"Blonde on Blonde"- Almost 50 years old? No way!

I've always been a casual fan of Dylan's but by no means hardcore. Tonight I'm sitting and listening to "Blonde on Blonde" from beginning to end and can't get over how incredibly fresh and relevant this album is. I haven't spent much time with it so I get to hear it with fresh ears and I'm lucky for that pleasure. You don't need me to tell you how brilliant the lyrics are or the musicianship, but what strikes me the most is that there is nothing dated about this music. The album is only a year younger than me, dates back to '66, and sounds like it could've been recorded in the next decade or the one after that or the one after that or the one after that. The phrase "timeless music" gets tossed around a lot but this album is all that the phrase means. It's not nostalgic, it's NOW.

 

Thank you. Well said. I've always been meaning to comment on the timelessness of this music and how "non-1966" this album sounds.

 

My wife's a lot younger than me and even she agrees. This could easily be something written in the past decade. Of course it would be by far THE BEST thing written but you get my point

 

A good album to put into the "Timeless" category.

 

Well it's one of the greatest albums of all time

 

Yes but there are plenty of "greatest" albums that clearly sound like they come from a certain era. This one doesn't.

 

Well, if you're listening to it on any digital release other than the one in The Original Mono Recordings box (or the selected tracks on Steve's Greatest Hits comps for Audio Fidelity) you're hearing modern remixes instead of original 1966 vintage mixes. I think the original mixes sound very 1966, though to me that is a good thing.

 

I think a big part of what makes Bob Dylan's music special is the timeless-ness of it. He was never one to chase a trend, and constantly bucked them - John Wesley Harding at the peak of psychedelia! - and therefore you never really associate his music with any phase. A very smart move.

 

Are you sure about that? Listened to both Blonde on Blonde tracks from Steve's Greatest Hits disc and they're both stereo.

 

Yes, they're the only place 1966 stereo mixes turn up on CD or other digital format. All others (aside from the mono box, which has 1966 mono mixes) including the recent MoFi use remixes from the multitracks. (IIRC there have been three different remixes used by various releases.)

 

It's dripping '66 Bob Dylan and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

 

Well, he certainly hitched his wagon to the folk boom, until it no longer served his purposes, and the decision to go electric circa 65/66 put him in more in line with the new sound that had supplanted folk by then. I agree on John Wesley Harding as a rejection of psychedelia, although Brian Wilson came to the same conclusion at right around the same time with Wild Honey.

Also, while I would agree that the best songs on Blonde on Blonde are as close to timeless as popular music gets, the production, instrumental timbres, style of playing, etc. scream "1966" to my ears.

 

Well, yes, he was definitely part of the folk scene while it was re-emerging, but he had a large hand it making it mainstream. Once he got to the point where people expected him to change the world with his music, he dropped out of it. Then, he started adding electric backing to his music (which he'd been experimenting with since Freewheelin' ) popularizing folk rock, then dropped out of that to make a dizzying, kaleidoscopic blues album.

Yes, Brian definitely got there, too. However, he released Smiley Smile before going to a stripped-down sound.

 

Smiley Smile was stripped-down in its own right, and Wild Honey beat John Wesley Harding into the shops, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Curious. Then why on Steve's version do I hear instruments coming from separate speakers? Doesn't that mean it's stereo?

 

It's something of a mindblower how music from 50 to 60 years ago still sounds like it belongs to modern life. Astounding, actually. When I first started listening to music in the 70s, anything older than Elvis sounded like it was from the dawn of man.

 

Yes, Steve's discs are stereo. The album was released in 1966 in stereo and in mono. The only digital releases to make use of the vintage stereo mixes are Steve's hits discs for AF. The only digital release to make use of the vintage mono mixes is The Original Mono Recordings. So far as I know, everything else makes use of various remixes.

 

you really think a mix of this music changes it's validity?

 

Okay. I understand. But still don't think that would change the timelessness of what was created. That's buried deeply in the music and the lyrics

 

I don't think he said anything about validity...he was saying that the mono sounds very '66...and why not? Mono was very groovy back in those days. Everything...coming at ya...all in the same speaker...all at once. Like, far out, man and holy cow!

 

I just meant that Smiley Smile was a plunge into psychedelia, which is a move that Bob never made.

 

Man I remember my first time hearing Sad Eyed Lady, I was about 10 years old. I fell in love with the album instantly just hearing that cut. The rest was just icing on the cake for me.

 

It might be dripping '66 Dylan but it definitely doesn't drip '66 music

 

To me, it sounds very 1966 - in the best way possible. The recording methods, the Nashville musicianship, the pictures, Dylan's voice and the hyper-illusionist, post-Beat song imagery. Everything is so precise, creative, and falls together perfectly. The genie was still in the bottle then, except for guys like Dylan that were ahead of the curve.

Dylan could only have recorded this in 1966.

 

I think it changes the impression of how "sixties" it sounds. I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "validity"? I brought it up because I suspect a lot of people have no idea that they're listening to a remix when they judge how "of the period" the music sounds. I do view the mix as part of the music, and I do generally prefer mixes done contemporaneously with the original production over re-interpretations done long after the fact. So for this album in digital format, I go with the CD in the mono box. I would love to hear Steve (or anyone else as capable) do a complete version with the stereo mixes, too.