Self Portrait
Self Portrait is a 1970 double album by Bob Dylan. It consists mostly of covers, with a handful of instrumentals, original compositions (some of which appear in two different takes), and live tracks culled from a set he gave with the Band at the Isle of Wight festival earlier that year. The album was given very poor reviews when released, the most memorable coming from Greil Marcus writing in Rolling Stone, famously opening the review with, "What is this shit?" Dylan has gone on record saying he intentionally made Self Portrait far below the standards he set in the 1960s to get people off of his back, and end the "spokesman of a generation" tags; but has also given other, contradictory accounts of his motives.
Ironically, the outrage from the rock community mirrored the folk community's outrage when Dylan switched to electric in the mid-1960s. Although history has been kinder to Self Portrait, many Dylanphiles will still find it a difficult listen.