Critical opinion about "Freewheelin" has been consistently favorable in the years since its release. Dylan biographer Howard Sounes called it "Bob Dylan's first great album". In a survey of Dylan's work published by "Q" magazine in 2000, the "Freewheelin’" album was described as "easily the best of [Dylan's] acoustic albums and a quantum leap from his debut—which shows the frantic pace at which Dylan's mind was moving." The magazine went on to comment, "You can see why this album got The Beatles listening. The songs at its core must have sounded like communiques from another plane."