By releasing his best album in a quarter-century on the day that the whole world seemed to go to hell, Bob sent amateur Dylanologists over the edge of the batshit-crazy plateau, but these post-apocalyptic blues have their roots in a time long before the flood. The man breathes fire into long-extinct forms, turning the past into the future and reaffirming his status as the culture’s dominant creative force. When he sings “I’m going to stand undefeated, I’m going to speak to the crowd,” who could possibly doubt him?