Most pop music artists rarely need to worry about their relevancy, since the very nature of the pop form requires that a song be as immediate as a spin of the radio dial. Mainstream pop is immediate and visceral in its impact; a song passes through your life and then is gone, unless you make an effort to keep it near. But when artists reach their thirtieth year of recording, suddenly the idea of "relevancy" is forced into view, also calling into question the worth and meaning of the "popular" in pop music.

September has seen three highly-touted releases by artists entering their fourth decade as part of the rock pantheon. Elton John has avoided the relevancy issue entirely through developing a fan base comprised mostly of those who began following his career when his music was relevant and "pop." The Rolling Stones seem to assume a relevancy and connection with the mainstream of pop, yet their work coasts on such a massive reputation developed from their legendary status that it isn't "relevant" so much as it is merely "present." They demonstrate their impact on pop merely by showing up.

Finally, we face the strange case of Mr. Bob Dylan. It's not just a bad joke to say that when most mainstream listeners think of a "new Dylan album," they might be expecting Jakob's Wallflowers or possibly something from Luke Perry. Does this negate Dylan's impact upon pop music as an immediate force? Can Dylan speak to me, a 21-year-old white male living in 1997 who has little knowledge of his previous work? Is Bob Dylan's music relevant today, or is the question even worth asking?

For those with ears open enough to listen, "Time Out of Mind" is more relevant than anything playing on the radio. It dwells upon the twin Big Topics: Love and Despair. And it doesn't have much good to say about either. Musically, these songs approach as spectres from the past; the production by Daniel Lanois (Dylan's "Oh Mercy") keeps Dylan's voice in an echo and the instruments distant. As he sings on "Million Miles," the songs seem to want to remain "a million miles from you," as though the characters on the album are afraid to approach any closer. Some songs begin with a hazy clutter of instruments, as though the listener has stumbled upon a gathering of the ghosts of dead bluesmen and folk journeymen, who feel compelled by your presence to take up their instruments again. In style the songs also approach from the past, with blues shuffles and folk ballads in the traditional Dylan style taking prominence. Like Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad," Dylan is taking forms of the past (both his own and the collective past of pop music) and using them to tell stories about failures in the present.

Lyrically, many of the songs are drawn from a classic Dylan inspiration well: the failure of love and relationships. This is the Bob Dylan of "Like a Rolling Stone," but thirty years later. When he sings "Don't know if I saw you/If I would kiss you or kill you/It probably wouldn't matter to you anyhow" on "Standing in the Doorway," there is a jukebox playing low and the singer is wandering, resigned, disarming his own anger with sadness and the disinterest of the woman he loves. But Dylan's larger goal on "Time Out of Mind" seems to be touching on a sense of impending doom and gloom; he makes it clear when he sings, "It's not dark yet/But it's getting there" on "Not Dark Yet." These songs materialize from the past and try to disarm any hope in the present or the future. "It's mighty funny, the end of time has just begun," Dylan sings on "Can't Wait," and it's hard not to believe him.

The album's final track, the 16-minute "Highlands" (too formidable a mystery for this reviewer to decipher, but a towering masterpiece nevertheless), attempts to end on a note of pseudo-hope: "There's a way to get there and I'll figure it out somehow/ But I'm already there in my mind and that's good enough for now." But for Dylan and his listeners, the promise of a path to freedom from a corrupt world has come too late. "Time Out of Mind" has left too deep a scar for any solace to heal its wound. Its haunting songs float through love and loss, death and despair until the end of the world does seem closer than it ever has.