I'm going back to the start
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| kokkinos wrote: | Yes, it makes perfect sense you'd be fond of it, I can tell you value production quite a bit and this could be Dylan's best in that regard. Even though the overall atmosphere is overwhelmingly dark, it's presented in an extremely attractive and evocative way.
And it could have made my top-10 on a different day, this and the next 4-5 albums are almost equal in my book, many tough calls in this countdown. |
Yeah, you definitely can read me that I do tend to value the production of records a lot. Especially if there is a wholistic experience to it. Though the fact that the next 4 to 5 albums are as close as this got me curious.
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| Luigii wrote: | | Yeah, you definitely can read me that I do tend to value the production of records a lot. Especially if there is a wholistic experience to it. Though the fact that the next 4 to 5 albums are as close as this got me curious. |
Just a quick disclaimer, not sure if that part was clear: I meant these albums are almost equal when evaluated overall, not in the production department exclusively - as I wrote in the previous post, Time Out Of Mind is unparalleled in Dylan's discography when it comes to this.
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Bob Dylan
Charles Mingus
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Bob Dylan: The Countdown
#10
Bob Dylan - Tempest
2012, Columbia
Track Listing
1)Duquesne Whistle
2)Soon After Midnight
3)Narrow Way
4)Long And Wasted Years
5)Pay In Blood
6)Scarlet Town
7)Early Roman Kings
8)Tin Angel
9)Tempest
10)Roll On John
So much for our Cinderella story, it somehow sneaked in the top-10, which is no small feat.
Man, this album sounds so old, so tired. The very first note is a wake-up call for those ancient melodies that have been dormant for so long. At the same time, they come with an irresistible sense of familiarity, they had remained elusive so far, but they’ve always been an inherent part of our subconscious, as if they were in our blood before we were born, they might be even older than life itself, never having been touched by a human hand and as a result they instantly become memorable.
Despite being highly entertaining, as all the tales that are being narrated here are extremely fascinating and offer us a glimpse of a different , not necessarily warmer, happier or more beautiful - things get ugly in a few tracks and a potential bloodbath is always round the corner - but definitely wonderful in its own way world, the aftermath is highly nostalgic, those days are buried in the past and they are never coming back. That’s exactly what differentiates this from other late era Dylan releases like Time Out Of Mind or Love And Theft which also focus – among other themes - on the subject of time, the balance between past and present, etc. Here he longs for the past and wishes it could come back to life, in the aforementioned albums the past is filled with regrets, the burden of loss is unbearable and consequently appears just as bleak as the present and the future – but I’ve already commented on Time Out Of Mind, more on Love And Theft later.
Anyway, the main point is I am honestly convinced it’s one of his most exciting songwriting efforts which is a huge compliment if you take into account how wild the competition is. His voice shows some surprising versatility for his age, it can be rough (see Duquesne Whistle) or soft (see Soon After Midnight) it never fails to serve the purpose of any given song – Pay In Blood is the most impressive, the voice of a veteran who’s been around for at least 200-300 years (when he sings “I've been through hell” he is so believable it makes you uncomfortable– if the mummies were to rise from the dead, they wouldn’t be so rugged). I mean, having good stories isn’t enough, you have to be an equally good storyteller. By the way, one thing that’s always given me pleasure is to picture him being a bard in ancient or medieval times. When he ‘d arrive in a new town, the privileged ones that would have a first-hand experience with his show would be thrilled. Then, they would try to narrate the story themselves and it wouldn’t have half the same impact. Soon enough, he’d become a legend. Returning to Tempest, Dylan instantly draws you in and you don’t wanna miss a single word that comes out his mouth, it’s 68 minutes long and I can never tell its length. Quite the contrary, every time I realise it’s over I can’t quite believe it – apart from Dylan’s incomparable storytelling skills, credit is due to the backing band as well for creating a hypnotic atmosphere, slowly drowning In an ocean of nostalgia.
Duquesne Whistle is an excellent opening track, it acts as a time machine, our guide in this amazing journey. It is followed by Soon After Midnight, a romantic - in the old school way - song, it really gets you in the mood. Narrow Way is a nod to his Christianity era, far from being too “in your face”, never approaching anywhere close to annoying territory. Although it is probably the most predictable song here, nothing more than standard up-tempo blues combined with an intimidating running time of 7+ minutes, it is surprisingly enjoyable, not to mention it’s got some lines that could be viewed as humorous if taken out of context. Long And Wasted Years sees him momentarily return to his ‘60s self, expressing irony in a poetic way, although he’s not as ambiguous or cryptic as he was back then. Scarlet Town is the place no one wants to be, but everyone wants to hear about, can we make this a movie – preferably a Western - please? Pay In Blood is another highlight, the most brutal, violent song, but also the funniest, the man knows how to put a twist on anything he touches. Early Roman Kings is one of the lightest tracks here, despite presenting us a group of fearsome gangsters. Once again, it’s easy for Dylan to keep the balance between comedy, horror, tragedy, drama, adventure, etc. Speaking of adventure, Tin Angel is a fantastic one, the hazardous undertaking of a man getting back his wife will have you on the edge of your seat. And when you think it can’t get any better than that, here comes the self-titled track, wow, talk about one of his finest achievements. 10 Oscars and still can’t compete with Dylan’s take on Titanic – I don’t hate the movie, but here we’ve got something really special. Last but not least, a tribute to John Lennon that seemingly came out of nowhere – I haven’t done any research, but I had no idea they were that close-, but ends up being great and touching as it was supposed to be.
So, yeah, give this a chance – especially if you are fond of retro aesthetics or if you are a Dylan fan, though if it’s the latter I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.
Score: 8.4/10.
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Bob Dylan
Charles Mingus
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theblueboy
- #284
- Posted: 11/06/2021 12:17
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Interesting, I always assumed that Tempest would be one too many Dylans-and I honestly forgot it even existed 😲 Sounds like I missed a trick.
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| theblueboy wrote: | | Interesting, I always assumed that Tempest would be one too many Dylans-and I honestly forgot it even existed 😲 Sounds like I missed a trick. |
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, I've never met anyone who considers Tempest an above average Dylan album, so it's probably just me 😁
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Bob Dylan
Charles Mingus
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theblueboy
- #286
- Posted: 11/07/2021 11:38
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| kokkinos wrote: | | I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, I've never met anyone who considers Tempest an above average Dylan album, so it's probably just me :mrgreen: |
Good call. I might get to it at some stage though. I need to revisit a few other albums first that I have almost overlooked (John Wesley Harding; The Basement Tapes). I also want to revisit some of the Bootlegs as well. The dude * has a lot of albums worth checking out!
* i.e Dylan, not The Dude I was talking about before.
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| theblueboy wrote: | Good call. I might get to it at some stage though. I need to revisit a few other albums first that I have almost overlooked (John Wesley Harding; The Basement Tapes). I also want to revisit some of the Bootlegs as well. The dude * has a lot of albums worth checking out!
* i.e Dylan, not The Dude I was talking about before. |
Yeah, he's got a ton of material and most of it is worth of - at the very least - one listen.
Out of the ones you mentioned, John Wesley Harding would be an excellent place to start - as you can tell, I think extemely highly of it as I consider it a top-10 Dylan album. Of course, I'll make a more detailed comment on it when it's time comes.
Anyway, have fun exploring this wonderful artist!
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Bob Dylan
Charles Mingus
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Bob Dylan: The Countdown
#9
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
1965, Columbia
Track Listing
1)Like A Rolling Stone
2)Tombstone Blues
3)It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
4)From A Buick 6
5)Ballad Of A Thin Man
6)Queen Jane Approximately
7)Highway 61 Revisited
8)Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
9)Desolation Row
It’s been quiet for a while, time to drop a bomb. I can admit it now, ranking this album has been a headache and took me way above average. I was trying to convince myself I can rank it a bit higher, 9th spot feels plain wrong no matter how one looks at it. Despite my best efforts, there are 8 Bob Dylan records that mean more to me, it is what it is. It’s worth pointing out that I was lucky enough to be exposed to Bob Dylan at a relatively young age and this was the one that started it all, the first album of his that I ever listened. Considering how nostalgic I am generally speaking, that’s another reason it should end up a bit – or a lot - higher.
The title, making a reference to the Highway 61 Blues and paying homage to his beloved blues tradition, tells you all you need to know about the direction this album intends to take – the addition of the word “Revisited” leaving no doubt he’s going to take the next step, you better be ready to follow along or you'll miss it. If Bringing It All Back Home is an angry yell, Highway 61 Revisited is a deafening roar, it’s finally time to rock. It presents rock at its purest form compared to the other two parts of the trilogy. It’s primitive yet daring and innovative, hard yet accessible (there’s a reason most people think it’s his best), raw yet stylish and sophisticated (great piano throughout and combining it with an organ was a cool idea, which as far as I can tell hasn’t been used that often), is there anything more one could ask for?
If you told me this is the best example this genre has to offer, I would easily believe you without asking any questions. Bringing It All Back Home and Blonde On Blonde (each of them in a different way) are much more than that, they go to places this doesn’t and as a result end up higher on my list. But if we are talking about rock music as I have it in my mind, that’s as good as it gets. Actually, when people ask me “what music do you like?” and I’m not in the mood for any detailed analysis, my go-to generic answer is rock. Five minutes later, I find myself thinking “dude, that was a blatant lie”. Then I remember this album exists, so it’s all good.
By the way, if one takes into account that The Times They Are A-Changin’ finished lower than The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and Another Side Of Bob Dylan, you might notice an interesting pattern: I consider the second album of each trilogy the weakest. Maybe the first one comes with the excitement and the joy of discovering the great unknown, while the third sees him slowly losing interest and setting off for new escapades, adding new twists to the already established ideas. The second sees him fully embrace said concepts, offering a close-up of them that is more or less flawlessly executed, but ends up just a tiny bit less interesting than the other two.
Moving on, I can’t help but notice that the whole “Dylan goes electric” narrative is a bit hm…, not sure how to call it, superficial maybe? No, misleading is the word. I mean, it’s not false or anything, everyone who happens to have a pair of ears could be called on to testify. The thing is it focuses on the most obvious – and controversial if you will - aspect of his transformation and ignores other equally – if not more – essential elements of it. One major issue I had while preparing this comment is if the points regarding the shift in his songwriting should be covered here or in Bringing It All Back Home – not to mention traces of it can be spotted all the way back to Another Side Of Bob Dylan, which goes on to show that his growth as a songwriter has little to do with “going electric”. Doing justice to my title as the great procrastinator, I decided to save it for Bringing It All Back Home. Also, I can already see this comment getting out of control length-wise, better not overload it.
Opening with his most classic song (for real, is there a more iconic moment in music history than the snare drum that opens Like A Rolling Stone?) and it’s worth all the praise it’s received – but if you want my hot take, it’s barely a top-3 song here, which speaks volumes about the quality of the rest of the material here and is by no means a criticism towards it. Its structure is nothing short of awe-inspiring. It starts as a fairy tale, everything’s rosy for our little princess. The verses slowly build up in intensity, he triumphantly strips her of all the glory and grandeur that surrounds her, as he puts on display her flaws (she Is arrogant, pretentious, insensitive, disrespectful, superficial, you name it) that lead to her dramatic, thundering fall. I’ve always had the impression that the chorus is meant to release tension, a moment of catharsis, she’s reached the bottom of the barrel, his “attack” is less vicious, almost soft. And the one million dollar question: Who is it addressed to? Is it real-life inspired, is there a specific person, could it be a friend that betrayed him or a lover that left him, or no one in particular (as the last verse opens up to include “all the pretty people”)? It doesn’t matter that much, some things are better left unsaid (and it inspires everyone to draw his own conclusions, some of them are surprisingly inventive, there’s even an interpretation that the song deals with drugs, i.e. the person in question had everything, did drugs and lost it all, had a good laugh while reading it, but I have to admit this theory is a stretch to say the least). One thing’s for sure, the bitterness comes through crystal clear, that’s the epitome of a diss track a good 3 decades before they were cool. Even the finest efforts (No Vaseline, Ether, Hit Em Up, etc.) would have a hard time keeping up with this. Another technique he’s mastered during this stage of his career is his tendency to include various, seemingly random yet undeniably mysterious and fascinating characters that add an extra dimension to each song (in this case it’s the mystery tramp, the diplomat and his Siamese Cat and of course Napoleon in rags). The way he handles the chorus, for example changing lyrics from one to the other, is of interest as well, though I have to resort to my favourite method of pointing to another album, as the chorus “manipulation” so to speak reached its peak in Blonde On Blonde, thus I’ll keep this subject for later.
The second track, Tombstone Blues, sees him further explore his rapping antics, it could have come straight out of Bringing It All Back Home and it could just as easily pass as a sequel of Subterranean Homesick Blues. Speaking of quirky characters, this one goes above and beyond, I won’t even bother naming all of them, it would take forever. Now, were I to try and make sense of it all, that would be something else – I’m not sure Dylan himself could do it. A few years back I spent tons of time trying to change the order of some lines / reorganise the verses and make it work. It goes without saying it proved to be a futile attempt. Maybe, it’s better to accept it for what it is, simply entertaining, vibrant, neurotic to the point of almost being out of its senses blues/rock. That being said, there’s a stab against modern capitalist society that’s hard to miss. And of course the “Where Ma Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped their bedroll tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole” line is one of my all-time favourites. Scratch that, the entire song is one of my favourites and I’d – watch your step, blasphemy ahead – take it over Like A Rolling Stone without a second thought.
Then we enter the part of the album that, for me, leaves a lot to be desired and if I were to find a more tangible reason – apart from the ones I ‘ve already brought up - I don’t rate it any higher, I’d point towards it . Now, you may ask, are the 8 albums above it flawless? Nope, but they have something else going for them, here the consistency – I’m sure someone’s already explained to you how it’s pound for pound the best album ever, 9 perfect songs in 50 minutes - is one of its main selling points, so it’s harder to ignore it. To put it into a more specific context, I’d go as far as to say that I consider Blonde On Blonde superior when comparing their track listing (the debate usually revolves around those two, I think Blood On The Tracks appeals to a slightly different audience) not so much because it has higher highs (if Visions Of Johanna is better than Desolation Row - supposing these two mark their respective highs - it’s only by a hair), it’s because it has no such lows – despite being a double album, even the usually dismissed as inferior third side is essential in my eyes, but more on that later.
Now, is there something particular I dislike about It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry? Not really, but there’s nothing that excites me either, a mildly pleasant slow-burning tune to have in your background, it has no business standing next to the stuff of legend, Like A Rolling Stone, Desolation Row, etc. After all, it seems this Highway is too bumpy and can’t be crossed at full throttle.
From A Buick 6 is also kinda meh, the album would undoubtedly be better without it. At least this one’s so immersed in the blues tradition that anyone with such a background (not me, that’s for sure) would easily enjoy it, if not love it.
If you are starting to complain (ok, I know you won’t, just saying), hold your horses, here comes Ballad Of A Thin Man to spectacularly get back on track. If the protagonist of Like A Rolling Stone was wearing a question mark on her face, the identity of Mr. Jones is an even greater mystery, one that only someone of Dupin’s calibre (apologies for the super nerdy pun, Dupin is the name of the detective in Rue Morgue, the short story Dylan references in Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues) could solve. And of course these two tracks go hand in hand, Bob Dylan goes all out with his lyrics again as we watch him dismantle the emptiness of Mr. Jones in a similar fashion to Miss Loney of the opening track. One of the most famous theories suggests that he’s a journalist – you know how it goes, media are losing touch with reality, failing to grasp what’s going on -, but there’s a ton of them (the most extreme I’ve read so far says Mr. Jones is Dylan himself, it’s also been said that his listeners are all Mr. Jones, other takes on it include a homosexual or the generational gap). Well, one thing’s certain: Mr. Jones hasn’t listened to the warnings offered by Dylan during his acoustic period – especially in The Times They Are A-Changin’. The cultural shift is real and Mr. Jones is utterly helpless, completely out of his depth. In a world full of freak shows, he is the greatest, most spectacular tourist attraction. The music is just as good, it achieves this sort of hypnotic, enigmatic, eerie, almost hair-raising atmosphere that has rarely been captured so accurately and the piano-organ combo I mentioned earlier is the icing on the cake.
Queen Jane would be a fine song, but I can’t help viewing it as a poor man’s Like A Rolling Stone (and if you are going to be a poor man’s version of a song, it’s hard to top that as a point of reference, but still miles behind the original, better fail your way than succeed in someone else’s way). Whatever it achieves – and, despite being significantly milder, It achieves a lot- the powerhouse that is Like A Rolling Stone simply surpasses it. Even the question “who is Queen Jane?” isn’t as interesting, Joan Baez (“the flower ladies” is a giveaway that implies a connection with the folk music scene) is the popular choice – but then again, who knows. Another excellent use of the chorus, I’ve always loved how there’s still hope for Queen Jane, it’s not too late to be saved.
Highway 61 Revisited (the song) is one of those rare cases, where, despite being the self-titled track, it tends to get forgotten and it’s viewed as a weak link. I have to respectfully disagree, it’s a simple rock/blues with a circus like atmosphere I am really fond of – in that sense, I’ve always thought of the opening track on Blonde on Blonde, Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, as its sequel - and the lyrics keep up with the madness. It’s one of those songs that, were it 13 minutes long instead of just 3, I would never complain.
Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues and its exotic adventures would feel right at home in Desire. One thing he’s good at is making these extraordinary situations approachable to the average listener. Despite being in the tropics, the places he describes here are northing sort of desolate and it all ends painfully, paving the way for the closing track.
Desolation Row, it’s soft and relaxed in spite of the dark colours it uses to paint the world. Disorder rules, everything that could have been destroyed, is already in ruins, there’s nothing left, so there’s no need to make a fuss about it, any attempt of resistance has been shut down, there’s no salvation – unlike the previous track, there’s no way out, no escape to New York either. One of the greatest songs of all time, there’s not much else to be said about it really.
The more I think and write about it, the more I get the impression it belongs closer to the top, so I’ll stop here before I change my mind again. 9th spot might seem too low, but doesn’t make this album any less great. The vast majority of artists wish they ‘d been to Highway 61 Revisited even once.
Score: 8.6/10
_________________
Bob Dylan
Charles Mingus
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baystateoftheart
