"Early one morning the sun was shining," the album begins. Dylan's voice is quieter and silkier than it ever sounded, or ever would again; each line, each word, on the record is articulated and, seemingly, meant. More than 25 years after its release it provides unexpected and moving moments. A title like "You're a Big Girl Now" seems as if the track will be of a piece with his most condescending love songs; yet it turns out to be arranged, performed and sung in the gentlest of ways. Two lines in, Dylan sings, "I'm back in the rain," and a minute later, at some last emotional end, he whispers, "I can change I swear" -- an ineffable moment in his most vulnerable song.

"Idiot Wind" is about truth, love, hatred and the Grand Coulee Dam; "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" is a meticulously constructed abstract western. The last track, "Buckets of Rain," is a throwaway -- rain imagery permeates the album. It seems innocent, until you listen closely and hear the easygoing guitar line that anchors the song echo and break, the strings buzzing against the guitar neck, the guitarist's hands snapping off the frets. And then you notice the album's over.

After "Blood on the Tracks" came a long decline. The problems played out in such debilitating fashion on that album eventually cost the couple their marriage; despite a seemingly genuine plea on "Desire," in a song called "Sara," the pair divorced, nastily, in 1977. He was 36.

Dylan, born Jewish, went Christian in the late 1970s, and recorded two albums of largely devotional songs. Like many other Christians, he became a bore on the subject. "Slow Train Coming," his conversion album, has a production veneer courtesy of the famous R&B producers Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett, but the songs are often puerile. On "Saved," the follow-up, the pair couldn't stop him from sounding shrill and even more intolerant. In 1979, Dylan toured with a gospel aggregation and refused to play any old songs, to a round of catcalls from his audience. A year later he went on the road again, toning down the gospel and deigning to play some unexpected gems from his scrapbook.

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The 1980s were a difficult period: There are pretty songs, but many more goofy and unpleasant ones. Successive albums seemed slapdash and unconcerned. They had ugly covers and indifferent song selection; they lacked production values, even production consistency. "Shot of Love," in 1981, has the pretty "Every Grain of Sand." A lot of people like "Infidels," which Dylan worked on with Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits; while the songs are mature and complex, melodically they are similar sounding and the affair as a whole still has echoes of his crackpot Christian days. He seemed particularly upset at the idea of space travel. "Jokerman," which is supposed to be the album's major work, has extended nonsense passages and what appear to be gnomic biblical in jokes. It must have cracked them up down at the revival hall.

"Desire," in 1976, had the jocular credit "This record could have been produced by Don DeVito," but in the mid-1980s, Dylan took the joke to heart, overseeing production of most of the albums from this period himself with the help of various recording engineers. The results sound amateurishly bright, or have vocal tracks with a sophomoric amount of echo; there are myriad other irritants as well.

But then, it's not as if he was ruining great compositions. "Empire Burlesque" (1985) has one intense and lovely song, "Dark Eyes." "Knocked Out Loaded" has a 16-minute epic co-written with Sam Shepard, "Brownsville Girl," that's fun to hear once. (As a sort of joke, Dylan put it on "Greatest Hits, Volume 3.") Another throwaway album from this period, 1988's "Down in the Groove," sees Dylan outclassed as a lyricist by the Grateful Dead's Robert Hunter. The canniest marketing move Dylan ever made was touring with the Dead in 1987 and, on "Groove," having Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir sing on one track ("Silvio"). Deadheads with beatific smiles on their faces would populate Dylan's shows forever after on the "Never Ending Tour"; "Silvio," unfortunately, became one of his most frequently played live songs.

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