If you were to believe all the critics, you’d at this point have to view Bob Dylan as some sort of human roller coaster.

Perhaps because their emotional investment in his work has grown so large, few writers ever creedit him with making a merely good or not-so-good album. Instead, most reviewers seem to alternate between hailing what they see as masterpiees and proclaiming that Dylan has finally dried up and become worthless.

Reaction to the new Street-Legal has exemplified these tendencies, and then some. While the extremists usually line up on one side of the fence or the other, this album appears to have split them straight down the middle.

On the one hand, Rolling Stone‘s Dave Marsh recently suggested that the LP is so bad that it’s funny. His colleague Greil Marcus subsequently went even further, saying, “If I want a joke, I’ll listen to Steve Martin sing ‘King Tut’.” According to Marcus, the record is “utterly fake,” “intolerably smug,” and filled with “dead air or close to it.”

Others disagree strongly. Responding in print to his aforementioned writers, for example, Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner opined that Street-Legal offers Dylan’s “most comprehensive comment about our current state since Blonde on Blonde.” To his ear, the new album contains “mostly very strong songs” and represents “a very ambitious move” on Dylan’s part. The bulk of the British music press has been just as enthusiastic as Wenner.

Even the performer himself, who rarely comments on his own albums, has made sweeping statements about Street-Legal. His new songs, he told Playboy earlier this year, are “unlike anything I’ve ever done. You couldn’t even say that Blood on the Tracks or Desire have led up to this stuff. I mean, it’s that far gone, it’s that far out there.”

So, is Street-Legal a mere joke or, worse, not even funny? Or is it the gem that some proclaim it to be? And does it evidence the revolutionary new direction that the Playboy quote suggests?

At the risk of adding to the critical confusion, this writer thinks the correct answer is “none of the above.” While it has its faults, Street-Legal is an eminently listenable and important album. It is not on par with classics like Blood on the Tracks, nor is it as “far out there” as Dylan claims. But neither, by any means, is it devoid of good material or ambitious, frequently successful experiments.

Anyone who compares it with such disappointments as Self-Portrait hasn’t been paying attention. And anyone who calls that album—much less this one—evidence that Dylan is washed up doesn’t appreciate the depth and resiliency of his talent.

That said, let’s look at what Street-Legal offers. For starters, it is, as Dylan said, “unlike anything” he’d ever done—but only in the sense that this may be the first of his records to sound a bit reminiscent of nearly everything he’s ever done.

You can hear echoes of “Like a Rolling Stone” in the vocal nuances and swirling organ on “Where Are You Tonight?” while the stunning “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” evokes both the ambiance of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and the displacement and terror of songs like “Desolation Row.”

By incorporating elements of old styles into a new one, the tracks on the current LP establish their own turf. Some of the music may sound strangely familiar, but these are new statements, not footnotes to old ones.

Unfortunately, some of those new statements can be even more difficult to decipher than were Dylan’s cryptic mid-1960s LPs. Only partly because several of its lines got lost in the mix, you’re likely to have trouble defining the subject of “Changing of the Guard.” And you might be almost as much in the dark about “No Time to Think.”

Even when Dylan writes less furtively and/or can be heard more clearly, ambiguity often remains. “Is Your Love in Vain?,” for instance, undoubtedly concerns the dangers and fears that accompany a love relationship. But when Dylan asks, “Can you cook and sew, make flowers grow?,” it’s hard to tell whether he’s being sexist and egotistical or is simply making a sardonic comment about the inflated expectations that new love can trigger.

For several reasons, at any rate, Street-Legal‘s abstruseness doesn’t matter much. Like the songs on Blonde on Blonde, some of the material here seems to render literal lyrical interpretations irrelevant. Dylan chooses words for sonic effect and for the abstract imagery they evoke. And even when you don’t know what one of the new songs means, you’ll likely know how it makes you feel.

The recording’s lack of technical finesse is at times more problematic than the lyrics. In the past, Dylan has often wisely traded some degree of studio polish for an air of spontaneity. But his penchant for recording quickly and informally has become counterproductive, especially in light of what the competition has done with this decade’s burgeoning studio technology.

God might have created the heavens and earth in six days, but no mere human, not even Dylan, can effectively arrange and record a 12-piece band in that space and time. That’s what he tried to do here and, to judge by the result, even less time was devoted to mixing, engineering, and production.

The bottom line, however, is that this is a record fans are likely to return to again and again. Dylan’s phrasing is mostly terrific. His lyrics are never less than fascinating. And though the aforementioned problems sometimes obscure their value, he makes good use throughout of a sax player, a soulful vocal trio, and other backup players.

While far from being a perfect album, therefore, Street-Legal is even further from what could be called a failure. On the contrary, it contains plenty of Dylan’s magic. So, by all means, buy the LP and listen carefully. To paraphrase the singer’s “Dear Landlord,” if you don’t underestimate Bob Dylan, he won’t underestimate you.

A remixed, remastered version of the album is available here.