Bob Dylan Album, "Fallen Angels" (05/20/2016) *

Like I said, I love Tempest and Love & Theft and Oh Mercy, I think TOOM is pretty good and in places great. I never understood the praise for Modern Times at all. I liked "When the Deal Goes Down" and "Nettie Moore," didn't much care for anything else on that record. I don't know if I'd call any of the album five-star albums if that means being the equal of Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde, but you know, Tolstoy wrote a lot of good books but he only wrote one War & Peace, and that's OK.

 

Well, there is the early version - "War - What Is It Good For?", but I think that one's only available on bootleg.

 

Personally I don t dwell in ranking Dylans album. What s the point. On a certain day I listen to Blonde on Blonde the next day to Under the Red sky. On objective grounds Blonde on Blonde of course is more grounbreaking and masterful. But my own listening pleasure might on certain days be just as rewarding listening to Under the Red Sky.

 

Perfectly fair and reasonable, but not the same experience as mine.

 

I actually like Under the Red Sky a lot. It s a weird and somewhat forgotten album with lyrics borrowed from childrens tales and nursery rhymes
There are a few Dylan albums I really don t like-but for the most part I do like em.

 

There's stuff I get from all of them, and I always look forward to every new one, but there are lots of 'em I pretty much never return to -- Self-Portrait, Under a Red Sky, Down in the Groove, Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, Empire Burlesque, New Morning, Time Out of Mind, Modern Times, Together Through Life, Knocked Out Loaded.....can't remember the last time I felt like spinning any one of those. There are some songs and performances on some of those albums I love -- "Brownsville Girl," "Dark Eyes," "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky," "Not Dark Yet" -- but those are albums I can and do go years between ever even thinking to pull out and spin.

 

Last weekend, I listened to Under the Red Sky for the first time in years and actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. My attitude towards that one has definitely improved with time.

 

Yes. Too subtle. Sorry!

I wish the lyric had some details that would lock it into the world of the ballad. That would have made the song richer. One thing: I'm not sure that the singer has to have been the ex-lover or ex-husband of the woman. He could be simply a witness--maybe an interested one or he just finds it interesting--to what happened.

L.

 

I like Dylan of the 'eighties on more and more as time goes by. Must have something to do with aging. . . . A few years ago I'd be right there with chervokas.

The sonic upgrades in the Complete Columbia Album box set help too. As do the Blu-Spec CD2 releases of this material. . . that surprised me. Just bought one. . . but soon had bought many more. They sound great on my system!

 

I listen to the albums from Time Out of Mind onwards more than the rest of the stuff combined. Shadows, not so much. I was never a Sinatra fan, and while any Bob is good Bob, it doesn't really move me. A new album of originals would be an absolute treat.

 

I agree with you on all the albums you mentioned except for New Morning. New Morning is one of my favorite Dylan albums, that's an album that I play a lot. Another album I like that I feel gets underrated is Planet Waves. that album has a lot of really good songs.

 

In all honest I find Emire burlesque a somewhat hard listening experience-some good songs but the production is not all that nice. Apart from that one I sort of like all the other albums you mentioned. oK Knocked out loaded might be a bit patchy but Brownsville girl is one of my all time favorite tracks by any artist-so in the end it all goes down to personal taste. I know lot s of people who does t like Together through life-me-I love that album.

 

Planet Waves and New Morning when released are where I really walked into the Dylan universe and they remain among my favorites.

 

I'm not as enthralled with Tempest as many Dylan fans are, but I love Oh Mercy and Love & Theft -- in fact, those two are probably my favorite Dylan albums of the "Modern Bob" era. I think TOOM was a four-star album that got overrated because it was such a big "comeback" and also because of the 1996 health scare. But it's still a pretty great album. To me, his one true "five-star" album of the past 20 years is L&T, and it's been (slowly) diminishing returns ever since.

Not even "Ain't Talkin'"? I love, love, LOVE that song -- maybe my favorite song of his in 30+ years. I think I like Modern Times more than you do, but the blues re-writes started to get more obvious (and therefore lazier) here, and his next album (Together Through Life) didn't reverse that trend. Tempest had some more originality, but his voice truly is destroyed on a few of those tracks, and his Titanic song and Lennon tribute surely end it on a baffling note.

I know that BoB and H61 are the historically-acknowledged "all-time classics," but on a given day there are many other Dylan periods (Country Bob, BOTT, Basement Tapes, Modern Bob) that I'd much rather listen to.

 

You guys are makin me wanna hear Tempest again. I better pull out my copy tonight.

 

I get what he's doing on Modern Times-- using the blues songs as jumping off points for his own lyrical excursions-- but agree that it works less often here. In part, because the album just doesn't rock the way L&T does. (Ain't Talkin is the exception, and it seems to be from a much different place). It seemed he was on a move to minimalize the music as much as possible, which continued with the on-purpose endless repetition of musical themes on Tempest.

I can't really consider Together in this sequence as it seems as much Robert Hunter's album as Dylan's.

 

"Together Through Life" has certainly left the least impression on me of any of the latter day albums of originals. Robert Hunter occupies a suite right between Dylan and Cohen in the lyricists' wing of the Tower of Song (my version, anyway), but this set of lyrics isn't likely to make anyone forget "Wharf Rat" and "Ripple". Can't make a masterpiece every time out, so it's all good.

 

The main thing I like about Together Through Life is the accordion. I wish Dylan always had an accordion in his bands. Why should harmonica be the only source of reediness in the texture? Hidalgo plays beautifully on the record. I like Donnie Herron's trumpet on "Beyond Here Lies Nothing," too!

I agree, though, that it's the weakest of the post-Time Out of Mind albums if we must rank them.

L.

 

And let's not forget Tell Tale Signs.

Together Through Life feels like a side-project - what Dylan's left hand was doing while his right hand was making 'proper' albums. Tell Tale Signs, conversely, comes on like a compilation of bits and pieces, but contains some of his most compelling work of the last couple of decades.

 

If Dylan is writing new songs for a new album I hope he will include some story-telling songs and anthems like he used to. I know he's turned his back on that sort of thing but I hope he'll do it anyhow.

 

Tempest is short on story telling songs? They make up at least half the album.

 

The less convincing half unfortunately.

 

Not those kind of story-telling songs. The other kind.

I haven't listened to Tempest since the week it came out.

 

I like Together Through Life too. Bob's tribute to Doug Sahm andTex-Mex.

The weakest of his recent albums is Modern Times, in my opinion. I never loved Dylan's band during this era and I think they let him down on this album.

 

Wow, someone who completely agrees with me on these two.