I just saw Daniel Lanois, who produced and played on Dylan's Oh Mercy Monday night. He was playing as one of three members of Emmy Lou Harris's band and I'm like "Damn, her band is ridiculously good what's up?" I kept wanting to catcall the stage about how great her band was. Looked them up after and it all made sense. One of the most important (if not the) producers of the 80's. Emmy told a story onstage...she found him when her record company asked her who she wanted to work with if she could work with anyone. She had been listening to Oh Mercy nonstop and asked for Lanois. The album he made with her is also good and underrated. It was released 19 years ago and they are just touring for it now...
Oh Mercy hit 40 on the pop charts (which is pretty good as Dylan albums probably have a much longer burn than most pop hits) and I remember the video for Political World getting a fair amount of play on MTV. Dylan may have had a slump during part of the 80's but I think that could be said for most decades of his multiple decade career.