iron yuppie
ONE love, blood, life
[FONT="]I have been working through Dylan's albums over the past three months or so and think I'm finally able to offer some thoughts, for anyone who might care.
I was surprised at the strength of the debut. Dylan gives these blues standards faithful treatments, but also infuses them with a good deal of personality. I appreciate the warts-and-all treatment on many of these tracks, as it stays true to the blues tradition. This will likely come off as a wildly unpopular opinion, but as a pure listening experience I would take the debut over Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which despite its obvious and justified importance, hasn't aged terribly well. The lyrics are astoundingly well-developed, but the instrumentation starts to run together by about the half-way point, which is a similar issue that I have with Times They Are A-Changin' and Another Side.
Bringing It All Back Home is where things really start to come together for me, the point where the visionary lyrics are supported by exciting, varied song structures. Subterranean Homesick Blues would easily make my top three Dylan songs; the rapid-fire delivery suits Dylan's voice perfectly. The track also seems a kind of mission statement for the album as a whole, putting tracks like It's Alright Ma in a kind of cynical perspective. Then Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde: what can be said about these that hasn't already been said? Put simply, they live up to the lofty hype. What most surprised me about these two is that my favorite tracks were not the ones strewn across his many best-of compilations: Ballad of a Thin Man and Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat especially stand out on a pair of albums laden with highlights. Thin Man in particular is probably the most brilliantly caustic lyric I've ever heard. Fascinating how disillusioned Dylan already seemed with the culture for which he had been appointed the icon.
John Wesley Harding might crack my top three Dylan albums, if only because it is so damn cohesive. I also like the mysticism that underlies a lot of these tracks, especially on something like I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine. Nashville Skyline and Self-Portrait suffer a bit from lacking that spiritual quality, in spite of keeping the general country-folk sound of Harding. The next three are a grab-bag. Where they are great, they are really great, as on The Man in Me and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. None of them, though, have the coherence of John Wesley Harding or the fucking sublime Blood on the Tracks.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Blood[/FONT][FONT="] stands quite firmly as my favorite Dylan album. Everything for which he is celebrated is there in one astounding package: the cynical yet reflective lyrics, the timeless melodies, the raw wisdom. This is probably my favorite vocal performance from Dylan as well: his voice is rich yet still a bit off-kilter. Desire reaches the same individual heights as Blood, but doesn’t share the sustained brilliance. One More Cup of Coffee is my favorite Dylan song: the violin and haunting backing vocals complement the ambiguously lyrics superbly. Oh Sister is another standout from this album; Joey is most certainly not.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Now things get weird. Everything from Street Legal through Under the Red Sky has flashes of the classic Dylan wit and melody but also patches of almost incomprehensible laziness. Street Legal is a perfect example: New Pony rocks with the best Dylan songs, but it sits alongside dreck like Baby Stop Crying. Even the much-celebrated Oh Mercy strikes me as terribly uneven (though I love Man in the Long Black Coat). I suppose a “comeback” wasn’t a very tall order after something like Down in the Groove, but the worst was yet to come: Under the Red Sky is the only Dylan album I find totally irredeemable. Wiggle Wiggle: case closed.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Two solid but ultimately unremarkable covers albums somehow gave way to Time out of Mind, probably the best argument ever made that veteran musicians can remain creatively vital. It and Love and Theft are both superb ruminations on experience, regret, and ultimately mortality. Not Dark Yet is a case in point. I wouldn’t group Modern Times among those two in terms of quality the way many reviewers have, though it certainly is a worthy addition to his canon. Closer to them thematically and in mood is Tempest, which in my opinion is far superior to Together Through Life. Pay in Blood stands among his best tracks of the 21st century.[/FONT]
[FONT="]I need to dig back through many of these albums more thoroughly, but after a few listens to each, it’s quite easy to see why this guy is a titan of modern music.[/FONT]
I was surprised at the strength of the debut. Dylan gives these blues standards faithful treatments, but also infuses them with a good deal of personality. I appreciate the warts-and-all treatment on many of these tracks, as it stays true to the blues tradition. This will likely come off as a wildly unpopular opinion, but as a pure listening experience I would take the debut over Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which despite its obvious and justified importance, hasn't aged terribly well. The lyrics are astoundingly well-developed, but the instrumentation starts to run together by about the half-way point, which is a similar issue that I have with Times They Are A-Changin' and Another Side.
Bringing It All Back Home is where things really start to come together for me, the point where the visionary lyrics are supported by exciting, varied song structures. Subterranean Homesick Blues would easily make my top three Dylan songs; the rapid-fire delivery suits Dylan's voice perfectly. The track also seems a kind of mission statement for the album as a whole, putting tracks like It's Alright Ma in a kind of cynical perspective. Then Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde: what can be said about these that hasn't already been said? Put simply, they live up to the lofty hype. What most surprised me about these two is that my favorite tracks were not the ones strewn across his many best-of compilations: Ballad of a Thin Man and Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat especially stand out on a pair of albums laden with highlights. Thin Man in particular is probably the most brilliantly caustic lyric I've ever heard. Fascinating how disillusioned Dylan already seemed with the culture for which he had been appointed the icon.
John Wesley Harding might crack my top three Dylan albums, if only because it is so damn cohesive. I also like the mysticism that underlies a lot of these tracks, especially on something like I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine. Nashville Skyline and Self-Portrait suffer a bit from lacking that spiritual quality, in spite of keeping the general country-folk sound of Harding. The next three are a grab-bag. Where they are great, they are really great, as on The Man in Me and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. None of them, though, have the coherence of John Wesley Harding or the fucking sublime Blood on the Tracks.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Blood[/FONT][FONT="] stands quite firmly as my favorite Dylan album. Everything for which he is celebrated is there in one astounding package: the cynical yet reflective lyrics, the timeless melodies, the raw wisdom. This is probably my favorite vocal performance from Dylan as well: his voice is rich yet still a bit off-kilter. Desire reaches the same individual heights as Blood, but doesn’t share the sustained brilliance. One More Cup of Coffee is my favorite Dylan song: the violin and haunting backing vocals complement the ambiguously lyrics superbly. Oh Sister is another standout from this album; Joey is most certainly not.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Now things get weird. Everything from Street Legal through Under the Red Sky has flashes of the classic Dylan wit and melody but also patches of almost incomprehensible laziness. Street Legal is a perfect example: New Pony rocks with the best Dylan songs, but it sits alongside dreck like Baby Stop Crying. Even the much-celebrated Oh Mercy strikes me as terribly uneven (though I love Man in the Long Black Coat). I suppose a “comeback” wasn’t a very tall order after something like Down in the Groove, but the worst was yet to come: Under the Red Sky is the only Dylan album I find totally irredeemable. Wiggle Wiggle: case closed.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Two solid but ultimately unremarkable covers albums somehow gave way to Time out of Mind, probably the best argument ever made that veteran musicians can remain creatively vital. It and Love and Theft are both superb ruminations on experience, regret, and ultimately mortality. Not Dark Yet is a case in point. I wouldn’t group Modern Times among those two in terms of quality the way many reviewers have, though it certainly is a worthy addition to his canon. Closer to them thematically and in mood is Tempest, which in my opinion is far superior to Together Through Life. Pay in Blood stands among his best tracks of the 21st century.[/FONT]
[FONT="]I need to dig back through many of these albums more thoroughly, but after a few listens to each, it’s quite easy to see why this guy is a titan of modern music.[/FONT]
I had to write it in Word because the reply page was dragging really bad. Then I wasn't able to change the font.
