This, along with the Beatles, is making November 6th look like a good day to call in sick if you work for the post office.
Or with the lackluster 'arrival times' for these sets -- a better day to take off might be November 8, 9, and 10.
When I first got hung up on the idea of someday hearing the full Blonde on Blonde tapes (spurred on by the Wilentz article), I didn't really imagine a commercial release would be forthcoming, let alone that it would include the BIABH and H61R sessions, too. Which makes it odd that the part of this upcoming box that I seem most excited to hear is the complete initial 1/13/65 BIABH session. From the track listing/session logs and the snippets we've heard so far, it almost seems like Another Side of Bob Dylan Part Two is hiding in plain sight somewhere there. We won't know for sure until we've heard them ourselves, but I suspect you could compile a complete album from that day of recordings alone. Not saying Dylan made the wrong choice here. I strongly suspect an album composed solely of 1/13/65 tracks would have been vastly inferior to the official Bringing It All Back Home. Doesn't mean it wouldn't have been fun in it's own right, though.
You'll do OK with that 6CD set, buying later. There seems to be no indication that it is a limited edition, so good prices may occur. I'd try to hold out for the equivalent of $65 0r $66, for obvious "karmic" reasons
Maybe they will release the 18 CD box on schedule, just so the absolute freaks who just cannot wait even one second will ALSO order the 6CD set as a warm up. Those marketeers are smart
I was just talking to a friend who bought a box of 45's for $5 at a garage sale in the late 1970's. It had two records that he wanted. The rest included about 35 mint, still in a crisp MGM sleeve yellow label Hank Williams 45s. He threw them out in the garbage. Personally, I would rather throw a still unopened Bob Dylan 18 CD box in the garbage, if I could only have that mint Hank Williams 45 collection
This post deserves its own thread: things you'd throw a still unopened Bob Dylan 18 CD box in the garbage for. Two still unopened Bob Dylan 18 CD boxes maybe?
I never thought they'd release the whole shebang either all at one time. I was hoping the full Blonde On Blonde session would come out at the very least, and there was that hope last year around the time of the Basement Tapes release with some article (Rolling Stone mag?) talking about a big Blonde On Blonde box perhaps in the works. I guess they couldn't decide what to leave out of this time period of studio outtakes, so common sense and copyright law made them just throw it all into the release hopper. Thank goodness for that. Bringing It All Back Home is the one album of the three classics that I always thought could stand some tweaking or improvement. And though it is miles away from the directionless sound of Another Side Of (which sound like demos, to me), BIABH retains a remnant, underlying stiffness in places from that previous album. It is the sound of the cocoon being breached, though, and the old sound getting one last play on the jukebox of the Dylan's soul before he spins the wheel and it lands on the opposite side of another side. Some people think it's his best album, incidentally. The three albums are very different in overall mood and approach, though, like distinct showrooms of their own making. There's something to look forward to in each and every session. Is it November yet?
That's not the Another Side Of I know and love. Someone must have slipped another record into your sleeve.
One time when I met Sonny Rollins and showed him my copy of the Vinyl LP "March on Washington" personally autographed by Martin Luther King, he asked me if I was giving it to him. I said no, but that I'd trade it for his saxophone. He kept the sax and we were both happy. I'd also choose the King autograph over the Dylan set
I'm tempted to dive straight into the "She's Your Lover Now" sessions, but the more some of you guys talk about the 1/13/65 session, the more I am intrigued by it. Since you've raised the topic of possible alternate BIABH albums, I wonder -- does anyone think the album might have been better if the acoustic songs were mixed in on both sides with the electric tracks? I haven't tried fiddling with the track list myself, but I confess that BIABH is my least favorite ALBUM of the "holy trinity," despite having several of my favorite songs from the electric period. Because of the electric/acoustic split, it doesn't feel so much like an "album" but rather like a concession to angry folkies who might be pacified by an LP side of the "good" Dylan. Anyway, just something to ponder. What else are we going to do for the next month? In a related note, I've decided that I'm only going to listen to 1961-1964 Dylan until the box comes out. I want to see if I can trick myself into forgetting about the rest of his career -- even if just a little -- and experience the 1965-66 sessions as if I didn't know where they were going.
Speaking of trilogies, I've been thinking about the three albums that albums that people usually group together (BIABH, H61R, BoB), and I think they should actually be grouped differently. I think the trilogy really starts with Another Side of Bob Dylan, as we see him buck off his folk expectations, but retain the acoustic guitar format. His songs became more about himself, and, at the same time, more abstract in language. You even have "Motorpsycho Nitemare," which will be copied and carried over for "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream". Also, consider the cover art: a black and white photo of Bob framed in a large, white space. Next up is Bringing It All Back Home, which solidifies his change from folk to rock music. The music is electric (both in feel and instrument use), and takes its cues from 50's songwriters like Chuck Berry. The lyrics continue with their inward focus--seriously, all the songs (except for "Outlaw Blues", which heavily uses the word "I" later on) on side one reference himself early on: "...I'm on the pavement," "She Belongs to Me," "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm," "My love...," "Well, I wake up in the morning..," "I was riding on the Mayflower." However, once you make it to the second side, you encounter an even more intense version of the music and songwriting you find on Another Side, creating a sort of continuity. Also, the cover art: it's now in color, but Bob is at a distance in the photo, and it's obscured around the edges. It also takes up more space on the cover, leaving less white around the outside. Then comes Highway 61 Revisited. This album fully embraces the electric arrangements, but now takes it up a notch. The music has become fuller, more sophisticated, and his songs have become even more surreal and cryptic this time around. Once again, many of his songs begin by referencing himself, but now a noticeable amount of others are referencing "you" instead. The only song not to focus on people is the final, folk-like song. However, this time there isn't an only-acoustic song; this one has an electric bass. Continuing with that, it's also incredibly not-folk-like in scope and execution. It's a song that sounds important (and starts with a line that sounds like it's has a message to impart), but instead defies this idea by constantly shifting around and not having a clear narrative, or some message to walk away with. Additionally, the Spanish-style guitar licks are not something you would normally find in a song like this, and keep the song from really being comfortably categorized as what folk music commonly was at that time. Lastly, the cover: the colors are present, there is no obscuring of the image, and Bob is in the immediate foreground. This time, there is even less white space around the edges. Also, this is totally unrelated, but that's a great album cover. I love that it's just a modest, unassuming photo of some 24 year old guy sitting on a doorstep, completely underselling the brilliance waiting inside. Blonde on Blonde, to me, just doesn't really fit with the others. The music inside sounds different, his voice sounds different, his singing is different, his lyric-writing style is different. The cover is a blurry photograph of his face, and it seems very impersonal. There's no writing, no white space, and folds out to reveal the lower-half of his body (although, one could argue that his photo is now taking up the cover entirely, leaving no space for writing or white space). I love this album, but I think it's something else entirely. Or maybe I've thought about this way too much.