Time Out of Mind

This was Dylan's second collaboration with Lanois after Oh Mercy (1989). Dylan pointed Lanois to Charley Patton and Little Walter. Jim Dickinson described a room of twelve musicians, with several drummers and two pedal steel players. Engineer Mark Howard said that at Teatro, the studio in Oxnard, California, he ran Dylan's harmonica through a distortion pedal and a small amp. Dylan liked the sound so much that the vocal went through the same chain. When sessions moved to Criteria in Miami, Howard told Dylan the room did not sound good, so he built a small room inside the larger one. Dylan refused headphones.

The album reached ten in both the US and UK, and went platinum in the US. It won three Grammys in 1998: Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk Album, and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for Cold Irons Bound. Elvis Costello said, "I think it might be the best record he's made." Pitchfork's Grayson Haver Currin wrote that it turned Dylan from a seemingly obsolete icon into a wise visionary almost overnight.