Street Legal-Dylan’s most underrated release?

It was remixed and reissued soon after release, does anyone have any info on the different versions. And why it was remixed?

 

I love Street Legal. Both mixes. My favourite Bob album together with the Blood on the Tracks acetate.

 

I love this album. I dont care which mix i listen to. I actually like the original.

 

Bob Dylan's "Street Legal" album - Original mix vs. Remix?*

 

Not here in the UK it wasn't - very good full page review in NME and ranked #7 in their end of year list.

I personally rank it far higher than Desire which - apart from a couple of songs - I don't rate at all.

I haven't heard the remix though which I should pick up at some point.

 

What next? Knocked Out Loaded, A forgotten jewel? Empire Burlesque, A masterpiece? Down in the Groove - If only he'd had a proper budget?

 

I think Under The Red Sky is Dylan's most underrated album; well, that and Saved, Shot of Love.

Knocked Out Loaded is just an unfocussed bad album, with only one good track to redeem it. Empire Burlesque, like Bowie's Never Let Me Down, and Costello's Goodbye Cruel World, has some great songs, but is woefully recorded and over-produced.

 

Good comparisons.

I'm not familiar with Under The Red Sky and will investigate.

 

I've been committed to Dylan for decades. I've got just about all his officially-released material (except the new expensive mega-boxes), and have acquired a healthy (or unhealthy) amount of his non-official releases. There are quite a few of his records that took me a very long time and multiple attempts before they clicked, but those times were worth the effort as I can now rate them as some of his best work (eg. Nashville Skyline).

But Street Legal?
Sorry, have tried many times, and it just doesn't click. Every few years I try again (with a few other of his albums), and I would love to have the enthusiasm that many express on this thread, but it hasn't happened yet.

 

I'm the same with it. Can't get into it at all. I really like New Pony though.

 

I'm a Legalist.

 

Shot Of Love is his most underrated record IMHO. Bob smiled when he signed my copy back in 1992, so I guess he still likes it too.

 

Yes: there's lots of good songs on it. Some say it's a bit basic, post Oh Mercy, as Oh Mercy was the immediate precedent, and I think people were looking for a deep, insightful state of the nation address from Bob, however there's some great tracks, i.e Under The Red Sky title track, Unbelievable, Born In Time, Two By Two, Handy Dandy, Cat's In The Well. I know that Wiggle Wiggle lets it down, but then I don't much care for Blonde On Blonde's version of Rainy Day Women, preferring the Before The Flood improvised version.

 

I think Street-Legal is middle-tier Dylan. It's good, but not great. I think "Senior" is great, one of my favorite Dylan tunes but to my way of thinking it's is the only canonical Dylan song on there. I think "Changing of the Guards" is pretty terrific too, albeit oblique.

I don't love anything on the rest of the album, nor do I find a lot of mystery in it. A lot of it is prosaic heartbreak music or songs complaining about women who don't get him. Some of it is stuff in that vein that I enjoy, like "Where Are You Tonight." Some of it I like despite the wallowing in sexist self-pity, like "Is Your Love In Vein?" ("Can you cook and sew and make flowers grow? Do you understand my pain?" -- no wonder the guy was recently divorced!). But a lot of it -- "Baby, Please Stop Crying," and "We Better Talk This Over" and "True Love Tends To Forget" -- strikes me as pretty blunt. Not bad. But not the makings of a "lost and forgotten classic" full of mystery either. "No Time to Think" in particular is a song I've really soured on. I liked when the album first came out but when now seems plodding and monotonous to me and the word association bits in the bridge almost sound like Dylan self-parody.

Street Legal to me is kind of like Slow Train Coming -- there's powerful, timeless material mixed in with some stuff that's pretty flat and artistically blunt. I think there's more primo stuff of Slow Train (I'd take "Slow Train," "Precious Angel," "Gotta Serve Somebody," "I Believe in You," and "When You Gonna Wake Up," from STC; I'd probably only take "Senior" and "Changing of the Guards" and maybe "Where Are You Tonight" from Street Legal).

I think Tempest is Dylan's most underrated album. Someone else mentioned Shot of Love. I love that album, one of my favorite Dylan albums, but I think that one maybe isn't rated so low anymore, is it?

 

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I love Robbie Fulks and will look forward to this!

 

It was Bob off in the distance trying to get to the station to climb on the Slow Train.

 

I’m a HUGE Fulks fan myself. But I haven’t heard any of his Dylan arrangements until you shared that link. I’ve been keen on his upcoming SL since it was announced.

 

I find a lot to agree with there.

The other big issues with this album are,

a) The deterioration in Bob's singing voice since Desire - he was already losing a tiny little bit of richness in 1975, but there's a big drop off here, which presages his thin, nasal "born again" voice
b) The introduction of the big band - Bob tried to explain elements of this away as not wbeing without precedent (the female singers on New Morning, the horn on Rainy Day Women), but as a whole it was something new & not entirely sympathetic to his music.

Both elements were somewhat softened by the 1999 remix, but the album as released in 1978 didn't do either any favours.

 

I don't have any problem with the big band approach to rock or even to Dylan's music (I'm a big fan of Elvis' early Vegas sound with the TCB band and the show orchestra and the Sweet Inspirations and the Jordanaires) -- though I think sometimes making it work requires more care with arrangements than Dylan was ever known for. But maybe there's a different approach to "No Time to Think" from an arrangement POV that might have been less repetitive considering the scale of the musical forces arrayed. Dylan likes to write in that English ballad structure with the long verse and the verse end single line or couplet refrains (think "Tangled Up in Blue"), but having the background singers repeating the likes of "the keys as they clink," I think gets quickly tiresome. I'm going to have to "No Time to Think," that may be a case where I'm more put off by the arrangement than the song.

 

I like it - the remix only - a lot. Budokan is terrible though.

 

Shot of Love

 

It's one of Dylan's most underrated. I agree about the sound quality being problematic--no doubt the result of poor alignment in putting together the multitrack elements of the large ensemble, each of which were recorded with a specific polarity that was not reconciled. Thus, I can hear Dylan's voice sound amazing on some tracks and not so much on other tracks, and the tracks where he sound amazing the backing musicians or vocalists don't sound and good. It's tough to get a large ensemble recorded and mixed properly. But sound quality aside, this album does not get its due.

 

It's an underrated release. No Time To Think is one of my top five Dylan songs.
But I also think Empire Burlesque is his most underrated, so most forum members wouldn't think I'm a good judge of underrated albums

 

Street Legal is easily one of his absolute best albums. Ps. I prefer the original mix.

 

yeah this is where bobs amazing voice started to turn....I think the shouting over the last rolling thunder tour did it....the nasal bob would morph into the wheezy bob by infidels....
I like the back up singers for the most part, especially on where are you tonight....the highlight for me, it feels out of control, the band barely hanging on (and apparently recorded with a tin can and a string) but essential Dylan, lyrically it feels like one last drunken bitter love letter to/about sara....but who knows