Bob Dylan went to #1 in the UK album charts with Self Portrait on July 11, 1970

Self Portrait became Bob Dylan's 5th UK #1 album on July 11th of 1970.

The album is seen by many as Dylan's worst. Rock critics Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell go beyond saying it's Dylan's worst album to saying it's the 3rd worst album of all time.

The album features mostly cover versions of pop and folk songs. It also contain a few instrumentals, original compositions, live recordings of older songs ("Like A Rolling Stone" for example) with The Band.

The intent of the album has been debated with Dylan giving various explanations for why he made the album over the years. At some points he says that it was a basically a thrown together "bootleg" record since he was being heavily bootlegged at the time.

In other interviews he seems to be saying he made the album to purposely alienate some of his fans: "There'd be crowds outside my house. And I said, 'Well, fuck it. I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can't possibly like, they can't relate to. They'll see it, and they'll listen, and they'll say, 'Well, let's get on to the next person. He ain't sayin' it no more. He ain't given' us what we want,' you know?"

In the same interview when asked why it's a double album Dylan replies: "Well, it wouldn't have held up as a single album — then it really would've been bad, you know. I mean, if you're gonna put a lot of crap on it, you might as well load it up!"