Dylan - Shot of Love

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by duggan, Jul 30, 2010.

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  1. arthurprecarious

    arthurprecarious Forum Resident

    Location:
    North East England
    What? No "Every Grain of Sand" ?
     
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  2. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    that is just subjective opinion and more than likely driven by a dislike for the lyrical content. they are good albums and infidels is one of his best ever ... yes, to me, it is up with hwy 61, blood on the tracks and desire.
     
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  3. It's not so subjective when most people agree and there was a critical consensus.
     
  4. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia

    writing off all of bobs 80's albums as dismal and critically dismissed? ehhhh....ok down in the groove, yes. but the rest are good to great (despite some unfortunate 1980's production) and I kind of remember reviews for infidels, oh mercy etc being very positive)
     
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  5. arthurprecarious

    arthurprecarious Forum Resident

    Location:
    North East England
    Knocked out Loaded was dire (apart from Brownsville Girl), Under The Red Sky was better but still iffy, Dylan and The Dead would have been better had it been a full show.
     
  6. C6H12O6

    C6H12O6 Senior Member

    Location:
    My lab
    A marked improvement (I presume "Heart of Mine" is the original version, not the inferior last-minute re-do that wound up getting released), but it's also missing the best track of the whole sessions, "Every Grain of Sand," which ought to be the closing track. That was the one of the few things they did do right on the released album. If room is an issue, I'd drop "Heart of Mine," but I think those nine tracks would be doable as a single LP, one that definitely would've been a fine, respectable second-tier Dylan album.
     
  7. Rukiki

    Rukiki Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madrid, Spain
    I happen to enjoy quite a lot that line of Dylan´s christian albums, and his 80s output in general.

    Slow Train Coming, Empire Burlesque and especially Infidels and Oh Mercy rank among my favourite albums of him. Shot of Love is quite and enjoyable album too.

    However, the cool thing about Dylan is that even his worst albums always manage to have at least 1 or 2 songs worth playing them every now and then.
     
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  8. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    It is an opinion not a fact, so it is subjective. My subjective opinion is they are great. My objective statement is Bob mentioned Jesus a lot so it upset some folks.
    Thank you for your participation
     
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  9. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    kind of agree but it made up almost half the album :D
     
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  10. wanderer1

    wanderer1 Forum Resident

    According to Heylin, the May 12th 1981 sequence for the album was:

    S1: Shot of Love, Heart of Mine, Property of Jesus, Lenny Bruce, Watered Down Love, Dead Man
    S2: In the Summertime, Magic, Trouble, Every Grain of Sand, Angelina

    This would have been a 53-minute album without Caribbean Wind or Groom, and also closes with 2 ballads back to back. I have revised my playlist to something like this:

    S1: Shot of Love, Heart of Mine, Property of Jesus, Every Grain of Sand, Caribbean Wind
    S2: Groom, Dead Man, In the Summertime, Magic, Angelina

    This gives a good balance between the rock songs and ballads and might be closer to the original idea before it changed into something else, while at the same time including more of my favorite songs from the era. I close with Angelina instead of Sand mainly to balance out the times of each side, and to replace the ballad Lenny Bruce with Sand on track 4. All the other songs are bonus tracks that come afterward, but I keep the fall 1980 studio tracks like Yonder and the new live tracks at the time in the 1980 playlist as it was a good 6 months before these official SoL sessions.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
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  11. duggan

    duggan Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    sydney
    This would work well on vinyl, not so sure about on CD with Groom following Caribbean Wind.
     
  12. spherical

    spherical Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    i don't think groom is part of the album. it was a b-side. maybe later as bonus. but does that count?
     
  13. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    I believe a second pressing had 'Groom...' opening side 2, as early as 1981 if I'm not mistaken.
     
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  14. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    of Funnily enough, I've just spent the last few weeks re-appraising Dylan in the eighties. I've grown to love 'Saved' and 'A Shot Of Love' from almost total disregard; 'Infidels' remains the same for me (very good but not quite great), 'Real Live' I also now don't mind after not liking it at all when I first purchased it in the early nineties. 'Empire Burlesque' is a good bunch of songs but the production let's it down for me. 'Knocked Out Loaded' and 'Down In The Groove' are seriously hit and miss but I forgive them both respectively for 'Brownsville Girl' and 'When Did You Leave Heaven'! The much maligned 'Dylan & the Dead' I actually found to be more palatable this time round, though 'Joey' I just couldn't enjoy at all. The Dead's musicianship (who I know nothing about btw) certainly added to the enjoyment for me considerably. 'Oh Mercy' I've always enjoyed but found it to have improved like a fine wine over the years. Finally 'Under The Red Sky', this has a few below par tracks that sound 'empty' and under produced somehow but 'Unbelievable' and 'Born In Time' are great songs. However, my Mum bought me 'Under The Red Sky', totally out of the blue on release day, so I'll always have a soft spot for it! :agree:
     
  15. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Excuse me where does Yonder Comes Sin Dwell, boot only?
     
  16. Maranatha5585

    Maranatha5585 BELLA + RIP In Memoriam

    Location:
    Down South
    It was added to the album, and believe it counts.

    Correct, please see the original Groom acetate dated August 27, 1981 on the page prior.
     
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  17. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I don’t care much for Shot of Love, although adding Groom makes it much better.

    But, putting aside whether the 80’s represented Dylan’s worst decade (that may very well be true), Infidels is strong, particularly melodically and instrumentally. The problem is that it lacks truly great tracks and therefore feels “slight”. This is why it’s so hard to understand Dylan’s decision to replace “Blind Willie McTell” and “Foot of Pride”, two great tracks, with “Union Sundown”. If he had left the track list as is, I think that we would be looking back on Infidels as one of his greatest achievements.

    I remember when the Bootleg Series 1-3 was released. I stuck “Blind Willie McTell” at the end of side 1, deleted “Union Sundown” and added “Foot of Pride” at the end of side 2. It’s a bit long timewise, and “Foot of Pride” sounds too similar to “Man of Peace”, but it sounds like a great Dylan album, at least to me.
     
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  18. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    it's great and i personally love union sundown, close to, if not my favourite off the album. it kicks ar$e lyrically and musically.
     
  19. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    It’s alright musically. Lyrically, well let’s just say there’s a reason he got his Nobel prize in literature and not economics. He’s all over the place - a little like a Miss America contestant’s analysis of the hollowing out of American industry. But, the heart is in the right place.

    His real genius is on full display on the two omitted tracks.
     
  20. Kiss73

    Kiss73 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Funny, I think Down In The Groove was a great album...real interesting hotch pot. Saved is in my top 5 Dylan albums. I thought the 80's material had a lot of merit and some particular gems.

    Shot of Love though ranks as my least favourite Dylan album (excluding the recent "songbook" albums)....with maybe only Trouble standing out as anything special. Other than that I find listening to it a chore.
     
  21. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    i have the bootleg series' i like those songs. union sundown is a great song with great lyrics. if you don't like it, that's fine. stop trying to convince me that i shouldn't, that's kind of arrogant mate
     
  22. I think we're mixing up great material with great albums. You're having to create it yourself
     
  23. onlyconnect

    onlyconnect The prose and the passion

    Location:
    Winchester, UK
    I am not bothered with this obsessive ranking of albums. I love Shot of Love for what it is. I like the more ambiguous lyrics after the faux certainty of Slow Train and Saved. Many excellent songs, would be nice to do a song-by-song if it hasn't already been done. And the wonderful Every Grain of Sand.

    Tim
     
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  24. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I would never try to convince someone not to like something - I never would do that. I was just stating an opinion that the original track list of Infidels was fantastic. But, that was it - I realize that there are some people who don’t like it. I will delete my offensive posts. My apologies.
     
  25. smoke

    smoke Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    I want to say I'd put Shot of Love in the top half of Dylan's releases, even as-is (including Groom, of course). I'm holding off saying it because if I listed them out I'd probably put 75% in the top half!!

    I will say that he should have made Infidels a double and included the better songs from fall 1980 to 1983. That would have blown some minds :)
     
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