Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (2 Nov 2018)*

So right about that Van book.
The smugness reeked.

 

I get what Greil Marcus was saying in as much as I always 'heard' BOTT as a rushed, lesser album than say the three mid Sixties albums or John Wesley Harding. Apart from those records it easily betters anything else which came before it though.

The problem always seemed to be the musicianship when the backing bands ability to follow Dylan and be spontaneous was tested. Dylan was used to cutting records quickly and worked by finding the right sound and then recording things in as few takes as possible. With BOTT it always sounded to me as though he should have either a) stuck with the mostly acoustic NY takes or b) found a better band to recut the material in the way he was used to working. Admittedly this problem with recording live without re-takes or overdubs or lengthy studio sessions (like Paul Simon) would get only worse through Desire and Street Legal. BOTT is significantly better than the two albums which followed it so rightfully enjoys a place as one of Dylan's all time best records. It still remains a flawed masterpiece though. Where I disagree with Marcus is with his assumption that the lyrics are arty and contrived for the sake of it. Dylan was always purposefully contrived in an artful way, it's simply that during the BOTT period he had to study and work at writing songs which he had previously created almost subconsciously.

 

ditto, its over priced but ive thrown countless sheckles at bob over the years probably more than any artist if I include the old boot blind buys, I see it as a listening experience, kind of like an intimate concert in the control room not something ill return to again and again, (some tracks for sure but not as a whole)

 

Someone's got it in for us, they're planting stories in the (music) press.....

 

at least he didn't walk out like he did with paul (sgt pepper?) playing your albums for bob is risky business, he loved Marianne Faithful's Broken English asking her to play each track over and over again and explain what she was thinking etc...
edit: but shes Marianne, id listen to her sing the phone book

 

I think it’s important amid all this rock critic revisionism (see the deeply irritating Marcus quote above) to remember that the Blood on the Tracks album is a masterpiece – a work of 20th-century high art. I resent the now-fashionable idea that it was somehow a missed opportunity or a botched job, and I hope that MBMT doesn’t end up being used to reinforce that notion.

 

I doubt Dylan really thought that was an artistic statement of the sort Marcus refers to. Just look at the way it was recorded and the story behind the NY sessions.
The stories by some of the musicians who took part in the recording also seem to refute that point.

 

Absolute rot. False premises leading to diseased thinking. Pure garbage.
What the hell is wrong with some of these critics.

Dylan gave Blood On the Tracks the time it needed. It's alive and vital, like the live-in-studio sessions.
To record the songs live in the studio is the whole point. A little polish later, perhaps, but live-in-the-studio is precisely what makes the songs breathe.
And the poetry of the songs are everything they should be and more.

 

I think this is partially a result of too much information on the artist, the circumstances, the recording, everything. when the album just appears out of nowhere (like it did when first released) you take it for what it is.
ps how can it be slapdash and slick at the same time

 

If you took all of those criticisms from GM and applied them to Desire, it would make a lot of sense (even if I wouldn't necessarily agree, I could understand.) But to BOTT? I don't get it.

 

Would the moderators and website owner please enable a Dislike option?
the opposite of the Like button ?
the emoticons are hardly sufficient to the purpose.
a nice way of disapproving and objecting to a post without arguing with the poster.

 

Not you Somebody, him:

 

I just noticed the price dropped on amazon to 114. about 20 a cd? thats not too bad really, I remember paying that for some released at tower records

 

You get an additional $7.51 off at checkout, too.

 

Right. L&T is the absolute pinnacle of Dylan's renaissance period, towering above everything else.

The studio albums (of originals) that followed rank far, far below it: Modern Times is bloated and turgid and incredibly overrated; TTL is a washout; Tempest is a curate's egg, and feels forced even on the better songs.

 

At the risk of getting into trouble for criticising a critic...this is, basically, absolute twaddle. Just smacks of revisionism for revisionism's sake.

I respect Marcus's place in the rock critic firmament, and he has done important work, but I never really enjoy his writing and struggle often to even connect or relate it to my experience and conception of Dylan's music. Marcus often seems to use complicated, opaque language to make statements that are obscure to the point of indecipherability. The suspicion sometimes is that he doesn't actually have anything to say, but he has a florid way of saying it nonetheless.

Blood on the Tracks is a masterpiece, rock music as art. It's the best album of the 70s. I don't recognise Marcus's angle on it at all. My thoughts on Landau would probably get me kicked off this forum, if voiced; suffice to say, where does he get off?!

Ironically, what he says - “Let’s make a ‘great album.’ And watch ‘em fall for it.” - is pretty much exactly how I feel about Modern Times.

And much as I love World Gone Wrong and Good as I Been to You - largely ignored at the time, before the critical consensus pulled a uturn after TOOM, but would be hailed as classics if released now - they're not a patch on Blood.

 

RE: Greil Marcus

Uhhh... what's the difference between a 'great album' and a Great Album?

In art, is faking something any different from doing it?

 

Well, there you have it, time to cancel all the box set orders. You dont want to be known as a mark who bought a Great Album thinking it was a great album.

 

he wrote that annoying book about Toom, that also happened to make no sense.

 

and he really did gloss over some great 1980's albums didn't he....it wasn't all bad had some interesting info

 

It's case by case

Tim

PS. On the Internet, great means "quite good".

 

The mono tape was a live monitor mix of the sessions for reference purposes, not a mix from the multitracks.

BS14 features mainly newly prepared mixes of the material. So a new mix of Idiot Wind with the organ overdub should be simple.

 

I mean, how is one to tell the difference between a genuine Great Album and a fake 'great album'? I guess we have to rely on a brilliant critical analyst to tell us.

 

a new re created mix?