that the only song you mention are two of his most famous just goes to show that you must not know his music very well. I'll take a song like "buckets of rain" over "needle and the damage done" just based on guitar playing alone. Although the subject matter and feeling is a lot more serious than the upbeat Dylan song. Bob has melodic songs and he has songs that are less focused on melody where the lyrics are more important. He can go either way.

I love them both and I would agree that music and melody are more dominant in youngs music overall. But it depends on which Dylan albums you're listening if you want to hear more melodic songs. Most songs from the era of the ones you mentioned aren't going to be very melodic or musical but that changed with time.