Bob Dylan's 'Never Ending Tour' has racked up close to 3,000 dates

In the 2000s, Dylan began hosting a weekly radio show

Bob Dylan remained unpredictable, even 40 years into his career. Look no further than his satellite radio show from the 2000s, which found the legendary singer-songwriter riffing on a different theme every week. In this episode that theme is “Nothing.” He talks about Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” quotes several lines from Shakespeare, and speaks at length about his love for the musical “Porgy and Bess.” It’s a wild, unpredictable ride, just like the rest of his career.

Dylan's raucous 1976 tour was one piece of an ongoing reinvention

In the mid-70s, Dylan assembled a ragtag group of musicians and poets—including Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Allen Ginsberg—he called the Rolling Thunder Revue. Rather than playing stadiums in major markets, they played smaller venues in smaller cities for a more intimate experience. The tour yielded some of the most exuberant versions of Dylan songs, captured in this 1976 performance in Fort Collins, which originally aired on NBC as “Hard Rain.”

Bob Dylan, explained

Bob Dylan has never had a Billboard No. 1 hit—but his influence on music is unmatched. This overview looks at his early protest songs, his shift to electric rock, and the cultural impact of his lyrics, performances, and legacy across generations.

Bob Dylan often reworks his vocal melodies, even for his classic songs

Bob Dylan is an unpredictable live artist willing to reinvent his classics as they age. This analysis by Steven Rings, a music professor, breaks down the evolution of the singing style in "A Hard Rain’s A‐Gonna Fall," which transformed in one 1994 performance and then continued growing.

In the late '70s, Dylan started a trilogy of Christian rock albums

Across his six decades making music, Bob Dylan’s gone through numerous artistic eras and reinventions, but among the most polarizing (and, for some, the most perplexing) is Dylan’s Christian period in the late '70s and early '80s.

A comprehensive list of the best Bob Dylan covers

Bob Dylan’s songwriting quickly became part of the great American songbook, thanks in large part to many major artists of the '60s popularizing their own versions of his songs. As this list proves, though, that tradition continued all the way to today. Learn about essential covers of Dylan songs by Adele, Guns N’ Roses, The White Stripes, and others.

In 1966, Dylan was in a motorcycle accident

At the height of his popularity, Bob Dylan disappeared. The press reported it was due to a near-fatal motorcycle accident, though specifics were never provided. When he returned some time later, with a new album and sound, Dylan fans treated the accident as a pivotal moment in the legendary artist's career. But there's ample proof the accident never happened and, at its core, was little more than a cover story for a burnt-out rock star.

In the late '80s, Dylan formed the Traveling Wilburys with other rock legends

The word “supergroup” gets tossed around plenty in rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s never been more apt than with the Traveling Wilburys, a late '80s band featuring Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne. At the time, Dylan was feeling creatively adrift and far removed from the passion of his earlier work. The winking alter-egos of the Wilburys reinvigorated him, leading to a great record and a renaissance in Dylan’s solo career.

A deep dive into Bob Dylan's 'memoir'

Bob Dylan's "Chronicles: Volume One" is part memoir and part novel, a book that intentionally blurs the line between Dylan's factual biography and the self-mythologizing he's done for over six decades in the public eye. This podcast walks listeners through the book, treating Dylan less like an artist and more like a thought leader.

Some dispute why the Newport crowd booed Dylan

Bruce Jackson, one of the directors for the infamous 1965 Newport Folk Festival, claimed that the story of Dylan being booed for going "electric" is a myth. Pointing to transcripts from the set's audio recordings, he argued that the audience wasn’t upset with Dylan; they were bothered that he couldn’t play for longer.

Tour the iconic Sun Studio in Memphis

Sun Studio is responsible for hundreds of hours of American music history, despite its rather modest setup. This tour of the one-room studio is not unlike the tour visitors take, with anecdotes about Elvis, U2, and a pious Bob Dylan, who quickly popped in to pay his respects.

Watch some of Bruce Springsteen's most memorable live performances

The Boss is as renowned for his songwriting as his live performances, especially those backed by the E Street Band. Check out some of the most significant cuts from his career on the road, including a legendary 1975 set from London's Hammersmith Odeon credited with breaking Springsteen on the world stage.

The band 'The Bangles' was initially named 'The Bangs'

Legal troubles forced the band to change their name. See a slew of other music facts, like how Taylor Swift's "All Too Well (Taylor's Version) is the longest song to reach number one on the US singles chart. The song is over 10 minutes long, and surpassed Don McLean's "American Pie."

The Eras Tour generated $2B in ticket sales, but $5B in consumer spending

Taylor Swift has achieved such high-profile status, her music and tours influence a broad swath of industries, communities, and economies. “Swiftonomics” is the term used to describe how Taylor’s tours, merchandise sales, and brand boost everything from local business receipts to tourism in a community.

The longest-running Broadway musical is 'The Phantom of the Opera'

Andrew Lloyd Webber's legendary show holds the record for the longest-running musical on Broadway, with an astounding 13,981 performances. When it was announced the show would close, its dedicated "phans" rushed to buy tickets, leading to an unexpected extension.

Dickens performed 'A Christmas Carol' over 100 times

The writer began performing readings of his works in 1853 and chose 'A Christmas Carol' for the inaugural event. In the 16 years that followed, he performed it over 100 times, using different voices for his characters and consistently revising the text for the stage.

Search set lists from more than 10 million live concerts, added and edited by fans

Taking cues from Wikipedia, this Setlist wiki allows fans and concertgoers to share which songs were actually played at live concerts, across genres. The database makes this niche information about what performers choose to play year-round available for the curious.

'Live a life so when I die, there's standing room only.'

- Tim McGraw (1967-present)

Robert Byrd was the Senate's longest-serving member

This list shows the 25 longest-serving members of the United States Senate. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia holds the record, having served more than 51 years in the Senate.

The story of Billie Holiday's final performance

In her final days, Holiday was still performing—often at clubs outside of New York—though she was struggling with cirrhosis, an effect of her alcoholism. This excerpt from Paul Anderson's "Bitter Crop: the Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Final Year" details her final show in Lowell, Massachusetts, offering a tragic portrait of the singer running out of steam.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The Bill of Rights toured the United States on the Freedom Train from 1947 to 1949

Alongside the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the Bill of Rights traveled the country for 18 months. Nearly 3.5 million people viewed the documents as they traveled to all 48 contiguous states in the US. (Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states.)

The 20-year feud between Elton John and Madonna

The two superstars feuded from roughly 2002 until 2025. After playing shows together in the 1990s, John took issue with Madonna's James Bond theme song "Die Another Day," calling it the worst of the film series. He kept up a stream of criticisms, and the feud peaked at the 2012 Golden Globes when Madonna beat out John for best original song. The pair reportedly reconciled backstage at "Saturday Night Live" in 2025.

An electric pipe organ in Germany is playing a song for 639 years

Created by composer John Cage, the Halberstadt organ first began playing the piece in September 2001, and has since made only nine chord changes. The device within a medieval church utilizes compressed air to play continuous tones. The next chord change is scheduled for August 2026.

Dolly Parton declined her nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The country icon was nominated in 2022 but bowed out, saying, “I don’t feel I have earned that right” and that she didn’t want votes split because of her inclusion on the ballot, though the Hall of Fame inducted her anyway. Interestingly, she also mentioned that the nomination motivated her to release a rock ‘n’ roll record in the future. She released “Rockstar,” a double-album featuring several duets and covers of popular rock songs, in 2023.

Burning Man hosts roughly 70k attendees each year

Since 1986, the Burning Man organization has shared a census tracking growth, fluctuations, demographics, and burners' attitudes each year. Part of the organization's motivation is to monitor and reduce carbon emissions at the event.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Scientists have struggled to pin down Ebola's natural reservoir species for decades, but the available evidence suggests that it's very likely fruit and insect-eating bats found in Africa.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.