In a year when psychedelia dominated popular culture, the agrarian-themed "John Wesley Harding" was seen as reactionary. Critic Jon Landau wrote in "Crawdaddy!" magazine, "For an album of this kind to be released amidst "Sgt. Pepper", "Their Satanic Majesties Request", "After Bathing at Baxter's", somebody must have had a lot of confidence in what he was doing… Dylan seems to feel no need to respond to the predominate trends in pop music at all. And he is the only major pop artist about whom this can be said."